“My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:”
My Notes
What Does Proverbs 1:8 Mean?
The father opens Proverbs' instruction with a simple appeal: listen to your father. Don't abandon your mother's teaching. Both parents are presented as sources of wisdom, and both are to be honored through obedience.
The parallel structure — father's instruction, mother's law — elevates both parental roles equally. In a patriarchal culture, the explicit inclusion of the mother's torah (teaching, instruction) is significant. Wisdom in the home isn't exclusively masculine. The mother's teaching carries the same weight as the father's.
The word "instruction" (musar) means discipline, correction, and education — the full range of parental guidance. "Law" (torah) here means teaching or instruction, not the Mosaic Law specifically. The home is the first school, and both parents are the first teachers.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What wisdom did your parents give you that you've been tempted to outgrow or discard?
- 2.How does the equal weight given to the mother's teaching challenge gender assumptions about wisdom?
- 3.If your parents weren't sources of good instruction, who has filled that role for you?
- 4.What does teachability look like in your life right now — who are you actively learning from?
Devotional
Listen to your father. Don't forsake your mother. The first lesson in the book of Wisdom is: honor the people who raised you by actually hearing what they said.
This isn't blind obedience. Proverbs is a book of wisdom — it's training you to think, not to stop thinking. But the foundation of wisdom is teachability, and teachability starts in the home. Before you can learn from the world, you learn from your parents. Before you evaluate truth on your own, you receive it from the people who loved you first.
The mother's "law" is given equal weight with the father's "instruction." Both parents teach. Both parents are worth hearing. The wisdom tradition in Israel wasn't a boys' club — the mother's voice carries authority. Her teaching is torah — the same word used for God's instruction. Wisdom has a feminine voice as much as a masculine one.
If you had parents who taught you well, this verse says: don't outgrow it. The instruction you received at home isn't something you graduate from. It's something you carry.
If your parents didn't teach you well — if the instruction was absent or harmful — then spiritual parents, mentors, and the wider family of God step in. The principle remains: wisdom begins by listening to those who came before you.
Be teachable. It's the first step in the book of Wisdom.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
My son, hear the instruction of thy father,.... This is not to be understood of God the Father of mankind, and of that…
Solomon, having undertaken to teach a young man knowledge and discretion, here lays down two general rules to be…
First Address. Chap. Pro 1:8-19
Pro 1:8-9. In these two verses the writer passes to direct appeal. The form of appeal,…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture