“Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.”
My Notes
What Does Proverbs 19:20 Mean?
"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end." Solomon gives a time-horizon argument for wisdom: the instruction you receive now pays off later. "Thy latter end" (acharith — future, end, outcome) refers to the later years of life. The counsel you resist at twenty determines the wisdom you lack at sixty. The instruction you receive now compound-interests into the wisdom of your final season.
The word "receive" (qabal — to accept, take in, contain) implies active reception — you have to take it in, not just hear it pass by. The counsel exists. The instruction is available. The question is whether you'll receive it now for a payoff you won't see for decades.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What counsel are you currently refusing that might cost you wisdom in your latter years?
- 2.Who is offering you instruction that you need to actively 'receive' rather than let pass?
- 3.How does the long-term payoff (wisdom in your latter end) change your willingness to accept uncomfortable correction now?
- 4.What kind of 'latter end' is your current pattern of receiving (or refusing) instruction building toward?
Devotional
Be wise in your latter end. That's the payoff. The counsel you receive now — the correction you accept, the instruction you absorb, the wisdom you don't want to hear — all of it compounds into the person you become at the end.
Solomon is making an investment argument: the instruction is the deposit. The latter end is the maturity date. What you receive today won't pay dividends tomorrow. It'll pay dividends in your sixties, your seventies, your eighties. The wisdom of old age isn't generated in old age. It's accumulated across a lifetime of receiving instruction.
Hear counsel. Not: generate your own wisdom. Hear it. From others. From people who've been where you're going. From mentors, from Scripture, from the hard-won experience of people who made mistakes you haven't made yet. The wisdom you need at seventy is being offered to you at twenty-five. The question is whether you'll receive it.
The tragedy Solomon has watched — and will eventually live — is the person who refuses counsel in youth and arrives at their latter end without wisdom. The old fool. The person whose latter years are marked by the consequences of the instruction they refused decades earlier. They're old but not wise. Experienced but not discerning. And the latter end that should be the richest season is instead the most impoverished.
Your latter end is being shaped right now. Every piece of counsel you accept adds a brick to the wisdom of your final years. Every instruction you refuse removes one. The person you'll be at the end of your life is currently under construction. And the blueprint is the counsel you're receiving — or refusing — today.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Hear counsel, and receive instruction,.... Of parents, masters, and ministers; especially the counsel and instruction of…
Note, 1. It is well with those that are wise in their latter end, wise for their latter end, for their future state,…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture