What Does Proverbs 13:1 Mean in the King James?
A wise son heareth his father’s instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Wisdom is the willingness to be formed by correction; scorn shuts that formation out.
THE MEANING
You are wise when your father’s correction can reach you and shape you; the scoffer’s scorn closes the ear to rebuke. The verse speaks of wisdom as a receptive posture and scorn as refusal to receive correction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that correction means rejection or diminishment. Here, correction is part of how wisdom takes form.
THE ROOT
מוּסָר
mûsār
GROWS FROM
יסר
To discipline or correct, forming through correction.
The father’s “instruction” is musar: correction that shapes, not merely information passed along. The wise son receives that formation; the scoffer’s posture keeps it from taking hold.
ALSO GROWS
yāsar: To discipline, correct, or chasten.
יָסַר
This verb names the formative action carried by the father’s instruction.
mûsār: Discipline or corrective instruction.
מוּסָר
This is the word in the verse, showing that wisdom receives guidance with its corrective force.
שָׁמַע
shāmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, or heed; in context, to hear and respond.
“heareth not” in this verse is shāmaʿ. The scoffer’s failure is a refusal of responsive hearing: the rebuke reaches the moment, but scorn blocks its reception. English can make hearing sound like sound entering the ear; this root also carries the possibility of heeding what is heard.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This form shows hearing as receptive attention that can issue in response.
shemuʿah: A report, tidings, or message heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The branch keeps hearing connected to receiving a message, the very opening the scoffer refuses.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom grows where correction is received as a path to understanding.
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:THE THREAD
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:The word “hear” shares the root שָׁמַע (shāmaʿ), hear and heed, with the hearing in Proverbs 13:1. Here the same receptive hearing leads to increased learning, showing what the scoffer’s closed posture shuts out.
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