What Does Proverbs 10:1 Mean?
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes his father glad; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.THE KEY
Wisdom does not stay inside the wise son; it becomes another person’s joy.
THE MEANING
A child’s wisdom reaches beyond the child and becomes gladness in the father. A child’s foolishness also reaches beyond the child, settling as heaviness in the mother.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that a child’s choices affect only the child: wisdom and folly become another person’s joy or burden.
THE ROOT
חָכָם
ḥākām
GROWS FROM
חכם
To be wise or discerning.
English can make “wise” sound like a private trait, but חָכָם (ḥākām), “wise,” shares its consonantal seed with חָכְמָה (ḥokhmāh), “wisdom,” and חָכַם (ḥākham), “to act wisely.” Here, wisdom has an outward effect: gladness reaches the father.
ALSO GROWS
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom.
חָכְמָה
This noun shares the root חכם and names the quality embodied by the חָכָם, the wise son.
ḥākham: To be wise or act wisely.
חָכַם
This verb shares the root חכם and shows wisdom as something expressed in action, not just possessed as a trait.
THE PATTERN
A child’s path becomes part of a parent’s lived joy or grief.
A wise son gladdens a father, but a foolish man despises his mother.I have no greater joy than this, to hear my children walking in truth.For this son of mine was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found." And they began to be glad.THE THREAD
A wise son gladdens a father, but a foolish man despises his mother.The same Hebrew word חָכָם (ḥākām), “wise,” appears in both verses. Its pairing with a glad father returns alongside the mother’s burden, making the family contrast clear.
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