What Does Proverbs 15:5 Mean?
A fool despises his father's straightening, but whoever guards the reproof becomes prudent.
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
A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.THE KEY
The wise person does not merely notice correction; the Hebrew says they keep watch over it, letting reproof become the ground of prudence.
THE MEANING
Your response to correction is already shaping your judgment: what you despise cannot form you, while what you keep in view can make you discerning. The verse presents wisdom as something formed through relationship, not a status protected from challenge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wisdom means being beyond correction: here, the prudent person is the one who keeps reproof.
THE ROOT
מוּסָר
musar
GROWS FROM
יסר
To discipline, correct, or train.
“straightening” in this verse is musar. מוּסָר (musar, instruction or discipline) carries correction within the idea of teaching. The father’s instruction is formative: the fool despises the very shaping that can give wisdom.
ALSO GROWS
yasar: To discipline, admonish, or correct.
יָסַר
The verb shows the active shaping through correction beneath the word for instruction.
musar: Discipline, correction, or instruction.
מוּסָר
This word holds instruction and the discomfort of correction together in the verse.
שֹׁמֵר
shomer
GROWS FROM
שמר
To keep, watch, or guard.
“guards” in this verse is shomer. שֹׁמֵר (shomer, keeping or guarding) gives “regardeth” a watchful, retaining sense: correction stays in view instead of being dismissed. Set against despiseth, this makes prudence a way of handling correction rather than a natural superiority.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: To keep, guard, or watch.
שָׁמַר
This verb makes the act behind “regardeth” concrete: reproof is kept rather than cast aside.
mishmeret: A watch, charge, or guard duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch carries the sense of something entrusted to one’s care, echoing the verse’s picture of keeping correction.
תּוֹכַחַת
tokhechat
GROWS FROM
יכח
To correct, reprove, or decide a dispute.
תּוֹכַחַת (tokhechat, reproof or correction) is more than a vague feeling of disapproval; it is correction that brings something into the open. The verse pairs it with שֹׁמֵר (shomer, keeping or guarding), showing prudence as retaining correction long enough for it to expose what needs shaping.
ALSO GROWS
yakach: To rebuke, correct, or argue a case.
יָכַח
The verb’s corrective force shows that reproof addresses something specific, not merely the person receiving it.
tokhechah: Rebuke or correction.
תּוֹכֵחָה
This related form confirms the root’s recurring link between reproof and correction.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom takes shape when instruction and correction are received and retained.
Hear and respond, my son, to the straightening of your father, and do not let go of your mother's instruction.Whoever loves straightening loves knowledge, but whoever hates reproof is beastlike.All training, for the present, does not seem to be joy but pain; but afterward it gives back the wholesome fruit of alignment to those who have been exercised by it.THE THREAD
My son, do not spurn the straightening of the LORD, and do not tire of his reproof.Proverbs 3:11 uses the same Hebrew words מוּסָר (musar, instruction or discipline) and תּוֹכַחַת (tokhechat, reproof or correction) at the heart of this verse. Together they show instruction and correction as one formative current, the contrast is whether it is despised or kept.
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