What Does Proverbs 17:25 Mean?
A foolish son is vexation to his father, and bitterness to her who bears him.
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 foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him.THE KEY
The mother’s word for “bare” shares its root with “child” and “generations,” locating her bitterness inside the bond that gave the son life.
THE MEANING
Your choices do not stay sealed inside you: they can become grief to a father and bitterness to a mother. The bond of birth carries consequence through a family, so what happens in one person is also felt by those closest to them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that one person’s folly affects only that person dissolves here: its cost reaches the parents as grief and bitterness.
THE ROOT
יֹלַדְתּוֹ
yoldato
GROWS FROM
ילד
to bear, give birth, or beget
“bears him” in this verse is yoldato. The Hebrew calls her “the one who bore him,” with ילד (yalad), “to bear or beget,” beneath the word. That same root yields יֶלֶד (yeled), “child,” and תּוֹלְדוֹת (toledot), “generations”: her bitterness arises within a bond language itself names through bearing.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child; offspring.
יֶלֶד
The one who is borne is named from the same root, tying the son to the mother’s act of bearing.
toledot: Generations; family origins.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The root extends one birth into a continuing line, showing how the family bond reaches beyond a single moment.
מֶמֶר
memer
GROWS FROM
מרר
to be bitter; bitterness of taste
The Hebrew root gives bitterness the texture of a taste: מָר (mar), “bitter,” and מְרֹרִים (merorim), “bitter herbs,” grow from the same seed. The mother’s pain is named as bitterness itself, something felt within the relationship.
ALSO GROWS
mar: Bitter; having a bitter taste.
מָר
It shows the root’s concrete taste beneath the abstract English word “bitterness.”
merorim: Bitter herbs.
מְרֹרִים
The same root names bitterness in what is tasted, giving the mother’s anguish a physical edge.
THE PATTERN
A child’s way of living is felt in the parents’ joy or sorrow.
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes his father glad; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.Your father and your mother rejoice, and she who bears you leaps with joy.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
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes his father glad; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.The Hebrew word behind “heaviness” is תּוּגָה (tugah), the same word translated “grief” here. Proverbs 10:1 gives the counter-image: wisdom brings the father gladness, while folly carries heaviness to the mother.
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