What Does Proverbs 19:26 Mean?
The son who ravages his father and makes his mother flee brings shame and disgrace.
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
He that wasteth his father, and chaseth away his mother, is a son that causeth shame, and bringeth reproach.THE KEY
The Hebrew portrays the son as a ravager who makes his mother flee, then names the resulting disgrace twice.
THE MEANING
When a child ruins a father’s well-being and drives a mother away, the verse calls that harm shame and reproach. Its words still name the damage wherever a parent is despoiled or forced out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that ruinous treatment of a parent is only a private dispute or can be dismissed as harmless. The proverb names it as shame and reproach.
THE ROOT
מְשַׁדֵּד
meshadded
GROWS FROM
שׁדד
To devastate, despoil, or ravage.
“ravages” in this verse is meshadded. The verb carries the force of stripping or ruining, more than simply wasting something. The verse depicts harm done to the father as an act of ravaging.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Devastation or plunder.
שֹׁד
This branch makes the destructive force in “wasteth” visible: the father is being despoiled.
shoded: A plunderer or ravager.
שֹׁדֵד
The shared root turns the act into a portrait of the son as one who ravages.
יַבְרִיחַ
yavriaḥ
GROWS FROM
ברח
To flee or escape; in this causative form, to make someone flee.
“makes ... flee” in this verse is yavriaḥ. The verb says more than that the mother leaves: the son makes her flee. Another word from this root, בְּרִיחַ (beriaḥ), means a bar or bolt, an echo of exclusion alongside the forced departure.
ALSO GROWS
baraḥ: To flee or escape.
בָּרַח
This is the basic action the son’s causative verb forces upon his mother.
beriaḥ: A bar or bolt.
בְּרִיחַ
This related word lends a concrete echo of a closed way or exclusion to the mother being driven away.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats a child’s ruinous or rejecting treatment of a parent as a breach of family honor with real consequences.
Give weight to your father and your mother, that your days may lengthen upon the ground which the LORD your God gives you.Whoever robs his father or his mother, and says, It is no rebellion, he is bound to a destroyer.Give weight to your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise.THE THREAD
He who gathers in summer is a wise son; but he who falls into deep sleep at the reaping is a son who brings shame.Both verses use מֵבִישׁ (mevish), “one who causes shame,” for the son. Proverbs 10:5 applies that same shame-making word to neglect; here it names the result of ravaging and driving away.
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