What Does Proverbs 23:15 Mean?
My son, if your heart is wise, my heart rejoices, even mine.
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
My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.THE KEY
The wisdom growing in your heart can become joy inside another heart.
THE MEANING
When wisdom takes shape in you, it reaches the heart that loves you and becomes joy there. Your inner life is not sealed off from another person’s gladness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your inner growth has no effect on those who love you: wisdom in you can become their joy.
THE ROOT
חָכַם
ḥākam
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful.
“wise” in this verse is ḥākam. The root חכם (ḥ-k-m) carries wisdom and skill, not only the possession of knowledge. Here wisdom lives in the heart, and the verse repeats “heart” to place the child’s wisdom and the parent’s joy in direct relation.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: A wise or skilled person.
חָכָם
This branch describes wisdom as a capacity embodied in a person, not merely an idea.
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom or skill.
חָכְמָה
This branch shows the shared seed behind the verse’s “wise”: wisdom is a practiced capacity that can take root in the heart.
יִשְׂמַח
yismaḥ
GROWS FROM
שׂמח
ś-m-ḥ
To rejoice or be glad.
“rejoice” in this verse is yismaḥ. The Hebrew verb belongs to the same root family as the words for “joy” and “glad.” The parent’s response is personal gladness, directly answering the wisdom growing in the child.
ALSO GROWS
śimḥāh: Joy or gladness.
שִׂמְחָה
This noun shares the root of “rejoice,” linking the parent’s response with joy itself.
śāmēaḥ: Glad or rejoicing.
שָׂמֵחַ
This related form shows the same root describing the state of being glad.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom and truth lived in a child become a source of gladness for someone who loves them.
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes his father glad; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.I have no greater joy than this, to hear my children walking in truth.THE THREAD
The father of the aligned one leaps and leaps with joy, and the one who begets a wise child rejoices in him.The phrase “wise child” uses the same root חכם (ḥ-k-m, to be wise or skillful) as this verse. It joins the child’s wisdom and the father’s joy in one sentence, making explicit the bond already present here.
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