What Does Proverbs 23:24 Mean?

The father of the aligned one leaps and leaps with joy, and the one who begets a wise child rejoices in him.

Proverbs 23:24 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.

THE KEY

The Hebrew uses the same root for joy twice, joining the child’s alignment and wisdom in one gladness shared with the parent.

THE MEANING

Here, a parent’s joy is joined to a child’s character: the one growing in alignment and wisdom becomes a source of gladness. The repeated root gathers both descriptions into one shared joy between them.

THE ROOT

שָׂמַח

śāmaḥ

GROWS FROM

שׂמח

to rejoice, be glad

“rejoices in him” in this verse is śāmaḥ. The verse uses this root in both halves: the father rejoices, and the begetter finds joy in the wise child. English gives the forms different wording, while Hebrew makes their gladness sound from the same seed.

ALSO GROWS

simchah: joy, gladness

שִׂמְחָה

This noun from the same root names the gladness that the verse places between parent and child.

sameach: glad, joyful

שָׂמֵחַ

This related form describes the quality of gladness carried by the repeated verb.

THE PATTERN

A child’s growth in wisdom and truth becomes joy shared by the one who cares for them.

The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes his father glad; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.

Proverbs 10:1 · SDVAs in the present verse, a child’s wisdom is directly joined to a parent’s gladness.

I have no greater joy than this, to hear my children walking in truth.

3 John 1:4 · SDVThe speaker’s joy rises from seeing those he calls his children walking in truth.

For you are our weight and our joy.

1 Thessalonians 2:20 · SDVThe people being addressed are themselves named as a source of shared joy.

THE THREAD

A wise son gladdens a father, but a foolish man despises his mother.

Proverbs 15:20 · SDV

This verse uses the same Hebrew joy-root to describe a father gladdened by a wise son. It makes the parallel plain: wisdom in the child and gladness in the parent belong together.

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