What Does Proverbs 23:25 Mean?
Your father and your mother rejoice, and she who bears you leaps with joy.
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
Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.THE KEY
Your life reaches back through the one who bore you, and the life she gave returns to her as joy.
THE MEANING
Your father is glad, and the woman who bore you rejoices; your life reaches the people through whom you came into the world. As you grow into wisdom, that flourishing becomes shared joy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that your life touches only you dissolves here: your way of being reaches the people bound to your life.
THE ROOT
יוֹלַדְתֶּךָ
yoledtekha
GROWS FROM
ילד
yalad
to bear, beget, or bring forth a child
“she who bears you” in this verse is yoledtekha. The verse names the mother through the act that brings your life forth. This same root reaches יֶלֶד (yeled), “child,” and תּוֹלְדוֹת (toledot), “generations”: birth, child, and continuing generations grow from one seed.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The root names both the one who bears and the child brought forth, joining the verse’s two lives in one word family.
toledot: generations, descendants
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The root extends from one birth into generations, giving the mother’s joy a place in a continuing line of life.
יִשְׂמַח
yismach
GROWS FROM
שׂמח
samach
to rejoice, be glad
“rejoice” in this verse is yismach. The father’s gladness belongs to the same word family as שִׂמְחָה (simchah), “joy” or “gladness,” and שָׂמֵחַ (sameach), “glad” or “rejoicing.” English gives the father an emotion, while Hebrew lets the word for his response echo through the language of joy itself.
ALSO GROWS
simchah: joy, gladness
שִׂמְחָה
The father’s gladness is linked directly to the Hebrew noun for joy.
sameach: glad, rejoicing
שָׂמֵחַ
This adjective from the same root describes a person in the state of gladness named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A child’s life and flourishing reach outward, awakening joy or sorrow in those bound to that child.
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes his father glad; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.A woman, when she brings forth, has pain, because her hour has come. But when she has borne the child, she no longer remembers the pressure, for the joy that a human has been brought forth into the world.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.“Glad” here and “shall be glad” in Proverbs 23:25 share the Hebrew root שׂמח (samach), “to rejoice, be glad.” The shared root ties parental joy to the child’s life and character, while the contrast with heaviness shows how deeply that life reaches into the parent’s own.
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