What Does Proverbs 6:20 Mean?
My son, guard your father's command, and do not let fall your mother's instruction.
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, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother:THE KEY
The verse’s paired verbs make inherited wisdom something you guard and something you refuse to abandon.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as a child entrusted with both a father’s commandment and a mother’s instruction. Their guidance stands together in your life now, held as something to preserve rather than discard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a mother’s instruction is secondary: the verse places both parents’ guidance in the inheritance entrusted to you.
THE ROOT
נְצֹר
nĕṣōr
GROWS FROM
נצר
n-ṣ-r
Guard, watch over, preserve.
“guard” in this verse is nĕṣōr. The Hebrew verb means more than retaining a rule: it pictures guarding something entrusted to you. Its related word for a shoot or branch also carries the image of life continuing to grow; instruction is something preserved and passed on.
ALSO GROWS
nōṣēr: One who guards or watches over
נוֹצֵר
This related form makes the active sense of “keep” visible: the commandment is treated as something under care.
nēṣer: Shoot, sprout, or branch
נֵצֶר
The same root family links guarding with continuing growth, an image of wisdom carried forward.
תּוֹרָה
tôrāh
GROWS FROM
ירה
y-r-h
Point, direct, instruct.
Torah means instruction, and its root carries the sense of pointing or directing. The mother’s teaching is guidance with a direction, held alongside the father’s commandment.
ALSO GROWS
yārāh: To point, direct, or instruct
יָרָה
This verb reveals the guiding sense underneath the mother’s “law.”
mōreh: Teacher or instructor
מוֹרֶה
The related word for a teacher shows instruction as a person guiding another toward a way.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom remains alive when instruction received is carried inward and kept across generations.
And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart.I store your word in my heart, so that I do not miss the mark against you.For this reason, we must hold ourselves all the more toward the things we have heard, lest we ever drift away from them.THE THREAD
My son, do not let my instruction slip from you, and let your heart guard my commands.“Keep” here and in Proverbs 6:20 comes from נצר (natsar), meaning to guard or preserve. Proverbs 3:1 locates that guarding in the heart, opening the image of instruction held inwardly.
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