My son, observe thy father's commandment, and forsake not the teaching of thy mother;
Proverbs 6 has just dealt with the lazy man and the troublemaker. Now the tone softens into a parent's appeal — and two questions follow: why name both a father and a mother, and why place this appeal here?
The ESV ends the verse with "your mother's teaching." Older versions read "law" — and the Hebrew word behind it is one of six that get translated that way.
A Hebrew concordance will show that six words are translated "law" in the Hebrew... The same word appears in Proverbs 6:20, "do not forsake the law," that is, the teaching, "of your mother." It appears again in Isaiah 42:24. There, even if others would not obey His teaching, He at least would make it great and honourable, though others might despise it. "Law" here covers, without doubt, the whole teaching of Jehovah to His people, whether in the Ten Commandments or elsewhere.
The verse names both parents, and the teaching it has in view starts early. One writer gives the mother the larger share in forming a child.
Here the son must take to heart those lessons in purity from his earliest years, from the mother no less than the father. Indeed it falls to the mother most of all to shape the direction of the young.
The warmth of the appeal has a reason. What follows in the chapter is a warning about sexual temptation.
Proverbs 6:20-26 turns to another trap of more than usual danger — especially, though by no means only, for the young. So the appeal is tender, working through influence. So it calls on memories, which never failed to warn of such a hidden trap in the desires of the flesh.
This verse cuts against a culture that treats parental authority as optional.
Some men bear the Lord's name and are still marked by self-love and disobedience to parents. Where that is so, the young and inexperienced must be all the more careful. They must beware of the spirit of the age, and recognise the place that Jehovah gave to a father's command and a mother's teaching. For those who fail in natural affection soon become unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce... lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
This verse surfaces again in the Gospels. Religious teachers had built a loophole around it, and the Lord faced them with it.
Not one of His hearers could deny it. Jehovah had encouraged and warned every son in Israel to keep the commandment of his father, and not to depart from the law of his mother (Prov. 6:20). The word of God declared that the obedient should have long and prosperous days in the land, but the disobedient a criminal's death... But what did the elders say? They contradicted both the letter and the spirit of the law of God. They devised, in the name of piety, a wicked scheme by which a man could release himself from every obligation towards his parents. Whatever he owed his father and mother, let him dedicate it to the service of the temple, and the Jewish council would then free him from all his duties as a son.
Does this duty end with Israel's law? The New Testament picks it up and puts it on new ground, with the Lord Himself as the example.
Children's subjection to their parents is part of God's order as seen in nature. Under the law, God attached a special blessing to keeping the commandment that gave this duty. Christianity takes up the obligation, but moves it from natural to divine ground: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right"... This is not only what nature dictates, though nature is right here. It is the acknowledgment of the Lord's claims as represented in the parents. The blessed Lord Himself, who "learned obedience," was the beautiful example of this. During His life He went with His parents to Nazareth, and was submissive to them. The law is not brought in here to show that believers are under it, but to prove the special value God attached to this duty.
- Teaching, not rules. The word behind "law" means instruction — everything God teaches His people, handed on by a mother's voice.
- Teaching has two voices. Father and mother stand behind one instruction, and the mother shapes the young most of all.
- Teaching guards. The appeal is tender because a real danger follows: the pull of the flesh on the inexperienced.
- Teaching binds. The Lord condemned religious excuses for neglecting parents; devotion never cancels this duty.
- Teaching lasts. The New Testament puts the same duty on divine ground — obedience "in the Lord" — and Christ Himself was submissive to His parents.
bind them continually upon thy heart, tie them about thy neck
This appeal sits inside a father's warning to his son. It asks for more than agreement: the son must fasten his parents' words on, inside and out. Two images carry the weight — a binding on the heart and a tie around the neck. The verses that follow show what such words then do for a person walking, sleeping and waking.
The two pictures are not repetition. One reaches the inner life. The other reaches obedience, and the neck fits that: a neck can stiffen, or it can bend.
Being bound continually on the heart speaks of our inmost being welcoming those commands. Tying them around our neck means submission to the yoke of Christ. The neck is not stiff and stubborn, but yields to the Lord's authority. When we go out, we will have the comfort of knowing that the truth of God leads us. When we sleep, we can lie down in peace, because obedience to God's Word keeps us perfectly. When we wake in the morning, we will be ready to hear that Word speaking to us.
Something tied around the neck hangs where others see it. So the same words that guard a young life also make it beautiful. The guarding matters, because the danger is not only outside a person but in the nature he already carries.
Here the son is urged to take to heart those lessons in purity from his earliest years. They come from the mother no less than the father. Indeed it falls to the mother most of all to shape the direction of the young. So bind these words "on your heart always; tie them around your neck." They are both a shield and an ornament in a world as evil as our fallen nature. When we walk, do we not need direction? When we sleep, do we not need a guard? And when we wake up alone, is it not good and pleasant to have such a word shining and talking with us?
The verse keeps a balance. The father's commandment and the mother's teaching are bound on together. The mother's share in shaping a child is no smaller than the father's.
The word "always" marks the difference between a truth stored up in advance and a truth remembered too late. What is bound on before the test is there during it.
The Lord Himself is the perfect example of this. The Spirit led Him into the wilderness, and the devil tempted Him. To every temptation He replied, "It is written." He used the word already living in His heart, and so He met every assault and defeated the adversary, who finally retreated beaten. The lesson for us is this: if the word is not already in the soul beforehand, it cannot be used as a weapon of defence. How often have we had to admit it! If we had remembered this or that Scripture, it might have saved us from this mistake and that snare. So nothing matters more than seeking to have the word of God living in us. It is the only sword of the Spirit, and no other weapon can drive back Satan's endless attacks.
William Kelly presses the same point on the appeal in the next chapter:
We need to depend on God when trial comes. But the truth and God's will also have a positive value in filling us beforehand. In this way the soul is strengthened within against the snares outside, which find the father's teaching already holding the ground.
Many people today treat parental authority as optional. That is what makes this command urgent, not quaint.
When people who bear the Lord's name are typically lovers of self and disobedient to parents, the young and inexperienced must take all the more care. They must beware of the spirit of the age. They must recognise the place that God gave to a father's command and a mother's teaching. For those who fail in natural affection soon become unforgiving, slanderers, out of control, and fierce. Instead of loving what is good, they are traitors, headstrong, and conceited. They love pleasure instead of God.
- Bound, not borrowed. The words come from father and mother together. The mother's part in a young life counts as much as the father's.
- Bound on the heart. The inner self welcomes the command; it is not stored as information but received into "our inmost being."
- Bound on the neck. The neck that could stiffen bends instead. This is submission to the Lord's authority, worn where others can see it.
- Bound beforehand. A word already in the soul serves as a weapon. A word not yet there arrives too late, and the snare has taken the ground first.
- Bound always. What is tied on stays on through walking, sleeping and waking. In an age of self-love and contempt for parents, that steady hold matters more, not less.
when thou walkest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and [when] thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
Proverbs 6:22 describes what happens when a parent's teaching is taken to heart. It travels with the person who carries it — on the road, through the night, into the first moment of waking. How do words become a companion like that?
What leads, keeps and talks is the father's command and the mother's teaching named in the two verses before. Binding them on the heart and tying them around the neck describe two different responses to them.
To be bound continually on the heart speaks of our inmost being welcoming those commands. Tying them around our neck means submitting to the yoke of Christ. The neck is not stiff and stubborn, but yielding to the Lord's authority. When we go out, we have the comfort of knowing that the truth of God leads us. When we sleep, we can lie down in peace, kept perfectly through obedience to God's Word. When we wake in the morning, we are ready to hear that Word speaking to us.
Walking, sleeping and waking cover an ordinary day. Each moment carries a need we cannot meet on our own.
Bind these words continually on your heart, and tie them around your neck. They are both shield and ornament in a world as evil as fallen nature. When one walks, do we not need direction? When one sleeps, do we not need to be guarded? And when one wakes alone, is it not good and pleasant to have such a word shining and talking with us?
Leading assumes a road we cannot read on our own. The claim made here for God's word is an exclusive one.
It is our only guide. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105). … Both the New Testament and the Old point everywhere to the Word of God as our only guide through this tangled scene.
The last clause promises conversation, not just memory, and the hour named is waking. There is a reason that hour fits.
Every believer knows that early morning is the best and proper time to give God the firstfruits of the day. After the mercies of another night, we bring Him praise and adoration, and read His word prayerfully at the feet of His dear Son. … In the morning our mind is like a blank sheet of paper, open to the searching power and comfort of Holy Scripture. At the close of the day our mind is like a sheet already filled with the impressions of the day. So the power and freshness of the blessed Divine Book are felt and recognised most in the early morning. We do not know what temptations a day may bring, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
The word has to be in place before the test comes. Meaning well at the time is not enough.
It is not enough to have no intention of doing evil. It is not even enough to intend to do right. How often the Christian has found this! We are in a world of snares and temptations. We have to watch and pray, so that we do not enter into temptation. We need the soul filled with the divine things of wisdom, and the thoughts of wisdom guiding the mind and the path. Then the allurements of evil and Satan's tricks take no hold on us. The mind lives in another sphere.
- Keep it. The heart welcomes the command; the neck bends to it instead of stiffening.
- Led. On the move, the word gives the direction we lack in ourselves. Both Testaments point to it as our only guide through a tangled scene.
- Kept. Obedience to God's word lets us lie down in peace, kept while we sleep.
- Spoken to. At waking the mind is a blank sheet, before the day fills it. That is when the word's freshness tells most.
- Guarded. Good intentions collapse in a world of snares. Fill the soul with wisdom first, and evil finds no hold.