Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.
In this proverb, the old see a crown in their grandchildren, and children see their glory in their fathers. The verse stands apart from the sayings around it, and shows what family life looks like when it is what God intended.
The Verse in Its Setting
One writer sets this verse against the sayings around it, and reads it as the picture of a home working as it should:
What follows is quite different. Here family life stays as Jehovah intended. "Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers." How blessed when the aged feel their descendants are an honour to them! And the children delight in their parents just as much.
A Crown Worth Wearing
A crown and a glory are not automatic. Shared faith is what fills these words:
Verse 6 speaks of grandchildren being the crown of old men. How pleasant a crown this is when both are believers! And when the grandfather knows the Lord, the children have real reason to "glory."
Why Parents Are Their Children's Glory
Why are fathers a glory to their children? Commenting on the opening chapter of Proverbs, one writer shows what a father's instruction and a mother's teaching do in a child:
Children are to honour their parents and listen to them — to the instruction of the father and the teaching of the mother. The son learns this first, and it forms and directs his obedience, unless self-will resists. These are his graceful ornament. How early they act on the heart, and how much they influence conduct and even character, many a son can testify.
Fathers Who Can Be Gloried In
If children are to find their glory in their fathers, fathers must be men their children can look up to. One writer draws that out from Paul's short word to fathers in Colossians:
We get another little word for the fathers in Colossians 3:21. It is only one line in my Greek Testament, but how much is found in that one line! "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." … God our Father is the God of all encouragement. We are not to do anything that will dishearten or discourage our children. Our character towards them is to be the same as our Father's character towards us: encouragement.
Three Generations: Lois, Eunice, Timothy
The New Testament shows this crown in a real family: Timothy, his mother Eunice, and his grandmother Lois. What they handed down was not property:
What a heritage for any child — to know the Holy Scriptures! We may have little to leave our children in the way of money or property. But if we have given them the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures from childhood, we have given them greater riches and greater treasures than everything else this world has.
Yet children can copy a family faith without ever owning it. Another writer notes what Timothy's tears and affections proved:
It is beautiful to see sincere faith living in one generation after another of the same family: the grandmother Lois, the mother Eunice, and the child Timothy. But it is beautiful too to read of the tears and the affections in that third generation. They give full assurance that their religion is not imitation, or education, or merely catching a family influence. It is the precious inward power of a kingdom that God Himself has set up in the soul.
The Work That Builds the Crown
This crown grows through ordinary, daily teaching. One writer remembers his own childhood home:
It is urgent to teach our children the Scriptures. As they get older, school work and homework will take up their time. Year by year you will find your opportunities grow fewer. While they are little children is the time to teach them this blessed Book. When we were children, my mother gathered us every day, and above all in the holidays. She would read aloud to us, and make the dear old Book live for each one of us. … They each loved the Holy Scriptures, and we well knew it. Perhaps that was the secret that made us love them too, without realising it.
Summary
- Setting — The verse stands apart from the sayings around it. Here is family life as God intended, where age and youth each honour the other.
- Crown — Grandchildren become a crown, and a grandfather a glory, when both know the Lord. Shared faith is what fills the words.
- Ornament — A father's instruction and a mother's teaching work early on the heart. They shape a child's conduct and character, and a child wears them like jewellery.
- Encouragement — Fathers must not dishearten their children. A father worth glorying in copies the Father who encourages.
- Inheritance — The greatest wealth to leave children is the knowledge of Scripture, taught daily while they are small. Even then, each generation must own that faith, not just inherit it.