Matthew Henry on Proverbs 23:19-28
Here is good advice for parents to give to their children; words are put into their mouths, that they may train them up in the way they should go. Here we have,
I. An earnest call to young people to attend to the advice of their godly parents, not only to this that is here given, but to all other profitable instructions: "Here, my son, and be wise, Pro 23:19. This will be an evidence that thou art wise and a means to make thee wiser." Wisdom, as faith, comes by hearing. And again (Pro 23:22): "Hearken unto thy father who begot thee, and who therefore has an authority over thee and an affection for thee, and, thou mayest be sure, can have no other design than thy own good." We ought to give r…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 23:19
guide . . . way--or direct thy thoughts to a right course of conduct (compare Pro 4:4; Pro 9:6).
John Gill on Proverbs 23:19
Hear thou, my son, and be wise,.... Hear the instruction of a father, of the word of Wisdom, of the ministers of the Gospel, which is the way to be wise unto salvation; faith comes by hearing; spiritual wisdom, and an increase of it; the Spirit of God, and his gifts and graces;
and guide thine heart in the way; in the way of the Lord, in the way of wisdom and understanding, in the way of truth and faith, in the way of religious worship, in the way of the commandments and ordinances of the Lord; in all which the heart should be guided and directed, or otherwise it will be of no avail.
Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 23:19-21
Among the virtues which flow from the fear of God, temperance is made prominent, and the warning against excess is introduced by the general exhortation to wisdom:
19 Hear thou, my son, and become wise,
And direct thy heart straight forward on the way.
20 And be not among wine-drinkers,
And among those who devour flesh;
21 For the drunkard and glutton become poor,
And sleepiness clotheth in rags.
The אתּה, connected with שׁמע, imports that the speaker has to do with the hearer altogether by himself, and that the latter may make an exception to the many who do not hear (cf. Job 33:33; Jer 2:31). Regarding אשּׁר, to make to go straight out, vid., at Pro 4:14; the Kal, Pro 9:6, and also the Pie…
