Proverbs 1:8-9

First Address. Chap. Proverbs 1:8-19

Proverbs 1:8. In these two verses the writer passes to direct appeal. The form of appeal, My son, which is continually repeated throughout these opening Chapter s, strikes the key-note of the strain in which all the succeeding exhortations and counsels are cast. It indicates not only the fatherly relation which the Teacher assumes towards the young and inexperienced whom he has undertaken to instruct, but also the true source and authority of the teaching he will give them. The Law, though not clothed, as we have seen (Introd. pp. 12, 13) in this Book in its Jewish garb, is recognised in its eternal principles. "The instruction of the father," and "the law of the mother" are to be accepted with childlike submission and unquestioning obedience, and will lend grace and dignity to the life and character, because and in so far as they are the instruction and the law of God Himself, the Universal Father, and because parents are His vicegerents in the education of their children (comp. Proverbs 6:20-21). And every true teacher is, in measure and degree, His and their deputy and representative. (See Deuteronomy 4:9; Deuteronomy 6:7; Deuteronomy 11:19; and compare the place of the 5th commandment in the Decalogue, as the link or hinge between the 1st and 2nd tables of the Law, and the extended obligation of that commandment to "governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters.")