What this is about
The author of this site heard a sermon on Proverbs 22:6 and wrote down how it went. As he reports it, the sermon moved from the verse to an expectation of “fruits,” and tied that expectation to early rising, discipline, parental control and avoiding bad influences. Its theme was “deep father, deep family.”
The preacher is not named here. This is a listener’s summary and not a recording, and a preacher may put things more carefully on another day. The page tests the argument. It does not judge the man.
The author set down a thesis to be tested: “Proverbs 22:6 is wisdom about how life generally works, not a guaranteed formula for producing faithful adult children.”
So there are two ways to read the verse. On the first, it is a proverb. It tells parents to train their children and observes that training usually lasts. The duty is the parents’. The child answers for himself. The outcome is God’s. On the second, it is a formula. Train properly and the result is guaranteed. Then it follows that if the result is missing, the training was. Both readings tell parents to train. They disagree about what a grown child’s unbelief proves.
What this page is not doing
It is not saying parents may neglect their children. Sections four and seven say the opposite. It is not saying parents never fail. It gives no advice on raising children. It does not decide between the churches on baptism or on God’s choosing. It names no preacher and no family. Every remark put in the mouth of a pastor or a parent is made up and labelled that way.
The short answer
- A proverb is a kind of sentence. It says what is usually true, so that a wise person can act on it. Proverbs puts “Answer not a fool” and “Answer a fool” in two verses running.
- The Hebrew says “his way.” The word “should” is not there. The old King James Bible says so in its own margin.
- Proverbs expects some sons to refuse. “A foolish son is a grief to his father.” The man the book is named after was trained by David and turned away “when Solomon was old.”
- God did everything on the sermon’s list. He taught, he disciplined, he kept his people apart, and he rose early. “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.”
- The Bible blames neglect. It never blames the outcome alone. Eli is judged because “he restrained them not.” Samuel’s sons also went wrong, and Samuel is not blamed.
- The list is not in the verse. Early rising, control and good company come from elsewhere, and elsewhere the Bible puts a limit on each.
- The careful reading is the old one. Preachers in 1683, 1710 and 1783 all said the verse has exceptions. “If then the promise is not fulfilled, it is because the duty is not performed” was printed in 1846.
- The duty stays, and so does the hope. Parents are still told to train. The father in Jesus’ story is watching the road.
What kind of sentence is a proverb?
The Bible has many kinds of sentence. A law, a prayer and a love song are not read the same way. So the first question is what kind of sentence this verse is. The book answers on its first line: “The proverbs of Solomon.”
A proverb is a short saying about how things usually go. Here are two verses that stand next to each other: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” One says do not answer him. The next says answer him. Both are true, at different times. The reader has to learn which time it is. A book of guarantees could not have both verses. A book of wisdom needs both.
Look at the verses near ours. Two verses before it: “By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.” That is usually how it goes. But Paul and the other apostles feared the Lord, and Paul wrote, “we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked.” Nobody reads that proverb and decides that a poor Christian must be proud. Yet the formula asks us to read the verse two lines further on by a different rule.
Proverbs even warns about itself: “As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” “Parable” here is the same Hebrew word as “proverb.” A drunk man waving a thornbush hurts whoever is standing near. A true proverb, badly used, wounds people.
The Bible also says when a command does carry a promise. Paul quotes, “Honour thy father and mother,” and adds that it “is the first commandment with promise.” That promise is made to the child. A few lines later he tells fathers to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and attaches no promise at all.
Three kinds of sentence are easy to mix up. A command tells you what to do. A promise binds the one who makes it. A proverb says how things usually go. Sort these six.
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A proverb says what is usually true. Proverbs sets opposite sayings side by side and warns that a proverb can be misused. The first half of our verse is a command. The second half is the kind of thing a proverb says.
What the Hebrew says
The English says “in the way he should go.” The Hebrew says “according to his way.” There is no word for “should.” The translators of 1611 knew this. They printed a note in the margin: “Heb. in his way.” Most modern printings leave the margin out.
So what is “his way”? People have read it in at least five ways. The right way he ought to go. The way that suits this particular child. The way that suits a child’s age. The path a young man is about to enter as an adult. And, for a few readers, his own wilful way, so that the verse is a warning: let him have his own way and he will never leave it. The first is the oldest in English and may well be right. But on none of them is the verse a guarantee.
The old translations are worth knowing. The oldest Greek Bibles do not have this verse at all. The Latin Bible, used in the West for a thousand years, begins it with the words “It is a proverb.” Martin Luther’s German Bible turns it into a remark about habit: as a boy is accustomed, so he carries on when he is old. And about the year 1100 the great Jewish teacher Rashi explained it like this: “According to what you teach a child and train him in matters, either for good or bad, even when he grows old, he will not turn away from it.” For good or bad. He read it as a saying about how habits stick.
The Hebrew says “his way,” not “the way he should go.” Good scholars read that in several ways. None of them makes the verse a guarantee.
The son who might not listen
Who is the book of Proverbs talking to? Mostly to a son. “My son, hear the instruction of thy father.” The words “my son” come in twenty-three verses. And the father keeps saying “if.” “My son, if thou wilt receive my words … Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD.” The father has done the teaching. Whether it takes is left with the son.
The book knows what a son who will not listen looks like. “A fool despiseth his father’s instruction.” So there was instruction, and he despised it. “A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him.” One man looks back on his life and says, “How have I hated instruction … And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers.” He had teachers. He blames himself.
If our verse were a guarantee, these verses would describe something that cannot happen.
Proverbs blames parents too, and that must be said. “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” “Chasten thy son while there is hope.” So the book teaches both things. A parent who leaves a child to himself has failed him. And a child who has been taught may still throw it away, and that is his own doing.
The clearest case is the man the book is named after. Solomon was a trained child. He says, “I was my father’s son … He taught me also.” His father was King David. Then the history says: “when Solomon was old … his wives turned away his heart after other gods.” The proverb says “when he is old.” The history says “when Solomon was old.” The man who gave us the proverb was trained in the right way, and when he was old he left it.
Proverbs is spoken to the son, with “if” in front of its promises. It expects that some taught sons will refuse. Its own author did.
Even God has prodigals
This is the centre of the page. The formula says that the right training secures the result. To test that, find the case where the training was perfect. The Bible gives one.
God calls Israel his son. He says he carried them “as a man doth bear his son.” He taught them: “I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms.” He disciplined them: “as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.” He loved them: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him.”
And this is what he says came of it: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.”
Now take the sermon’s list. Rise early. God says, “I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction.” In the King James Bible the book of Jeremiah says ten times that God rose early to speak to his people, and every time they do not listen. Discipline. “In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction.” Keep them from bad influences. “I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.” Expect fruit. God compares Israel to a vineyard he planted and fenced: “he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.”
Then God asks the question every parent of a prodigal asks: “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” In his case the answer is: nothing. John Calvin wrote that God “in every sort of kindness towards them … had, as it were, exhausted himself.”
Jesus tells the same story as a parable. A father has two sons. The younger takes his share, goes to a far country and wastes it. Nobody in the story blames the father. And he has trouble with the other son too. The elder brother stays home, and when the party starts “he was angry, and would not go in.” Jesus told this story to show how God receives sinners, not to teach parenting. But it is his own picture of God as a father, and in it the father’s goodness does not keep the son at home.
Here are six cries of grief over children. Who is speaking?
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God taught, disciplined, protected and rose early, and his children rebelled. If perfect fathering does not guarantee faithful children, no list can. And if a child’s unbelief proves a parent failed, the first parent it accuses is God.
The families in the Bible
Now look at ordinary fathers.
Eli was a priest. His sons were wicked. Eli spoke to them and did nothing more. God judged him, and gave the reason: “his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.” So the Bible does blame a parent for neglect.
Samuel grew up in Eli’s house and became a great prophet. When he was old, “his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes.” Lucre means money. God then speaks to Samuel at length, and says nothing against him as a father.
Put those two side by side. In both houses the sons went wrong. If the outcome were the proof, both fathers would be blamed. Only one is, and the Bible says what for: he knew, and did not stop them. Matthew Henry, a famous Bible teacher, wrote about Samuel’s sons in 1708: “Those that have the most grace themselves cannot give grace to their children.”
The kings. The Bible says of eight kings of Judah that they “did that which was right.” Four of them left a son who did right. Four left a son who did evil. The two the Bible praises most are Hezekiah and Josiah. Hezekiah’s father was a bad king, and so was his son. Josiah’s father was a bad king, and so were all three of his sons who reigned. If “deep father, deep family” were a rule, these two families would have been the deepest in the Bible.
Ezekiel. God describes three men. A good man. His son, who is “a robber, a shedder of blood.” And that man’s son, who sees his father’s sins “and doeth not such like.” Then God gives the rule: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” Iniquity means guilt. Each one answers for himself.
The Bible blames Eli for something he failed to do. It does not blame Samuel, whose sons turned out the same. It blames neglect when it sees it. It never works backwards from the child to the parent.
The other side
The promise reading has real verses on its side, and they should be heard.
Eli. A father was judged for his sons. That is true, and it shows neglect matters. It does not show that every child who goes wrong had a neglectful parent. Samuel is in the same book.
Church leaders. Paul says a church leader must be “one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection.” So a man’s family does count for something. But look closely. This is about children at home, under his authority, and about whether he is fit for a job. It is not about grown children living their own lives. And the rule assumes something the formula denies: that a man can be godly in every other way and still have children who are out of hand. If good fathers always had good children, Paul would not need to check.
God’s promises. God does make promises about children. “The promise is unto you, and to your children.” These are good reasons to pray and to hope. But they are promises about what God does in his mercy. They are not worded as a wage for getting up early. And the same Bible tells of children of the promise who turned away, like Esau.
Put these together and one thing is certain: a parent who neglects a child is answerable for it. The formula needs something different: a child who goes wrong proves the parent neglected him. That does not follow. Rain makes the street wet. But a wet street does not prove it rained. Someone may have washed a car.
Neglect is a real fault, and the Bible says so. That does not let anyone reason backwards from a grown child’s unbelief to his parents’ failure.
What the verse does not say
The sermon tied the fruit to four things: early rising, discipline, control, and avoiding bad influences. The verse mentions none of them. It says to train a child. It does not say how.
That does not make the four things wrong. But look at what the rest of the Bible says about each.
Early rising. Proverbs praises it, as part of working hard for your bread. But the Bible’s great psalm about children begins: “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late … Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD.” A heritage is something you are given.
Discipline. It is commanded. It is also limited. The New Testament speaks to fathers twice, and both times it starts with a warning: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”
Control. A parent has authority over a child. But no verse says that control produces faith. In Jesus’ story the father is asked for the inheritance and gives it. He lets his son go.
Bad influences. “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.” That is good advice. But Judas spent three years with Jesus. And the elder brother in the story never left home and never kept bad company, and he is the one outside the party at the end.
What about “fruits”? In the Bible, fruit grows on a person’s own life. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.” Proverbs says of those who refused to listen that they “shall … eat of the fruit of their own way.” A child has a way of his own, and it bears his own fruit. And Paul says, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”
Here are six things a preacher might say in a sermon on this verse. Is each one in the verse?
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The verse says “train.” The list was added. Each item on it is qualified somewhere else in the Bible, and no verse promises faithful grown children to those who do them.
How people used to read it
You might think the promise reading is the old one and the careful reading is new. It is the other way round.
| Who and when | In their own words |
|---|---|
| Matthew Poole, 1683 | “But this, as many proverbs of like nature, are not to be understood as if they were universally and necessarily true, which experience confutes.” |
| Matthew Henry, 1710 | “Many indeed have departed from the good way in which they were trained up; Solomon himself did so. But early training may be a means of their recovering themselves, as it is supposed Solomon did. At least the parents will have the comfort of having done their duty and used the means.” |
| John Gill, 1760s | “… there are exceptions to this observation.” |
| John Wesley, 1783 | “We must not imagine that these words are to be understood in an absolute sense … It is a general, though not an universal, promise.” |
| Charles Bridges, 1846 | “If then the promise is not fulfilled, it is because the duty is not performed.” |
The first four were famous preachers who agreed about very little else. On this verse they say the same: usually, not always. The fifth is the earliest place this page has found the formula. Bridges was a good and careful man, and he was trying to encourage tired parents. But set his sentence beside Henry’s. Henry says that parents whose children leave can take comfort in having done their duty. Bridges says that if the children leave, the duty was not done.
Modern scholars side with the older view. One recent commentary puts it plainly: “this is confusing a proverb with a promise. A proverb describes what is typically true, not what is universally true.”
For most of the Church’s history this verse was read as a saying with exceptions. The guarantee is the newer idea.
If your grown child has left
A guarantee has a hard edge. If the training guarantees the result, then a missing result proves the training was missing. A preacher may never say that out loud. The parents in the room will finish the thought themselves. The disciples once did the same thing about a blind man: “who did sin, this man, or his parents?” Jesus answered, “Neither.”
If you are the parent of a grown son or daughter who no longer believes, here is what this page leaves you with.
The duty was real, and doing it was obedience. You were told to teach your children. If you did, you obeyed. That is not undone by what someone else did later.
You were not a perfect parent, and there is forgiveness for that. “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee.” A real fault is confessed and forgiven, like any other. It is not turned into a life sentence by a proverb.
Your child is a person and not a verdict. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”
What was taught is still there. This is what the proverb does say. When the prodigal “came to himself,” the first thing he thought of was his father’s house.
The Father has not stopped. In Jesus’ story the shepherd goes after the lost sheep “until he find it.” And when the son turns for home: “when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran.” He saw him a long way off, which means he was looking.
The verse tells parents to train, and says training usually lasts. It does not make a grown child’s unbelief a verdict on his parents. The duty is yours. Your child answers for himself. The rest is with a Father who has prodigals of his own, and has not given them up.
Check it yourself
Five things. The first takes ten minutes. The last is the one that matters.
- 1. Read Proverbs 22:1–16 and 26:1–12. Are the verses next to 22:6 promises that always come true? What does chapter 26 say about a proverb in the wrong mouth?
- 2. Read Isaiah 1:2–4, Isaiah 5:1–7 and Hosea 11:1–9. What did God do for his children? What did they do?
- 3. Read 1 Samuel 2:12–3:18 and 8:1–7. What is Eli blamed for? Is Samuel blamed for anything?
- 4. Read Ezekiel 18 and Luke 15. Who answers for the violent son? Does anyone in the parable blame the father?
- 5. Think of one family. Do this one. Think of a couple you know whose grown child has left the faith. What have you been quietly assuming about them? What would this page have you say to them instead?
Want the whole thing?
The full dossier reads the Hebrew word by word and shows six ways it has been read. It sets the old translations side by side. It checks the sermon’s list item by item against what God did for Israel, lets you predict the heirs of eight good kings, and gives the promise reading its best texts. It traces the verse from the old Greek Bible to the present, shows five places where the author’s brief had to be corrected, and publishes the prompt that produced it all.
Read the full dossier → Simple English →