Friendship, marriage, and children

"A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Real friendship is defined by its behavior in bad weather — anyone can attend your victories. "A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother": friendship is grown by being one, and the best ones outrank blood. Then practical gold: "thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not" — keep the old friends, including the ones you inherited; loyalty compounds across generations like interest. "Better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off" — build real bonds with the people physically around you; in a crisis, proximity matters. Modern application: friendships die of neglect, not conflict. Schedule them like appointments, because "ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel."

"Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." A friend who tells you the hard thing is performing surgery; an enemy's compliments are candy with a hook in it. Learn to classify what people say to you by cost: criticism from someone who loves you cost them something to say — weigh it heavily. Praise from someone who wants something cost nothing — weigh it lightly. And "iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend": choose friends who make you sharper — who read, build, train, question, and pray — because dull company dulls you. The best friendship has friction in it; that's the sharpening.

"Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour's house; lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee." Even good relationships need air. Presence, texts, favors, opinions — all of them in doses; the difference between medicine and poison is the dose. And place your reliance carefully: "confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint" — you discover exactly how solid people are at the worst possible moment. Test reliability with small weights before you hang heavy ones.

"He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Not "slightly worsened" — destroyed. Character is contagious in both directions, so "the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them." Two named contagions: temper — "make no friendship with an angry man... lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul" (you don't just endure a friend's anger; you catch it) — and violence/envy: "be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them." Even the exit is prescribed: "Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge." Leaving is allowed. Audit your circle yearly: who's sharpening you, who's sanding you down — and who are you sharpening?

"Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD." And the source matters: "house and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD" — money can be inherited or earned, but a wise, good-hearted partner is in a different category of gift: pray about it, and choose with your eyes open. "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones" — your spouse becomes either your crown or your slow decay; there is no neutral. And "every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands" — homes are built or demolished from the inside, daily, by hand. Marry someone who builds — and be someone who builds.

Solomon says it three separate times, so he means it: "It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house" — better a rooftop corner, better "the wilderness," than a beautiful home at war. "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike" — constant conflict is a leak: not one flood, just drip, drip, drip, until the roof beams rot. He wrote it about a wife because he was advising his son; wives could write it about husbands with equal accuracy, and modern readers should hear it both ways: constant criticism, nagging, and point-scoring make any house unlivable at any income. The application before marriage: character and peace matter more than any other feature of the person or the house. After marriage: be the person who stops the drip — gratitude out loud, complaints chosen rarely and made kindly.

One unforgettable image: "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion." Beauty attached to a foolish character is treasure mounted on something that will drag it through the mud. It applies to every attractive package with rotten contents — the stunning person, the sleek investment, the beautiful house in the flood zone. Discretion — good judgment — is what makes any other quality safe to be around. When choosing whom to date, marry, hire, or follow: character first; everything shiny second.

The seducer from chapters 5–7 returns in the short sayings: "The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein... a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men." Notice the request that opens it: "My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways." That's the whole strategy of faithfulness in one line — the heart, given first to what's right, and the eyes, trained on good examples. Affairs and addictions are pits: easy to fall in, agonizing to climb out. Guard the heart and the eyes, and your feet stay safe.

"Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches." A family isn't held together by income or luck but by wisdom, understanding, and knowledge — patience, listening, forgiveness, shared laughter; those are the "pleasant riches" that fill its rooms. Two warnings guard it: "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place" — a home only works if you're in it; presence is the first brick. And "he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind" — make war inside your own walls (rage, chaos, greed, cold silence) and your inheritance is a handful of air. Build daily, stay put, keep the peace: that's the architecture.

"A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother." The very first proverb of the collection is about how deeply children's choices reach into their parents. If you're young, understand the power you hold: "My son, be wise, and make my heart glad" — your good choices are one of the few gifts your parents genuinely can't buy anywhere. Honor runs up the chain and down it: "Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers" — grandchildren crown the old, and children, whether they admit it, wear their parents' character as their own glory or shame. So "hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old." The parents who seem behind-the-times at 15 turn out, by 30, to have been right about almost everything that mattered.

The most quoted parenting verse ever written: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The Hebrew for "train" (chanak) means to dedicate — the word used for dedicating the temple — and "in the way he should go" carries the sense of the child's own way: study this particular child, and aim them deliberately. Training is not lecturing; it's repetition, example, and correction over years, the way you train anything that matters.

About "the rod": Solomon's culture used the shepherd's rod as the symbol of firm guidance, and these verses insist that real love corrects — "he that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" (betimes = early, promptly). The principle beneath the ancient image is what matters: a child left entirely to themselves is not free, but abandoned — "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" — because "foolishness is bound in the heart of a child," and correction is how it's gently driven out. Boundaries with consequences, enforced early, calmly, and in love, are not cruelty; they're the fence at the cliff edge. And the payoff is spelled out: "Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul."

The child's half of the deal: "A wise son heareth his father's instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke." Even a child is measured by conduct, not promises — "even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right." Age is no shield either way: young people can be genuinely wise, and the fastest way there is taking correction well. The warning cuts deep: "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge" — there comes a voice (a friend, a feed, a philosophy) whose whole effect is to talk you out of what you know is right. Stop listening to it. You always have the power to change the channel.

Solomon is honest about parenting's darkest possibility: "He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father of a fool hath no joy." A foolish child is "grief" to the father and "bitterness to her that bare him" — and the child who goes further, who "wasteth his father, and chaseth away his mother," or robs them and says "it is no transgression," is ranked "companion of a destroyer." Cursing your parents extinguishes your own lamp "in obscure darkness." Why include such heavy verses? For two readers: the young person — so you know that how you treat your parents is one of the most serious moral measurements of your life; and the grieving parent — so you know the Bible sees you, and that even Solomon, wisest of men, watched his own son turn out a fool. Do everything right and the child still chooses; that grief is ancient, and it is not automatically your failure.