Derek Kidner's commentary on Proverbs is really quite marvelous. I could wish he'd revisited it, and written one 3-4 times as large; but its beauty is, in part, its brevity. I didn't appreciate this when I first got the commentary, but I have come to after decades of use.
Here is the first verse I read in Proverbs today:
A wise son hears his father's instruction,And here is Kidner's proverbially terse comment:
but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke
(Proverbs 13:1)
The pairing of a son, under training, with a scorner, who is a fool in the last stages of folly (cf. 26:12 [or see 21:24, or 24:9]), suggests that if you cannot stand home truths from your own father you are well on the way to becoming insufferable.Ah yes. This is why God gave us parents, etc.
(Kidner, Proverbs, p. 100)
Posts
3 comments:
Good Morning Dan -
Are your kids teenagers yet?
Teens can give a parent a completely new understanding of that verse - in the sense of it is no longer just head knowledge, but something you understand to your very core.
Yes and no! Currently, aged 23, 20, 11, 7. So... been there, done that, expect to go there again.
Nice I get another go at trying to do my part of it better.
(c:
I do not have a good commentary on the proverbs, this one sounds like a good match, how he handled this particular verse charms me I must say - in that it manages to contain in brevity what some might go on at length to confuse.
I hope the rest of it is like that.
Post a Comment