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Thus Pro 23:22-25 are a whole: - 22 Hearken to thy father, to him who hath begotten thee, And despise not thy mother when she has grown old. 23 Buy the truth, and sell it not, Wisdom and discipline and understanding. 24 The father of a righteous man rejoiceth greatly; (And) he that is the father of a wise man - he will rejoice. 25 Let thy father and thy mother be glad; And her that bare thee exult.
The octastich begins with a call to childlike obedience, for שׁמע ל, to listen to any one, is equivalent to, to obey him, e.g., Psa 81:9, Psa 81:14 (cf. “hearken to his voice,” Psa 95:7). זה ילדך is a relative clause (cf. Deu 32:18, without זה or אשׁר), according to which it is rightly accentuated (cf. on the contrary, Psa 78:54). 22b, strictly taken, is not to be translated neve contemne cum senuerit matrem tuam (Fleischer), but cum senuerit mater tua, for the logical object to אל־תּבוּז is attracted as subj. of זקנה (Hitzig). There now follows the exhortation comprehending all, and formed after Pro 4:7, to buy wisdom, i.e., to shun no expense, no effort, no privation, in order to attain to the possession of wisdom; and not to sell it, i.e., not to place it over against any earthly possession, worldly gain, sensual enjoyment; not to let it be taken away by any intimidation, argued away by false reasoning, or prevailed against by enticements into the way of vice, and not to become unfaithful to it by swimming with the great stream (Exo 23:2); for truth, אמת, is that which endures and proves itself in all spheres, the moral as well as the intellectual. In 23b, in like manner as Pro 1:3; Pro 22:4, a threefold object is given to קנה instead of אמת: there are three properties which are peculiar to truth, the three powers which handle it: חכמה is knowledge solid, pressing into the essence of things; מוּסר is moral culture; and בּינה the central faculty of proving and distinguishing (vid., Pro 1:3-5). Now Pro 23:24 says what consequences are for the parents when the son, according to the exhortation of Pro 23:23, makes truth his aim, to which all is subordinated. Because in אמת the ideas of practical and theoretical truth are inter-connected. צדּיק and חכם are also here parallel to one another. The Chethı̂b of 24a is גּול יגוּל, which Schultens finds tenable in view of (Arab.) jal, fut jajûlu (to turn round; Heb. to turn oneself for joy)