Proverbs 4:3

THE MESSAGE

When I was a boy at my father's knee, the pride and joy of my mother, He would sit me down and drill me: "Take this to heart. Do what I tell you—live! Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding! Don't forget one word! Don't deviate an inch! Never walk away from Wisdom—she guards your life; love her—she keeps her eye on you. Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding! Throw your arms around her—believe me, you won't regret it; never let her go—she'll make your life glorious. She'll garland your life with grace, she'll festoon your days with beauty."

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
When I was a son with my father,tender and precious to my mother,

Hebrew Names Version
For I was a son to my father, Tender and an only child in the sight of my mother.

King James Version
For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

English Standard Version
When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,

New Century Version
When I was a young boy in my father's house and like an only child to my mother,

New English Translation
When I was a son to my father, a tender only child before my mother,

Amplified Bible
When I was a son with my father (David), Tender and the only son in the sight of my mother (Bathsheba),

New American Standard Bible
When I was a son to my father, Tender and the only son in the sight of my mother,

World English Bible
For I was a son to my father, Tender and an only child in the sight of my mother.

Geneva Bible (1587)
For I was my fathers sonne, tender and deare in the sight of my mother,

Legacy Standard Bible
When I was a son to my father,Tender and the only son before my mother,

Berean Standard Bible
When I was a son to my father, tender and the only child of my mother,

Contemporary English Version
When I was still very young and my mother's favorite child, my father

Complete Jewish Bible
For I too was once a child to my father; and my mother, too, thought of me as her special darling.

Darby Translation
For I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother.

Easy-to-Read Version
When I was my father's little boy and my mother's dear son,

George Lamsa Translation
For I was also a son to my father, tender and the only begotten in the sight of my mother.

Good News Translation
When I was only a little boy, my parents' only son,

Lexham English Bible
When I was a son to my father, tender and alone before my mother,

Literal Translation
For I was my father's son, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For when I myself was my fathers deare sonne, and tenderly beloued of my mother,

American Standard Version
For I was a son unto my father, Tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

Bible in Basic English
For I was a son to my father, a gentle and an only one to my mother.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
For I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother.

King James Version (1611)
For I was my fathers sonne, tender and onely beloued in the sight of my mother.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For when I my selfe was my fathers deare sonne, and tenderly beloued of my mother:

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For I also was a son obedient to my father, and loved in the sight of my mother:

English Revised Version
For I was a son unto my father, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
For whi and Y was the sone of my fadir, a tendir sone, and oon `gendride bifore my modir.

Update Bible Version
For I was a son to my father, Tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

Webster's Bible Translation
For I was my father's son, tender and only [beloved] in the sight of my mother.

New King James Version
When I was my father's son, Tender and the only one in the sight of my mother,

New Living Translation
For I, too, was once my father's son, tenderly loved as my mother's only child.

New Life Bible
When I was a much loved and only son of my mother and father,

New Revised Standard
When I was a son with my father, tender, and my mother's favorite,

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, a son, became I to my father, tender and most precious in the sight of my mother.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For I also was my father’s son, tender, and as an only son in the sight of my mother:

Revised Standard Version
When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,

Young's Literal Translation
For, a son I have been to my father -- tender, And an only one before my mother.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
When I was a son to my father, Tender and the only son in the sight of my mother,

Contextual Overview

¹ Listen, friends, to some fatherly advice; sit up and take notice so you'll know how to live. I'm giving you good counsel; don't let it go in one ear and out the other. ³When I was a boy at my father's knee, the pride and joy of my mother, He would sit me down and drill me: "Take this to heart. Do what I tell you—live! Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding! Don't forget one word! Don't deviate an inch! Never walk away from Wisdom—she guards your life; love her—she keeps her eye on you. Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding! Throw your arms around her—believe me, you won't regret it; never let her go—she'll make your life glorious. She'll garland your life with grace, she'll festoon your days with beauty." ¹⁰Dear friend, take my advice; it will add years to your life. I'm writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way, I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road. I don't want you ending up in blind alleys, or wasting time making wrong turns. Hold tight to good advice; don't relax your grip. Guard it well—your life is at stake! Don't take Wicked Bypass; don't so much as set foot on that road. Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth. Make a detour and be on your way.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

2 Samuel 12:24, 2 Samuel 12:25, 1 Kings 1:13-17, 1 Chronicles 3:5, 1 Chronicles 22:5, 1 Chronicles 29:1, Jeremiah 10:23, Romans 12:16

Reciprocal: Proverbs 6:35 - regard

Cross-References

Genesis 4:1
Adam slept with Eve his wife. She conceived and had Cain. She said, "I've gotten a man, with God 's help!"

1 Kings 17:7
Eventually the brook dried up because of the drought. Then God spoke to him: "Get up and go to Zarephath in Sidon and live there. I've instructed a woman who lives there, a widow, to feed you."

Nehemiah 13:6
When this was going on I wasn't there in Jerusalem; in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon, I had traveled back to the king. But later I asked for his permission to leave again. I arrived in Jerusalem and learned of the wrong that Eliashib had done in turning over to him a room in the courts of The Temple of God. I was angry, really angry, and threw everything in the room out into the street, all of Tobiah's stuff. Then I ordered that they ceremonially cleanse the room. Only then did I put back the worship vessels of The Temple of God, along with the Grain-Offerings and the incense.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For I was my father's son,.... Or, "a son to my father" p; so Solomon was to God, his heavenly Father, 2 Samuel 7:14; which Jarchi observes, and gives as the sense of this place: but his father David is meant, whose son he was; though he was not his only one, he had others besides him. But the sense is, that he was his darling, his beloved son, whom he loved above the rest; as he was beloved of the Lord, and therefore his name was called Jedidiah, so he was beloved of his father; and, because he had a peculiar love for him, he took a particular care of his education;

tender and only [beloved] in the sight of my mother; his mother Bathsheba, who had a most affectionate regard to him; and therefore in his tender age, as soon as he was susceptible of instructions, gave them to him, which being received, made deep and lasting impressions on him; see Proverbs 31:1. The marginal reading is, "to the sons of my mother"; for Bathsheba had more sons, 1 Chronicles 3:5; both readings may be retained, "beloved in the sight of my mother's sons". Gersom interprets this of the people of Israel, who were sons to God their Father; and were the only nation that received the law, and which they received at the time of their coming out of Egypt, in the days of their youth.

p בן הייתי לאבי "filius fui patri meo", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Cocceius, Schultens.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Probably the words of Solomon himself, who looks back from his glorious throne and his matured wisdom to the training which was the starting point. The part taken by Bathsheba in 1 Kings 1:0, no less than the friendship between her and Nathan, indicates that a mother’s training might well have laid the foundation of the king’s future wisdom. Among the Israelites and Egyptians alone, of the nations of the old world, was the son’s reverence for the mother placed side by side with that which he owed to his father.

Only beloved, - literally “only,” but the word is used apparently (as in Genesis 22:2, Genesis 22:12) in its derived sense, “beloved like an only son.” The Vulgate gives “unigenitus.” Compare the words applied to our Lord, as the “only begotten” John 1:14, the “beloved” Ephesians 1:6.