Proverbs speaks over and over again to the “son.” Starting in 1:8, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction.” Again in v. 10, “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.” In 2:1, “My son, if you receive my words…”; likewise in 3:1, “My son, do not forget my teaching,” and so on.
But who is the son?
Christian theology has traditionally identified the “Wisdom” of Proverbs with Jesus, the Logos, who the New Testament explicitly identifies as the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:30).1 Of course, the Old Testament witness to Jesus is multifaceted, and while he is the Word and Wisdom of God incarnate, he is also the Son.
Rehoboam
On one level, we might imagine Solomon speaking to his own son and heir, Rehoboam. But Rehoboam’s absorption of his father’s teaching was evidently limited. At the outset of his reign, Rehoboam took counsel with his foolish friends and in a misguided show of strength provoked ten tribes into mass defection from his kingdom (1 Kings 12:1-24). Proverbs does model the wisdom parents ought to pass down in the home, but on this first literal and historical level, in Rehoboam’s case perhaps it didn’t take.
Israel
Within the broader context of the Old Testament, we should consider that the “son” is Israel. God claims Israel as his firstborn son at the Exodus (Exodus 4:22-23; Hosea 11:1). The opening speech in Proverbs 1:8, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,” recalls the call of God (the Shema) in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Proverbs is one of the “oracles of God” delivered to Israel as his covenant people (Romans 3:1-2). It’s a book for the communal formation of the covenant people, God’s “son.”
After God had given the Law to his “son,” Moses exhorted them:
“See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’” (Deuteronomy 4:5-6)
Bruce Waltke has suggested that what Proverbs does is “refine” the Law. He argues that “Solomon’s proverbs take up those social and cultural issues that are too fine to be caught in the mesh of the law, too small to be hit by the broadsides of the prophets.”2 If this is on the right track, God’s word to his “son” in Proverbs can be seen as a new movement aimed at making the whole nation “a wise and understanding people” who the surrounding nations would recognize as such.
Christians
Believers in Christ are the heirs of Abraham, and so inherit the Old Testament Scriptures. So the author of Hebrews can say this to his readers:
“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
”My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
(Hebrews 12:4-6)
He is quoting from Proverbs 3:11-12, and tells Christians that the exhortation addresses them as sons. When the voice in Proverbs speaks to his “son” or “sons,” believers rightly hear him speaking to us. Jesus is greater than Solomon, but as it witnesses to Christ and to righteousness, Old Testament scripture is still for us today.
Jesus
The author of Hebrews has said that Proverbs addresses believers as sons, but Hebrews as a whole is very much about sonship and identifies Jesus first of all as the Son. Jesus is the Son and the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2, 3:6, 5:5, etc), and in him God is bringing many sons to glory (2:10), so those sanctified in Christ are his brothers and sisters (2:11). The glory he is bringing them into is the glory of sharing in the rule of Christ (2:5, 12:28), as sons in the Son.3
As I highlighted in the last post, Proverbs is a book for discipling the children of God into wise and mature image-bearers who are fit to carry out the dominion for which God created man (cf. Romans 8:19-21, 29-30). When we hear the voice in Proverbs speak to the “son,” we should apply the instruction to ourselves of course, but we should not lose sight of the fact that Jesus, the beloved Son of the Father, has become the author of our salvation because he listened first (Hebrews 5:7-9). So we see in Jesus the fulfillment of the wise son, who “makes a glad father” (Proverbs 10:1). All the wisdom, discipline, insight, and prudence that Proverbs offers is the wisdom, discipline, insight, and prudence that Jesus embodied, always hearing the voice of his Father.
Proverbs, like all the Old Testament, and like the whole Bible, is first of all about Jesus.
As Hans Boersma observes regarding the place of Proverbs 8 in the 4th century Christological debates: “[B]oth the pro-Nicene and the anti-Nicene theologians of the 4th century saw in the Wisdom of Proverbs a reference to Christ. The reason, undoubtedly, is that all parties involved in the debates recognized that proper exegesis demands that the unity of the Scriptures be taken into account. It simply was not possible, either for the Arians or for pro-Nicene theologians, to read Prov 8 in isolation, independent of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ and detached from the NT witness to him.” (Hans Boersma, ‘The Sacramental Reading of Nicene Theology: Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa on Proverbs 8’ in The Journal Of Theological Interpretation 10.1, 2016)
Bruce Waltke, ‘Righteousness in Proverbs’ in the Westminster Theological Journal 70 (2008).
Cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12, where Paul characterizes his apostolic ministry as a father exhorting his children to walk worthily of the kingdom and glory they are to share in.