Proverbs 19:26 – “He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach.”

This verse, like 10:1, “A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother,” and 15:20, “A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son despises his mother,” repeats a common motif of Proverbs. Sons can make fathers and mothers happy, or they can bring them shame. (So can daughters, but Solomon writes to a son, so daughters will have to read themselves into “son.”)

Here is Solomon’s point: Sons, you may not realize how you affect your parents (or teachers), but you have the power to make them happy or miserable. Sons should remember their power over their parents when they contemplate whether to obey the introductory exhortation of Proverbs. “Hear, my son, your father’s instructions, and forsake not your mother’s teaching (1:8).” Hearing will be good for sons, but it will also be good for father and mother. It will bring them happiness! A son refusing to hear brings sorrow. At its worst, such refusal ends up with a son who brutalizes his father and mother, shames them, and causes relatives and friends to reproach the parents as well as the son.

Every society faces the problem of “elder abuse.” In time, a son always becomes stronger than his father and can push him around, even to the point of violence and blows. Likewise, a son (or a daughter) can sometimes appropriate his mother’s house and property, perhaps abusing a trusting mother’s grant of power of attorney to, in the words of the proverb, “chase her away.”

How can father or mother hold up their heads when their own son treats them so? He brings shame, literally a “bad odor,” on his parents. He also brings a reproach. Whether fairly or unfairly, people gossip about such ill-treated parents, saying, “That’s what happens when you don’t train your children properly.”

The outrage of elder abuse exists in our day and existed in Solomon’s time. As a child, Solomon watched it happen. His older brother Absalom stole Israel’s throne from his father David and tried to kill him. Elder neglect drew Jesus’ ire when He condemned the Pharisees for devising pious-sounding schemes to evade helping fathers and mothers by declaring their property “Corban,” that is, dedicated to God (Mark 7:11). Paul, sadly, needed to remind the church that children owe parents support in old age (I Timothy 5:4, 8). The worst case of dishonoring father and mother is a son who beats his father and turns his mother out of her home. Let such a son know ahead of time that he will not only make his father and mother miserable; he will also bring them public shame and reproach. Maybe that consequence will give him pause before he hits his father or sends his mother away. Maybe.

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Dr. Bill Edgar, former chair of the Geneva College Board of Trustees, former Geneva College President and longtime pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA)