“The eye that mocks at his father, and scorns obedience to his mother: the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, the young eagles shall eat it.
Parallel Translations
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“The eye that mocks at his father, and scorns obedience to his mother: the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, the young eagles shall eat it.
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The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
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The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young vultures shall eat it.
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to Proverbs 30:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 21:18-21 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place. They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from among you. All Israel shall hear, and fear.
- Proverbs 23:22 Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
- Proverbs 30:11 There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn’t bless their mother.
- Leviticus 20:9 “ ‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon himself.
- 2 Samuel 18:14-17 Then Joab said, “I’m not going to wait like this with you.” He took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the middle of the oak. Ten young men who bore Joab’s armor surrounded and struck Absalom, and killed him. Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel; for Joab held the people back. They took Absalom and cast him into a great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones. Then all Israel fled, each to his own tent.
- Genesis 9:21-27 He drank of the wine and got drunk. He was uncovered within his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both their shoulders, went in backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were backwards, and they didn’t see their father’s nakedness. Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done to him. He said, “Canaan is cursed. He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.” He said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth. Let him dwell in the tents of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.”
- Proverbs 20:20 Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
- Deuteronomy 28:26 Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away.
- 1 Samuel 17:44 The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.”
- 2 Samuel 21:10 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water poured on them from the sky. She allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night.
- 2 Samuel 18:9-10 Absalom happened to meet David’s servants. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the sky and earth; and the mule that was under him went on. A certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, “Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Which haunt in the valley for carrions.
Which haunt in the valley for carrions.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Pro 30:17 The eye [that] mocketh at [his] father,…
Pro 30:17 The eye [that] mocketh at [his] father, and despiseth to obey [his] mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
Ver. 17. The eye that mocketh at his father.] As Ham did at Noah. "And despiseth to obey his mother," or ‘Despiseth the wrinkles of his mother,’ as some read it; that looks upon her with disdain, as an old withered fool.
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The ravens of the valley shall pick it out.] God takes notice of the offending member, and appoints punishments for it. By the law such a child was to be put to death, and here is set down what kind of death - hanging upon a tree, which the Greeks also call a being cast, εις κορακας, to the crows or ravens. Thus the Scripture is both text and gloss; one place opens another; the prophets explain the law; they unfold and draw out that arras {a} that was folded together before. The ravens of the valleys or brooks are said to be most ravenous; {b} and the young eagles or vultures smell out carcases, and the first thing they do to them is to pick out their eyes: Effossos oculos voret atro gutture corvus. They are cursed with a witness whom the Holy Ghost thus curseth in such emphatic manner, in such exquisite terms. {c} Let wicked children look to it, and know that vultu saepe laeditur pietas, as the very heathens observed; that a proud or paltry look cast upon a parent is a breach of piety punishable with death, yea, with a shameful and ignominious death. Let them also think of those infernal ravens and vultures, &c.
{a} Earnest money, a part of the purchase money given to ratify a contract; fig. a pledge.
{b} Corvi fluviatiles.
{c} Willet on Levit.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The eye that mocketh at his father; he that…
The eye that mocketh at his father; he that scorneth or derideth his parents, though it be but with a look or gesture, and much more when he breaks out into opprobrious words and actions.
The ravens of the valley shall pick it out; he shall die an unnatural, and untimely, and ignominious death, and after death shall lie unburied, and so be exposed to the birds and beasts of prey, and, amongst others, to the crows or ravens, who use to feed upon dead carcasses, and particularly to pick out their eyes, as is noted by all sorts of writers; of which see my Latin Synopsis. He saith, the ravens oft he valley, either because they most delight in valleys, or with a particular respect unto that valley near Jerusalem, which was called the valley of dead bodies, Jer 31:40, from the carcasses cast out there, to which therefore the ravens resorted in great numbers, according to their manner or, as others render, the ravens of the brooks, because they are of a hot and dry temper, and therefore delight in places adjacent to the brooks of water.
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The young eagle; which also preyeth upon dead carcasses and especially upon their eyes, as the ravens do, the reason being the same in both, whether it be the softness of that part which makes it more easy to them to take, or from the pleasant taste of it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The eye that mocketh at his father,.... At his…
The eye that mocketh at his father,.... At his advice, admonitions, and instructions; looks upon him with scorn and disdain, and treats him as a weak, silly, old man: here Agur returns to the first generation he had observed;
and despiseth to obey his mother; her orders and commands: or, "the obedience of his mother" (s); her discipline and instruction, having no regard to it. The word is rendered "gathering" in Gen 49:10; and Jarchi interprets it of the gathering of wrinkles in her face: and so the Targum, Arabic, and Syriac versions render it, "the old age of his mother"; despising her as an old foolish woman; see Pro 23:22; in the Ethiopic language, signifies to "grow old", from whence the word here used, by a transposition of letters, may be derived; and Mr. Castell (t) observes, that the royal prophet, among others, seems to have taken this word from the queen of Sheba;
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the ravens of the valley, shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it; it signifies, that such persons shall come to an untimely end, and an ignominious death; either be drowned in a river, when floating upon it, or cast upon the banks of it, the ravens that frequent such places, and are most cruel and voracious, should feed upon them: or they should be hanged on a tree, or be crucified (u), where birds of prey would light upon them; and particularly pick out their eyes and eat them, as being softest and sweetest to them; therefore first aim at them, and of which birds, and especially ravens, are very fond (w); and is a just retaliation for their scornful and disdainful looks at their parent. This may figuratively design the black devils of hell, the posse of them in the air, who are sometimes compared to the fowls thereof; to whom such unnatural and disobedient children shall become a prey; see Mat 13:4.
(s) "obediantiam matris", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Michaelis; "doctrinam", Vatablus, Tigurine version; "disciplinam", Castalio; "obsequium matris", Schultens. (t) Lexic. col. 1960. (u) "Non pasces in cruce corvos", Horat. Ep. 16. ad Quinctium, v. 48. (w) "Hic prior in cadaveribus oculum petit", Isidor. Origin. l. 12. c. 7. "Effossos oculos vorat corvus", Catullus ad Cominium, Ep. 105. v. 5.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The eye - He that scorneth or derideth his…
The eye - He that scorneth or derideth his parents, tho' it be but with a look or gesture, and much more when he breaks out into opprobrious words and actions.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 17. The eye that mocketh at his father]…
Verse 17. The eye that mocketh at his father] This seems to be spoken against those who curse their father, and do not bless their mother, Pr 30:11.
The ravens of the valley] Those which frequent the places where dead carcasses and offal are most likely to be found. The raven, the crow, the rook, the daw, the carrion crow, and the Cornish chough, appear to be all of the same genus. Some of them live on pulse and insects; others, the raven in particular, live on carrion.
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The young eagles shall eat it.] The mother eagle shall scoop out such an eye, and carry it to the nest to feed her young. Many of the disobedient to parents have come to an untimely end, and, in the field of battle, where many a profligate has fallen, and upon gibbets, have actually become the prey of ravenous birds.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Pro 30:17. The eye that mocketh at his father…
Pro 30:17. The eye that mocketh at his father — He that scorneth or derideth his parents, though it be but with a look or gesture, and much more when he breaks out into opprobrious words and actions; the ravens of the valley shall pick it out — “They who are guilty of such an enormous ingratitude to their parents shall come to an infamous end, and their dead bodies shall be exposed for a prey to the ravens which frequent the brooks that run in the valleys, and to the young eagles, which shall pick out those eyes in which their scorn and derision of their parents were wont to appear.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain Agur here returns to the first generation — the…
Agur here returns to the first generation — the unnatural despisers of their parents. (Pro 30:11 .) He had before described their character. Now he links it with the punishment. Observe the guilt only of a scornful look, or the mocking eye, when perhaps not a word is spoken. Certainly if the fifth commandment is "the first with promise" (Eph 6:2 ), it is also the first with judgment. No commandment in the breach of it is visited with more tremendous threatenings. What a picture is here given of infamy! Perhaps the case of Absalom furnishes the most striking illustration — a self-willed youth or rebel against his father and his sovereign, made a spectacle of shame before his people! the vengeance of God inflicting the punishment, which was due at the bar of human justice! (2Sa 18:17 .) But we may observe a more general illustration of the frightful picture. How many confessions on the scaffold have borne testimony, that the first step towards the untimely end was contempt of parental authority and restraint! The bodies of such criminals were deprived of the rites of burial; exposed either on the gallows, or cast out into the valley, as meat for the fowls of the air.†1 Thus the eye, that hath scornfully mocked his father, became the choice morsel of the eagle or the raven of the valley.†2
But even where there is no such literal fulfillment, the curse is not the less sure. Seldom do we see the disobedient rebels prospering, and blessed in their own children. Retributive justice visits them late, but certain; and the poignant anguish of many a disappointed hope, and many an arrow shot from their own bow, may bear to them the message of their chastising Father — "Thine own iniquities shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee." (Jer 2:19 .)
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Footnotes:
†1 See Gen 40:19 . 1Sa 17:46 . 2Sa 21:10 .
†2 Bochart conceives the allusion to be the valley - Jer 31:40 - where probably the dead bodies of the criminals were sent. At all events the denial of the rites of burial was one of the severest marks of divine chastisement. Compare Jer 7:33 ; Jer 22:18-19 . The Heathens felt this deprivation to be a special affliction. Homer represents the dying Hector, as entreating Achilles not to give his body to be torn by his Grecian dogs, but restore it to his parents for burial. Lib. XI. 337-343. Virgil also represents Palinurus as begging Æneas either to throw the earth himself upon his body, or to carry it with him through the water, rather than expose it to the birds of prey. - Æn. VI. 363-371.
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Labour. Septuagint, &c., "old age." Hebrew, "the obedience or…
Labour. Septuagint, &c., "old age." Hebrew, "the obedience or admonition." Those who curse their parents, were sentenced to death, Leviticus xx. 6.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The eye--for the person, with reference to the use…
The eye--for the person, with reference to the use of the organ to express mockery and contempt, and also as that by which punishment is received.
the ravens . . . eagles . . . eat--either as dying unnaturally, or being left unburied, or both.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 17. Eye that mocketh — The expression is used…
17. Eye that mocketh — The expression is used to denote the “mocking” or cursing child; not merely the disobedient, but the rebellious one.
Despiseth to obey — Spurns the control of. It is the same word, with the addition of a single letter marking the feminine gender, which is taken as a proper noun in the first verse and there read jakeh.
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The ravens of the valley (or brook) shall pick it out — We observe that in attacking a body or carcass, ravens strike first at the eye as a favourite part. Hence bodies of men or beasts left exposed where such fowls have access to them are found with their eyes picked out. The passage, therefore, may be equivalent to a declaration that such an unworthy, irreverent, and disobedient son, shall die a felon’s death, and become, as was often the case, a prey to ravens and eagles.
Young eagles — Literally, sons of the eagle.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 17. the valley] Or, brook. It is implied that…
17. the valley] Or, brook. It is implied that his corpse will lie unburied and exposed.
Maurer and others quote here, in illustration of the fact that birds of prey attack principally the eyes, Catullus 107, 3:
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“Effossos oculos voret atro gutture corvus.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (17) The ravens of the valley shall pick it…
(17) The ravens of the valley shall pick it out—i.e., the rebellious son shall die of a “grievous death” (Jer_16:4). The propensity of ravens to attack the eyes is well known.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain This is an independent proverb, only connected with the…
This is an independent proverb, only connected with the preceding by being founded on an allusion to an animal. The eye that mocketh at his father. The eye is named as the mind"s instrument for expressing scorn and insubordination; it is the index to the inner feeling; and look may be as sinful as action. And despiseth to obey his mother; i.e. holds obedience to his mother to be a thing of no importance whatever. The word translated "to obey" (thqyl) is rendered by St. Jerome partum; by others, "weakness," or "wrinkles," or "old age," as Septuagint, ghrav . But etymology has led most modem commentators to give the sense of "obedience". (see Gen_49:10) The ravens of the valley shall pick it out. Such an undutiful son shall die a violent death; his corpse shall lie unburied, and the birds of prey shall feed upon him. It is well known that ravens, vultures, and other birds that live on carrion first attack the eyes of their prey; and in our own islands we are told crows and birds of this sort will fix on the eyes of young or sickly animals. Corn. a Lapide quotes Catullus, "Carm.," 108:5"Effossos oculos voret atro gutture corvus, Intestina canes, cetera membra lupi." "His eyes, plucked out, let croaking ravens gorge, His bowels dogs, his limbs the greedy wolves.
"The valley," or brook, reminds one of Elijah"s miraculous support. (1Ki_17:4) Young eagles. The nesher must here mean one of the vulture tribe, as eagles do not feed on carrion. (but see Job_39:30) St. Gregory ("Moral.," 18:49) applies the proverb thus: eye that sneereth at his father, and despiseth the travail of his mother, lo! the ravens from the torrents shall pick it out." For bad men, while they find limit with the judgments of God, do "sneer at their Father;" and heretics of all sorts, whilst in mocking they contemn the preaching of holy Church and her fruitfulness, what else is this but that they "despise the travail of their mother"? whom we not unjustly call the mother of them as well, because from the same they come forth, who speak against the same.
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The punishment of unfilial conduct.
I THE DENUNCIATION IS IN FIGURATIVE FORM.
II ITS FULFILMENT LITERALLY HAD BEEN A MATTER OF ACTUAL OBSERVATION.
III THE GENERAL TRUTH MUST BE CARRIED INTO THE LIGHT OF CONSCIENCE. On the whole, as Bishop Butler soundly taught, the constitution of things tends to punish evil and reward good conduct. J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 30:17 People who are callous toward their parents will…
30:17 People who are callous toward their parents will meet a violent end (see 10:1; 19:26; 28:24; 29:3; 30:11).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.