The eye that mocks a father And scorns a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it.
Parallel translations
- WEB “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.
- KJV 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.
- BSB As for the eye that mocks a father and scorns obedience to a mother, may the ravens of the valley pluck it out and young vultures devour it.
- NKJV The eye that mocks his father, And scorns obedience to his mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it.
- NLT The eye that mocks a father and despises a mother’s instructions will be plucked out by ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Those who mock and scorn their parents face shameful judgment, vividly pictured as carrion for birds.
Overview
The grim image of ravens and eagles devouring the eye warns that contempt for parents brings disgrace and divine judgment. The eye that scorns is fittingly the eye that is plucked out, a poetic justice. This severe saying upholds the honor due to parents and, behind them, to God, whose authority all such honor reflects.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Deut 21:18–21If 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;
- Prov 30:11There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn’t bless their mother.
- Prov 23:22Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
- 2 Sam 18:14–17Then 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.
- Lev 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 him.
- Gen 9:21–27He drank of the wine and got drunk. He was uncovered within his tent.
- Prov 20:20Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
- 2 Sam 21:10Rizpah 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.
- 1 Sam 17:44The 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.”
- Deut 28:26Your dead body 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.
- 2 Sam 18:9–10Absalom 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.
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 30:17 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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