Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Parallel translations
- KJV Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
- BSB May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
- NKJV Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
- NASB Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
- NLT Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
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
May your marriage be blessed; rejoice in the wife of your youth. Faithful married love is a blessing to be celebrated.
Overview
The father pronounces blessing on the marriage and calls the husband to rejoice in his wife, especially the cherished 'wife of your youth.' Marital love is not merely permitted but commanded to be a source of joy. Such faithful gladness reflects God's good gift and pictures the covenant love between Christ and his church (Eph 5:25-32).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Eccl 9:9Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.
- Mal 2:14–15Yet you say, ‘Why?’ Because Yahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant.
- Song 4:15a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon.
- Song 4:12A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 5:18 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.