Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 20:11

Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work [be] pure, and whether [it be] right.

11. is known ] or, maketh himself known; betrays his true character, and gives presage of “his (life’s) work.” Comp. the familiar German proverb, “ Was ein Drnchen werden will spitzt sich bei Zeiten,” Lange.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The graces or the faults of children are not trifles. The child is father of the man; and the earliest actions are prophecies of the future, whether it will be pure and right, or unclean and evil.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Pro 20:11

Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

A childs accountability

The Bible recovers lost truths, as well as lost souls. The recovery of lost truth is one means of restoring lost souls. It is like a guide in a wilderness, as food in famine, as light in darkness: it is the restoration of that which is useful and essential. The truth of this passage is a lost truth. That human beings are early accountable, and early assume a decided character, is evident to reflection and observation. Apart from the teaching of Scripture, it is a lost truth that a child is known by his doings. Child means a son or daughter under parental control.

I. The actions of children become, in process of time, their own doings. Children move before they act, and they live as mere animals before they act spiritually and morally. In process of time the child acts. All its movements become conduct, the result of a determination to behave itself in a particular way.

1. An act which we are justified in describing as right or wrong, and which we can lawfully call the act of an accountable individual, must be performed by a being endowed with the following capacities: He must be able to conceive the act before its performance, mentally to see the thing done before doing it. He must be capable of appreciating motives for and against the action. He must know good and evil. He must have the power of saying, I will, and I will not. The doings of an individual are those acts which he rationally and intentionally performs.

2. A child, in course of a few years, exhibits the capabilities of which we speak.

3. Then it is, whether it comes early or late, that the actions of a child are his doings. He now performs the functions of a rational creature.

II. When the actions of children become their doings the children are recognised as accountable.

1. God recognises the child as the author of its own actions: He sees the doings of the child spring from a motive and principle within. He now holds the child guilty for its transgressions of His law. The child is now exposed to punishment; and to escape punishment, a dispensation of mercy to that individual child is necessary. Gods treatment of the child recognises the childs doings.

2. The god of evil knows, by the doings of children, with whom and with what he has to do. He cannot, as God, search the heart, but he can observe the principles, tastes, and inclinations. He studies the childs nature that he may know best how to injure it.

3. The angelic inhabitants of heaven recognise children in their ministrations. A child who is an heir of salvation is known to the angels–they minister to him, performing offices of kindness and services of charity, ordained by the God of love.

4. Children are recognised as accountable by their fellow human beings. Children are known to other children, and known to men.

III. From these two facts draw certain inferences.

1. The evils of sin are not escaped by the childhood of the sinner. God does not hold him guiltless because he is a child. But the Supreme Lawgiver does not account the child a man. Sin brings darkness into a childs mind, and disquiet into a childs heart, and gloom over a childs spirit. There are wages paid now, and paid in the spiritual condition of the early sinner, and those wages are death.

2. As a child, he is exerting influence for good or for evil. The measure of the influence is not so considerable as in the case of the adult, but there is influence.

3. All the differences of human character are not traceable to education. Some of these differences may be thus explained, but not all, and not the greatest. The earliest doings of a child do not make manifest his education, but himself.

4. The character of the future man is often indicated by the character of the present child. If the earliest actions of children be observed, they will indicate the character which the child so constituted will form.

5. God does not treat a generation of children en masse, but individually. There is a personality about every child.

6. If a child be known by his doings, one test of character is universally employed by the Judge of all. The decisions of the final judgment are according to that a man hath done, whether good or bad. The child and the man are under one Lawgiver. (E. Martin.)

Fruit

We must be good before we can do good. What fruits will be found on that tree which Gods Holy Spirit has made a living tree?

1. There will be love to God, which will make you try to please Him, and to care for everything which belongs to your heavenly Father, His book, His house, His day.

2. There will be obedience to parents. Obedience to our parents on earth leads up naturally and pleasantly to obedience to our Father which is in heaven.

3. There will be truthfulness. Two great causes of untruthfulness are cowardice and the habit of exaggeration. Do not use overstrained expressions. Speak in a natural, straightforward, simple way.

4. There will be conscientiousness. The conscientious person will do his best, as in Gods sight. He will do his work thoroughly. He will be trustworthy. You may depend upon him. No one can be a Christian unless he is conscientious in his work, and conscientious in all his dealings with others.

5. There will be two things found in you, modesty and temperance. Would you think a pert girl or a saucy boy at all like Christ? By temperance I mean self-control, self-restraint. Greediness, the desire to get all you can for yourself, is the opposite of it. Temperance teaches us where to stop–shows us how to keep ourselves within bounds. All these good things are fruits of the Spirit. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)

Children may be known

A young tree is known by its first fruits, a child by his childish things.

1. Children will discover themselves. One may soon see what their temper is, and which way their inclination leads them, according as their constitution is. Children have not learned the art of dissembling and concealing their bent as grown people have.

2. Parents should observe their children, that they may discover their disposition and genius, and both manage and dispose of them accordingly, drive the nail that will go, and draw out that which goes amiss. Wisdom is herein profitable to direct. (Matthew Henry.)

The childs fortune told

We know persons by sight, or by name, or by description. They are best known by their actions.

I. What is meant by doings here?

1. The tempers a child indulges in. These tempers are fretful, or patient, or selfish, or generous.

2. The ill habits he forms. Idle, or industrious, or careless, or careful, or dilatory, or prompt.

3. The company he keeps. The choice of companions is a very important thing.

II. What may be known of a child by his doings? You are making your fortunes now every day. The tempers you are indulging, the habits you are forming, and the company you are keeping are all helping to make them. How careful you should be to find out what is wrong in your tempers and habits, and pray to God to help you to correct it at once. (R. Newton, D. D.)

A childs doings

This big world of ours is really made up of a multitude of little ones. Every living creature has a world of its own. Every child has. So he can be known by what he does.

1. We are not to be judged merely by our sayings. Many people would like to be judged that way.

2. We are not to be judged only by our appearance.

3. We can only be known by our doings. But who is it knows us thus? In this way our fellow-men know us. In this way, above all, God knows us. If we are to be doing always what we ought to do, we shall need a helper.

(1) Because of our inclinations to do evil.

(2) Because we have so many powerful enemies. Give the story of Telemachus and Mentor, and show that Jesus is our ever-present friend, helper, and guide. (R. Tuck, B. A.)

Christian childhood soon discovers itself

How do we know a Christian boy or girl? Why in the same way that you know a candle has been lighted–by its shining. Do you suppose that people do not know whether you love your mother or not? You need not say to them, I am very fond of my mother; they will find it out soon enough for themselves–by the way you speak of your mother; by the way you speak to your mother; by your obedience to her directions; by your thoughtfulness when you think you can help her; by your willingness to be in her company; by your grief when she is grieved, or in trouble or pain. Yes, in a hundred different ways people can discover your affection for your mother. So with your love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. But though you need not announce to the world how good you are, the world will find out if you are good, will find out if you love Jesus Christ, when they see that you really–not in pretence, but really–like all that belongs to Him: His book, His house, His day. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 11. Even a child is known by his doings] That is, in general terms, the effect shows the nature of the cause. “A childe is known by his conversation,” says Coverdale. A child is easily detected when he has done evil; he immediately begins to excuse and vindicate himself, and profess his innocence, almost before accusation takes place. Some think the words should be understood, every child will dissemble; this amounts nearly to the meaning given above, But probably the principal this intended by the wise man is, that we may easily learn from the child what the man will be. In general, they give indications of those trades and callings for which they are adapted by nature. And, on the whole, we cannot go by a surer guide in preparing our children for future life, than by observing their early propensities. The future engineer is seen in the little handicraftsman of two years old. Many children are crossed in these early propensities to a particular calling, to their great prejudice, and the loss of their parents, as they seldom settle at, or succeed in, the business to which they are tied, and to which nature has given them no tendency. These infantine predilections to particular callings, we should consider as indications of Divine Providence, and its calling of them to that work for which they are peculiarly fitted.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Even a child is known by his doings; young children discover their inclinations or dispositions even by their childish speeches and carriages, as not having yet learnt the art of dissembling.

Whether his work be pure; or rather, will be pure; for it is not expressed in the Hebrew, and therefore may be either way supplied. The sense is, The future disposition and conversation of a man may very probably be conjectured from his childish manners.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. The conduct of children evenis the best test of principle (compare Mt7:16).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Even a child is known by his doings,…. As well as a man; “ye shall know them by their fruits”, Mt 7:16; professors and profane. So a child soon discovers its genius by its actions; it soon shows its inclination and disposition; and some shrewd guesses may be made how it will turn out, a wise man or a fool, a virtuous or a vicious man; though this does not always hold good, yet something may be observed, which may be a direction to parents in the education of their children, and placing them out to what is proper and suitable for them. Some observe, that the word has a quite contrary meaning, that “a child carries himself a stranger by his doings” e; so that he is not known by them: he so conceals and disguises himself, he acts so fraudulently and deceitfully, and plays the hypocrite, and puts the cheat on men, that they cannot tell what he is, nor what he will be; and if children can thus dissemble, as not to be known by their actions, then much more grown persons;

whether his work [be] pure, and whether [it be] right; not what his present work is, or actions are, but what his later life and conversation will be; which in some measure may be judged of, though not with certainty and exactness; see Pr 22:6; especially when he acts a covert and deceitful part.

e “ignotus erit”, i.e. “non facile cognoscitur”, Vatablus; so R. Joseph Kimchi; “simulat se alium esse”, Gussetius, p. 413. “dissimulatorem agit”, Schultens.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

11 Even a child maketh himself known by his conduct,

Whether his dispostion be pure and whether it be right.

If may be here understood after the use of , to play, to pass the time with anything, then neht refers thereto: even by his play (Ewald). But granting that [children], synon. with , had occasioned the choice of the word ( vid., Fleischer on Isa 3:4), yet this word never means anything else than work, an undertaking of something, and accomplishing it; wherefore Bttcher proposes , for may have meant play, in contradistinction to ot noitcni . This is possible, but conjectural. Thus gam is not taken along with b’amalalav . That the child also makes himself known by his actions, is an awkward thought; for if in anything else, in these he must show what one has to expect from him. Thus gam is after the syntactical method spoken of at Pro 17:26; Pro 19:2, to be referred to (also the child, even the child), although in this order it is referred to the whole clause. The verb is, from its fundamental thought, to perceive, observe from an : to know, and to know as strange, to disown ( vid., under Isa 3:9); the Hithpa. elsewhere signifies, like (Arab.) tankkar , to make oneself unknowable, but here to make oneself knowable; Symmachus, , Venet. . Or does the proverb mean: even the child dissembles in his actions (Oetinger)? Certainly not, for that would be a statement which, thus generally made, is not justified by experience. We must then interpret 11b as a direct question, though it has the form of an indirect one: he gives himself to be known, viz., whether his disposition be pure and right. That one may recognise his actions in the conduct of any one, is a platitude; also that one may recognise his conduct in these, is not much better. is therefore referred by Hitzig to God as the Creator, and he interprets it in the sense of the Arab. khulk , being created = natura . We also in this way explain , Psa 103:14, as referable to God the ; and that poal occurs, e.g., Isa 1:31, not merely in the sense of action, but also in that of performance or structure, is favourable to this interpretation. But one would think that poal, if thus used in the sense of the nature of man, would have more frequently occurred. It everywhere else means action or work. And thus it is perhaps also here used to denote action, but regarded as habitual conduct, and according to the root-meaning, moral disposition. The N.T. word approaches this idea in such passages as Gal 6:4. It is less probable that 11b is understood with reference to the future (Luther and others); for in that case one does not see why the poet did not make use of the more intelligible phrase . It is like our (Germ.) proverb: Was ein Haken werden will krmmt sick bald what means to become a hook bends itself early; or: Was ein Drnchen werden will spitzt sich bei Zeiten

(Note: A similar comparison from Bereschith Rabba, vid., Duke’s Rabbin. Blumenlese, p. 126.)

[what means to become a thorn sharpens itself early], and to the Aram. = that which will become a gourd shows itself in the bud, Berachoth 48a.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

      11 Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

      The tree is known by its fruits, a man by his doings, even a young tree by its first fruits, a child by his childish things, whether his work be clean only, appearing good (the word is used ch. xvi. 2), or whether it be right, that is, really good. This intimates, 1. That children will discover themselves. One may soon see what their temper is, and which way their inclination leads them, according as their constitution is. Children have not learned the art of dissembling and concealing their bent as grown people have. 2. That parents should observe their children, that they may discover their disposition and genius, and both manage and dispose of them accordingly, drive the nail that will go and draw out that which goes amiss. Wisdom is herein profitable to direct.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary