Proverbs 20:20 - Exposition

This is an enforcement of the fifth commandment, by denouncing the punishment which the moral government of God shall exact from the unnatural child. The legal penalty may be seen ( Exodus 21:17 ; Le Exodus 20:9 ); but this was probably seldom or never carried into execution. His lamp shall be put out in obscure ( the blackest ) darkness (comp. Proverbs 13:9 ). The expression is peculiar; it is literally, according to the Khetib, In the apple of the eye of darkness, as in Proverbs 7:9 ; i.e. in the very centre of darkness; he will find himself surrounded on all sides by midnight darkness, without escape, with no hope of Divine protection. "Lamp" is a metaphor applied to the bodily and the spiritual life, to happiness and prosperity, to a man's fame and reputation, to a man's posterity; and all these senses may be involved in the denunciation of the disobedient and stubborn child. He shall suffer in body and soul, in character, in fortune, in his children. His fate is the exact counterpart of the blessing promised in the Law. Septuagint, "The lamp of him that revileth father and mother shall be extinguished, and the pupils of his eyes shall behold darkness." Talmud, "Whosoever abandons his parents means his body to become the prey of scorpions." Cato, 'Dist.,' 3.23—

" Dilige non aegra caros pietate parentes;

Nec matrem offendas, dum vis bonus esse parenti ."

One of the evil generations denounced by Agur ( Proverbs 30:11 ) is that which curseth parents.