“A stupid son is a grief to a father”: This line begins literally “The one who fathers a fool. . ..” “A stupid son” renders the commonly used word for “fool.” It occurs some fifty times in Proverbs and means someone who is slow-witted intellectually, as well as morally inadequate. Note that Good News Translation shifts to the plural “children.” “Grief”, the same word as in 14.13, means “sorrow” or “sadness,” the opposite of joy. Although “a father” in this line is masculine singular, many translators prefer to be inclusive and plural. Revised English Bible has “Stupid offspring bring sorrow to parents.”

“And the father of a fool has no joy”: This line is identical in sense to the first line. The word “fool” here translates a different Hebrew word and some argue that the word in this line refers to someone who is a fool in the religious sense, that is, a person who thinks in a wrong and foolish way about God. However, there is no evidence to show that a difference in meaning is intended. “Has . . . joy” represents the same Hebrew verb used in 10.1, where it is rendered “makes . . . glad.”

It may be desirable in some languages to speak of “father” in both lines as “parent” or “elders,” or even to reduce the two lines to one, as in Good News Translation. Some translations, like Revised Standard Version, keep “father” in both lines. Others have “father” in the first line and “parents” in the second. All of these are possible.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .