My son, if your heart is wise,My heart will rejoice—indeed, I myself;
Yes, my inmost being will rejoiceWhen your lips speak right things.
Proverbs 23:15–16 · NKJVPart of A Father's Joy, Proverbs 23:15–16.
Quick answer
The father's joy goes to the depths, his "inmost being," when he hears his son's lips speak what is right. Wisdom is confirmed audibly: the wise heart of the previous verse becomes right speech in this one.
Read the whole unit
Read the whole unit
After the severity of the rod saying, the collection turns the parent around and shows you his face. The two verses are a single sentence of longing: if your heart is wise, I will rejoice, I myself, my deepest self. The doubled first person is almost embarrassed by its own eagerness, and that is the teaching. The corrections, the warnings about tables and wine and boundary stones, none of it was bureaucratic. The teacher is invested the way only love invests, and the son's growth lands in the father's body as joy.
The pair also traces wisdom's route: heart first (v. 15), lips second (v. 16). The father listens for his son's wisdom the way this whole book insists it can be heard, in speech, because right words are the audible fruit of a wise heart (10:11, 10:20).
From this side of the cross
One sentence: the Father this saying faintly pictures is not waiting to see whether you will be worth rejoicing over; in Christ, the rejoicing came first (Luke 15:20–24), and wisdom grows best in children who already know it.
What this verse contributes
the evidence. Wisdom heard on the lips, and joy felt in the depths.
The other half
A teacher's confession of stake: if the son's heart grows wise, the father's own heart rejoices. The saying reveals what all the warnings around it are for, a relationship in which the student's wisdom is the teacher's joy.
Related: Proverbs 10:1 · Proverbs 27:11 · Proverbs 29:3
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.