This verse sits inside the mother's counsel, Proverbs 31:1–9.
Quick answer
Three escalating addresses, my son, son of my womb, son of my vows, before a word of advice arrives. The repetition is a mother gathering her whole claim on him into one breath.
Read the whole unit
The book's last chapter opens with a unique voice: the words of King Lemuel, "the utterance which his mother taught him." Lemuel appears nowhere else in Scripture, and the counsel he carries is the only teaching in Proverbs explicitly credited to a woman. Its structure is a queen mother's brief: the triple address of maternal urgency (v. 2), then three dangers ranked by what they cost a king: women who consume royal strength (v. 3), wine that clouds royal judgment (vv. 4–5, with a sharp aside on where strong drink might mercifully go instead, vv. 6–7), and finally the positive charge that everything was protecting: open your mouth for the speechless, judge righteously, plead the cause of the poor and needy (vv. 8–9). The logic runs on vocation. A king's strength, clarity, and voice are not his own; they are held in trust for people who have none of the three. The unit ends, and the acrostic begins, and the book closes with the counsel of a mother followed by the praise of a woman, wisdom's last two teachers both unexpected and both unforgettable.
What this verse contributes
This verse contributes the counsel's emotional charter. "What, my son?" is the compressed speech of urgent love, what shall I tell you, what do you need to hear, and the three titles stack her entire history with him: relationship, birth, and the vows that suggest he was prayed for before he was held, the way Hannah vowed Samuel (1 Samuel 1:11). A queen mother in the ancient world held real standing to counsel a king, but this verse grounds her authority in something older than court protocol. Before the warnings about women, wine, and justice, the son is reminded whose voice this is: the one person whose stake in him predates his crown.
Related: 1 Samuel 1:11 · Proverbs 4:3
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.