Proverbs 15:31

31 An ear which heareth the doctrine of life Keeps itself in the circle of the wise. As, Pro 6:33, תוכחות מוסר means instructions aiming at discipline, so here תּוכחת חיּים means instructions which have life as their end, i.e., as showing how one may attain unto true life; Hitzig's חכם, for חיים, is a fancy. Is now the meaning this, that the ear which willingly hears and receives such doctrine of life will come to dwell among the wise, i.e., that such an one (for אזן is synecdoche partis pro persona, as Job 29:11) will have his residence among wise men, as being one of them, inter eos sedem firmam habebit iisque annumerabitur (Fl.)? By such a rendering, one is surprised at the harshness of the synecdoche, as well as at the circumstantiality of the expression (cf. Pro 13:20, יחכּם). On the contrary, this corresponds with the thought that one who willingly permits to be said to him what he must do and suffer in order that he may be a partaker of life, on this account remains most gladly in the circle of the wise, and there has his appropriate place. The "passing the night" (לין, cogn. ליל, Syr. Targ. בּוּת, Arab. bât) is also frequently elsewhere the designation of prolonged stay, e.g., Isa 1:21. בּקרב is here different in signification from that it had in Pro 14:23, where it meant "in the heart." In the lxx this proverb is wanting. The other Greek translations have οὖς ἀκοῦον ἐλέγχους χωῆς ἐν μέσῳ σοφῶν αὐλισθήσεται. Similarly the Syr., Targ., Jerome, Venet., and Luther, admitting both renderings, but, since they render in the fut., bringing nearer the idea of prediction (Midrash: זוכה לישׁב בישׁיבת חכמים) than of description of character.

Note, 1. It is the character of a wise man that he is very willing to be reproved, and therefore chooses to converse with those that, both by their words and example, will show him what is amiss in him: The ear that can take the reproof will love the reprover. Faithful friendly reproofs are here called the reproofs of life, not only because they are to be given in a lively manner, and with a prudent zeal (and we must reprove by our lives as well as by our doctrine), but because, where they are well-taken, they are means of spiritual life, and lead to eternal life, and (as some think) to distinguish them from rebukes and reproaches for well-doing, which are rather reproofs of death, which we must not regard nor be influenced by. 2. Those that are so wise as to bear reproof well will hereby be made wiser (Pro 9:9), and come at length to be numbered among the wise men of the age, and will have both ability and authority to reprove and instruct others. Those that learn well, and obey well, are likely in time to teach well and rule well.