Today’s Daily Word Study is an abridged excerpt from Chaim Bentorah’s newest book: Does The Bible Really Say That? 20 (Seeming) Biblical Contradictions Explained. Click here to learn more.
Seeming Contradictions in the Bible: Spare the rod
Proverbs 13:24: “He that spares his rod hates his son: but he that loves him chastens him early.”
Proverbs 23:13: “Withhold not correction from the child: for if you beat him with a rod, he shall not die.”
Proverbs 22:15: “Foolishness [is] bound in the heart of a child; [but] the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”
Proverbs 23:14: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.”
Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left [to himself] bringeth his mother to shame.”
CONTRADICTION: Matthew 5:44: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”
I recently attended a class run by a private secular organization on caring for foster children. This organization works with the state in providing foster care. In the first class, our instructors made it very clear that as foster parents we were not to administer any type of corporal punishment or as one put it, “You do not hit our children.” I considered this in light of the more than five verses in the Bible that talk about using the rod to discipline. These instructors all had years of experience in raising foster children, and all of these foster children were brought to this particular organization because of behavior problems. I could not help but feel a sense of respect for these compassionate people who sought and struggled for ways to correct a child’s behavior without resorting to some sort of physical discipline.
I went back to these verses in the Bible found in Proverbs, written by the wisest man who ever lived, who himself was a king and responsible for the discipline of an entire nation, and wondered if I should take verses like Proverbs 13:24, 23:13, 22:15, 23:14 and 29:15 at face value.
Did the wisest man who ever lived really instruct us to strike a child? Does God Himself use the rod to correct His children? Look at Matthew 5:44, where Jesus tells us to love our enemies. We found in the previous chapter that the word enemy in Aramaic is shana’, which means “an internal enemy, a friend or family member who is treating you poorly and disrespectfully.” That description fits a child.
All of these verses use the same Hebrew word for rod, discipline, chasten and/or correct. The word used for rod is one I immediately recognized as the same word that is used in the Aramaic, which is the word for a scepter or a magistrate. A magistrate is “one who acts as a judge or arbitrator to examine a criminal or civil case to determine liability or guilt.” It seems that the most common use of this word in its root, shavat, is not for a rod but for a scepter.
I realize our lexicons explain the Hebrew word shavat as “a rod of discipline and punishment.” Keep in mind, our lexicons and dictionaries like Strong’s follow only the Christian tradition of how words are translated. When you search out the historical roots of this word, you will find within that word the idea of a scepter used to declare a king’s authority. Not only kings, but also priests, judges, military leaders and respected elders, carried scepters. The rod of Moses was a shavat or a scepter. These were not used to administer punishment but to confirm a verdict.
All these passages referring to the rod of correction are found in Proverbs, written by King Solomon, who himself carried a scepter. Note that the passage says: “He who spares the rod or scepter.” The word in Hebrew for spare is timenai, which means “to withhold.” If a father withholds the scepter, then he hates his son. In other words, King Solomon is saying that a father who withholds his authority, refuses to establish boundaries and laws as a king does for his nation. Such a father hates his son. The shavat is not a rod to beat a child with but is a scepter, which shows that a person has taken on the responsibility of one who is in authority and is using his authority.
So what about this punishment or chastening? That sounds an awful lot like a beating. The word in every case in the Hebrew is musar, which comes from two possible root words: Masar, which means, “to change” and has nothing to do with physical punishment. Yasar: which means “to correct or instruct” and has little to do with any physical action. In fact, in other Semitic languages, yasar is exclusively used for “instruction” and has reserved other words to express physical punishment.
“Ah,” you say, “but does not the Bible say to beat the child?” The KJV Bible renders takenan in Proverbs 23:13 as beat and shavat as rod to render beat him with a rod. The KJV is brutal, but it was translated during brutal times and that was most likely the mindset of that day. Conservatives followed in lockstep with them. The word takenan was rendered as beat comes from the root word takan, which is a word used to express measuring, examining and weighing out. I have no idea how the KJV arrived at the idea of beating. Using my earlier rendering of the word shavat as scepter or authority, I would not see this as beat him with a rod, but it would be more like examine his behavior with the authority of a wise king. In other words, the father will extend mercy to the misbehaving child, examine his behavior and the reason for the behavior, and then try to instruct and correct that behavior, going to the root of that behavior.
Okay, you can call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I have never known God to raise a hand to me to correct my behavior or to strike me down for some infraction. The natural result of breaking His laws usually takes care of that. So, if God will not strike me or spank me, then I will never strike a child to correct him. Besides, if I do that to a foster child, I will face the shavat of a court room judge. How do I deal with bad behavior from a foster child? Exactly as these earthly, fallible but wise and experienced instructors in the foster care system advise, exactly as the wisest man on earth. First, to love. Second, to show mercy. Third, seek to find the root of the behavior and wisely deal with it. Not a task for the faint of heart.
Please understand that I am only offering this to you for your consideration. Maybe one day, God will point His shavat (scepter) at me and declare that I am wrong. I can live with the fact that I am wrong, but I do not care to run the risk of hurting a child and having to live with that. From the times God has allowed me to enter His heart, I think He feels the same way.
Yes. How are we to teach temperence to children if emotional foundation is not taught through learning to express things verbally, and instead we use physical violence? It seems like a certain lack of creativity to physically dominate a helpless child when often a child is acting according to their immature self-interest, and will do better with persistent instruction than with being taught to be scared of the parent. Some children survive being hit as “discipline” better than others, and some have a nature that is terribly scarred by such treatment.
My own personal study yielded a similar result when I went looking at the Bible and studying the words used before the English translation. Perhaps we wouldn’t have so much anger and mistreatment of one another in American culture if people weren’t exposed to so much physical violence from the time we’re all children?
I like that word creativity. Many I have spoken with who are advocating the defund police (and I am not saying I support that view) tell me that very same thing. They are saying not to get rid of the police but force them to be more creative in how they operate. The easy way is to just say, “Do it or you get the rod.” God never takes a whip to me, He just lovingly takes His time and and explains things to me and lets me know how it will break His heart if I commit a sin. That is all I need, maybe some people are different.
Wonderful! Funny how God words.. I wsa just thinking about this very topic on my way to work today! Thank you for the clarity of how this is laid out by the Lord .. This is clearly His heart for everyone! God is Love and the actions He takes are always rooted in and from a place of love which is to recconcile us always back to Him.. It is by His kindness that leads to repentance!