“Hear, my son, your father’s instruction”: “Hear” means not just passive listening but rather obeying what is taught. The sense of heeding or “pay[ing] attention” (Good News Translation) is expressed in Amos 4.1, where the prophet warns the women of Samaria of the consequences of their oppression of the poor. See also Isa 28.23 and Jer 7.13. Scott’s rendering is a good translation model: “follow your father’s instructions.” Other renderings are Contemporary English Version “Obey the teachings,” New Jewish Publication Society Version “heed the discipline,” New English Bible/Revised English Bible “attend . . . instruction.”
In many languages there is a generic word for “child” and a phrase “male child” equivalent to “son”, which would be used in situations where the gender of the child is in focus. Under normal circumstances, however, a man would address his son as “my child” rather than as “my male child.” If that is your situation, you will probably wish to use the generic term here, particularly since the context makes it obvious that a male youth is addressed.
On the other hand, your language may lack a generic word for child, and only have words for “son” and “daughter,” as in Hebrew. In that case “son” should obviously be used. If you feel that “son” is overly restrictive for your audience (see Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Revised Standard Version, and New Jerusalem Bible for examples of translations made for “inclusivist” audiences) and that the message of this part of Proverbs (chapters 1–9) should be addressed to young people of both sexes, you could include a footnote indicating that although this part addresses young males, its application is for everyone.
Note that it is only this part of Proverbs that is especially directed to young men. In other parts where a mixed audience is addressed, “my son” can be translated “my child/children.”
“Father’s instruction”: According to Deut 6.2, 7 and Pro 4.3-4, the father of a family was primarily responsible for the moral teachings given to his son. “Father’s instruction” is matched in line 2 by “mother’s teaching”. “Instruction” translates the same word used in verse 2.
“Reject not your mother’s teaching”: “Reject not” is a negative way of saying “listen and obey,” or “Hear” in line 1. Translations like Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version do away with the parallelism of the poetic lines by not repeating the command in the negative. Good News Translation joins “father and mother”; Contemporary English Version has “teachings of your parents.” Other translations reduce the two lines to one in other ways; for example, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “My son, obey your parents and follow their advice.” Translators may choose to retain the parallelism here, reduce the two lines to one, or recast the whole saying; the best guide is the grammatical patterns of traditional sayings in their own languages.
“Teaching” translates the Hebrew torah, which often refers to the law of Moses, but in this context the term has the general sense of training or instruction.
If you are keeping the poetic parallelism, this could be rendered, for example, “My child, obey what your father instructs you, and do not refuse to do what your mother teaches you.” If the parallel lines are not to be kept, we may follow the models of Good News Translation, or Contemporary English Version, or say, for example, “My child, obey and follow what your father and mother teach you.”
Some translations assume that the person speaking is actually the father of the young person, and so first person pronouns are used; for example, “My son, listen well to everything that I and your mother we-two are teaching you.”
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 .