Proverbs

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NASB	Proverbs 13:24 He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
AMPLIFIED 2015	Proverbs 13:24 He who withholds the rod [of discipline] hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines and trains him diligently and appropriately [with wisdom and love]. [Prov 19:18; 22:15; 23:13; 29:15, 17; Eph 6:4]

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Bible Question: Today I sat in a church I was visiting for just the 2nd time. Other verses were referenced, but it all had to do with this one basic principle. Now, my question is...does God mean He will "strike or hit" His child? Are we really to surmise that we are to "strike or hit" our children as the main source of discipline? When did Jesus "strike or hit" anyone?

Bible Answer: The passage is a proverb, not a command. That is often misunderstood. Proverbs do not equal commands.

Concerning...
Proverbs 22:15
Proverbs 23:13
the Hebrew word translated "Child" is Na'ar, which elsewhere in the Bible is almost always translated young man, or young men. The same can be said about Prov 13:24 where "son" does not mean toddler (but can). If the idea that a literal "rod" of correction is to be used is anywhere in the proverbs, it is upon a youth and not a toddler. And this use would have been out of love, after all, that youth is quickly approaching the place where the death penalty could be handed out.

Deut 21:18-21 "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.

The word for “son” here is the same one used in Prov. 13:24. I doubt that anyone would assume this passage is referring to a toddler.

The fact that many use this passage to say that spanking is required of all good Christian parents is unfortunate. Whether you or anyone else uses spanking or other corporal punishment as a means to aide in discipline, is up to the parents, but the Bible does not "require" it, and in no place can one find it even being suggested unless these passages are to mean "toddler" when in every other passage, the word means youth or young men.

MJH