The son is called upon to enter upon the labors of others, and reap where they have sown. To sleep when the plenteous harvest lies ready for the sickle is the most extreme laziness.

He that gathereth in summer - All the work of the field should be done in the season suitable to it. If summer and harvest be neglected, in vain does a man expect the fruits of autumn.

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son,.... Which is the time of gathering the fruits of the earth, and laying them up against winter, as the ant is said to do, Proverbs 6:8;

but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame; to himself, and to his parents and relations. The sum of the proverb is, that, in the time of health and youth, persons should be active and industrious in their several callings and stations, and provide against a time of sickness and old age; and that they should lose no opportunities, neither in a natural nor spiritual way, of doing or receiving good.

There is now added a proverb which, thus standing at the beginning of the collection, and connecting itself with Proverbs 10:1, stamps on it the character of a book for youth:

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son;

But he that is sunk in sleep in the time of harvest is a son that causeth shame.

Von Hofmann (Schriftb. ii. 2. 403) rightly interprets בּן משׂכּיל and בּן מבישׁ, with Cocceius and others, as the subject, and not with Hitzig as predicate, for in nominal clauses the rule is to place the predicate before the subject; and since an accurate expression of the inverted relation would both times require הוא referring to the subject, so we here abide by the usual syntax: he that gathers in summer time is... Also the relation of the members of the sentence, Proverbs 19:26, is a parallel from which it is evident that the misguided son is called מבישׁ as causing shame, although in הבישׁ the idea to put to shame ( equals to act so that others are ashamed) and to act shamefully (disgracefully), as in השׂכיל the ideas to have insight and to act intelligently, lie into one another (cf. Proverbs 14:35); the root-meaning of השׂכיל is determined after שׂכל, which from שׂכל, complicare, designates the intellect as the faculty of intellectual configuration. בּושׁ, properly disturbari, proceeds from a similar conception as the Lat. confundi (pudore). קיץ and קציר fall together, for קיץ (from קוץ equals qât, to be glowing hot) is just the time of the קציר; vid., under Genesis 8:22. To the activity of a thoughtful ingathering, אגר, for a future store (vid., Proverbs 6:7), stands opposed deep sleep, i.e., the state of one sunk in idleness. נרדּם means, as Schultens has already shown, somno penitus obrui, omni sensu obstructo et oppilato quasi, from רדם, to fill, to shut up, to conclude; the derivation (which has been adopted since Gesenius) from the Arab. word having the same sound, rdm, stridere, to shrill, to rattle (but not stertere, to snore), lies remote in the Niph., and also contradicts the usage of the word, according to which it designates a state in which all free activity is bound, and all reference to the external world is interrupted; cf. תּרדּמה, Proverbs 19:15, of dulness, apathy, somnolency in the train of slothfulness. The lxx has here one distich more than the Hebr. text.

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.

10:5 Gathereth - The fruits of his field. In summer - In harvest. He that improved the opportunities of doing good to himself and others.

5. son-as Pr 1:8, 10, and often.

sleepeth-in indolence, and not for rest.

causeth shame-literally, "is base" (compare Pr 14:35; 17:2).

10:1 The comfort of parents much depends on their children; and this suggests to both, motives to their duties. 2,3. Though the righteous may be poor, the Lord will not suffer him to want what is needful for spiritual life. 4. Those who are fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, are likely to be rich in faith, and rich in good works. 5. Here is just blame of those who trifle away opportunities, both for here and for hereafter. 6. Abundance of blessings shall abide on good men; real blessings.