A General Appeal To ‘Sons' (Proverbs 4:1-2).
The change from ‘my son' to ‘sons', which occurs only here as an opening address, may well have taken place because of Solomon's reference in Proverbs 4:3 to himself as ‘the son of his father' and ‘the only son of his mother'. He may well have wanted to avoid any implication that he was in general addressing his own son. It does, of course bring out that elsewhere ‘my son' is to be seen as a composite term addressing a number of people. But that ‘sons' can be seen as an equivalent to ‘my son' comes out in its use elsewhere (Proverbs 7:24; Proverbs 8:32). It has been suggested that ‘sons' is intended to indicate a line of descent (he will soon be speaking of his own descent) so that his wisdom is not to stop with ‘my son', but to pass through the generations.
‘Hear, sons, the disciplinary instruction of a father,
And attend to know understanding,
For I give you good doctrine (teaching),
Do not forsake my law (torah).'
He calls as a ‘father' on those whom he addresses as ‘sons'. As king he had a paternal relationship towards his subjects, and as wisdom teacher a paternal relationship towards his students. He will then compare this with his own relationship to his father David (that he is speaking biologically here comes out in his reference to his mother).
He calls on them to ‘hear' his disciplinary instruction, and ‘attend' to know understanding. This discourse may therefore originally have been given orally before being collected together in the Book of Proverbs, although not necessarily so because a writer can call on his readers to ‘hear him'. Certainly there are indications elsewhere that the instruction was in ‘book' form (e.g. Proverbs 3:21, ‘do not let them depart from your eyes'). If we take these lines chiastically his desire was for them to understand his good teaching and respond to the disciplinary instruction of their father by not forgetting his torah.
The idea behind ‘disciplinary instruction' is that it is instruction enforced, if necessary, by chastisement. This was seen as part of a father's responsibility (as it was also revealed as YHWH's gracious responsibility - Proverbs 3:11). But the main emphasis is on instruction and understanding. And what was to be understood was Solomon's sound teaching and his ‘torah', which was not to be forsaken. This was, of course, the ‘torah' urged on him by his father when, at the commencement of his reign David urged on him to ‘keep the charge of YHWH your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments and his judgments and his testimonies, according to what was written in the Torah of Moses' (1 Kings 2:3) something which Solomon had made his own. It had thus become ‘my torah'.