I. Consider in what this wisdom consists. Wisdom in the Proverbs does not mean simply intellectual greatness, or intellectual acquirements; a man may be very learned and clever, yet be quite destitute of that excellent wisdom of which Solomon speaks. Wisdom means goodness; it means striving to discover what is God's will as regards the conduct of our lives, and acting upon it when discovered. It means keeping God's commandments and loving and fearing Him, and doing unto all men as we would they should do unto us.
II. Consider how a wise son will treat his parents. (1) A wise son honours and respects his parents no less in their absence than in their presence. For him their wish is law, whether they know at the time, whether they will ever know, that he is fulfilling it or not. (2) The honour and respect which we owe our parents will be shown, not only in our acts, but in our words, when we speak or write to them, and our very looks when we are with them. He that refuses a proper reverence to age, though he may fancy he is asserting his superiority, is only proving in reality his own littleness. (3) A wise son is not content with honouring his parents, he also loves them very dearly, and does his best in absence to keep up that warmth of affection which was realised when he was with them.
III. These things are an allegory. Our earthly relations are but a figure of our heavenly relations. The tenderness, the loving care, the joyful self-sacrifice of our earthly parents, are meant to assure us of, and to aid us in believing in, the exceeding great love of our heavenly Father towards us.
E. H. Bradby, Sermons at Haileybury,p. 265.