Proverbs 4:3 (BSB)

When I was a son to my father, tender and the only child of my mother,

From Proverbs 4. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Proverbs 4:3

• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Proverbs 4:1-13: Here we have, I. The invitation which Solomon gives to his children to come and receive instruction from him (Pro 4:1, Pro 4:2): Hear, you children, the instruction of a father. That is, 1. "Let my own children, in the first place, receive and give good heed to those instructions which I set down for the use of others also." Note, Magistrates and ministers, who...
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Proverbs 4:3: For I was my father's son,.... Or, "a son to my father" (p); so Solomon was to God, his heavenly Father, Sa2 7:14; which Jarchi observes, and gives as the sense of this place: but his father David is meant, whose son he was; though he was not his only one, he had others besides him.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Proverbs 4:3: father's son--emphatic, a son specially regarded, and so called tender, as an object of special care (compare Ch1 22:7; Ch1 29:1); an idea further expressed by only beloved--or, "as an only son" (Gen 22:2), though he had brothers (see on Ch1 3:5).
• Keil & Delitzsch (Lutheran), Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament on Proverbs 4:1-4: Pro 4:1-4 He now confirms and explains the command to duty which he has placed at the beginning of the whole (Pro 1:8). This he does by his own example, for he relates from the history of his own youth, to the circle of disciples by whom he sees himself surrounded, what good doctrine his parents had taught him regarding the way of life: 1...