Proverbs 7 · a question people ask
Who is speaking in this chapter?
One voice speaks to "My son" (7:1) and, near the end, to "sons" (7:24). The chapter doesn't name him. The talk just before it opens, "My son, keep your father’s commandment, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching" (6:20), and the book's first talk to the son is much the same (1:8). The speaker tells what he himself saw: "For at the window of my house, I looked out through my lattice" (7:6). Inside his account, 7:14-20 are the woman's words, given as she spoke them, and the young man speaks none (7:6-23). The chapter doesn't make her words its teaching; the teaching is the speaker's, in 7:1-5 and 7:24-27.
The verses
“My son, keep my words. Lay up my commandments within you.”
“Now therefore, sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth.”
“My son, keep your father’s commandment, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching.”
“My son, listen to your father’s instruction, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching;”