Proverbs 19:13
A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.
A foolish son is the calamity of his father,.... Or, "the calamities of his father" {q}; he brings them to him. A very great affliction he is, and which has many distresses and sorrows in it; as loss of reputation and credit in his family, which is sunk by his behaviour, instead of being supported and increased; loss of substance, through extravagance and riotous living, and the ruin of his soul and body by his wicked practices; see Proverbs 10:1;
and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping; or like the dropping of rain, in a rainy day, into a house out of repair, and which is very uncomfortable to, the inhabitants of it; see Proverbs 27:15. Such are the contentions of a peevish, ill natured, and brawling wife, who is always scolding; and which is a continual vexation to a man, and renders him very uneasy in life: such a continual dropping was Xantippe to Socrates, who teased him night and day with her brawls and contentions {r}. A great unhappiness each of these must be!
{q} twwh "calamitates", Vatablus; "aerumnae", Piscator, Michaelis; "causa aerumnarum", Junius & Tremellius.
{r} A. Gell. Noct. Attic. l. 1. c. 17.