Proverbs 19:13,  A foolish son is the calamity of his father, and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.

Related Proverb: 27:15,  A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

Calamity: grievous affliction; adversity; misery; great misfortune, disaster.

Contentions: struggling together in opposition; strife; striving in rivalry; competition; contest. Synonym: struggle, conflict, combat, disagreement, dissension, debate.

Question: Why do you suppose Solomon connected these two problems in one proverb? Are they related in any way? Discuss

The man in this proverb is a father and a husband. He has two problems, probably three. He has a foolish son and he has a wife who is contentious.

Why does this man allow his wife to be contentious? Was she contentious when he married her? If she was contentious then, why did he marry her anyway?

Perhaps the third problem is that he does not love his wife the way he should. Maybe he's neglected her and she thinks she has cause for being contentious.

We do not know the answers to these questions. The Bible does not tell us. The psychologists will have to answer these questions.

They're very smart and they know a lot. The Bible simply tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

But all sorts of things come out of a deceitful heart. Too many things to try to cover up with manmade solutions.

The Bible does not analyze the background of an individual in order to justify or account for sinful behavior.

God holds us accountable for our behavior regardless of our background or present condition.

Don't you suppose that Jesus Christ, the perfect judge will take our background into account at the judgment. That is his business.

Our business is to do right regardless of the circumstances of life. God says his grace is sufficient for you for his strength is made perfect in weakness. II Corinthians 12:9

Hurray for weaknesses. Every weakness is an opportunity for God's strength to be made perfect!

And yet we so easily condemn weaknesses and try to become strong by human means. God commands us to become strong by his grace.

And this means that his grace is sufficient regardless of our excuses and where we came from. His grace is sufficient to call on to keep from being contentious even if your husband doesn't love you.

God says that in his grace are all the tools to take your weakness and refashion it into a strength. It is sufficient!

It is adequate for the purpose! It is enough! Nothing needs to be added!

Even it your background is horrible. Even if you say that this is the way I am and I cannot change. I've been this way all my life and I'm not about to change.

So we enter this proverb simply knowing that this wife is contentious.

This woman is given to angry debate.

She is quarrelsome and perverse.

She likes to engage in a contest of wills with her husband, and she likes to win.

Solomon knew wives.  Solomon knows wives and you know Solomon! He knew 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Even if this proverb was not in the Word of God we could take his word for this saying based upon his experience.

Any man who has 700 wives has some that are contentious even though he was King of Israel.

This is the word picture that he gives here. Picture continuous rain. It is a very rainy day. There is continuous dripping off the roof onto, perhaps a barrel top.

The sound is heard continuously. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, etc. ad infinitum. The man sits in the house and listens to the constant noise of the drip.

It just continues and continues without letup. Drip, drip, drip, drip. So too is a contentious woman.