Children as Arrows Shot from a Parent's Bow

David's metaphor of children as arrows cuts to the very heart of parental responsibility and spiritual legacy. Henry Smith, the Elizabethan preacher, illuminated this image with piercing clarity: arrows, once released from the bow, fly toward their intended target with no power to recall them. If children are well bred—trained in righteousness, shaped by godly instruction, and aimed toward truth—they become arrows that strike at the enemies of their parents: ignorance, vice, and spiritual darkness.…