Children of Lawful Marriage: Fountains Dispersed Abroad

Proverbs 5:16 employs the image of fountains and rivers to describe children born within the covenant of marriage. The ancient preacher Francis Taylor, B.D., explicates this metaphor with Victorian clarity: lawful children flow forth like streams blessed by Elohim Himself.

First, these children arrive in plenty—God's blessing accompanies the marriage covenant. They embody purity, for pure fountains produce pure streams; unlawful intercourse remains barren by contrast. They spread abroad across generations, bearing witness to covenant faithfulness. They prove profitable, enriching both household and society.

Children constitute the supreme comfort of matrimony precisely because they represent both parents joined in flesh and spirit. They become the firm bond—desmos in Greek terms—that weaves love, peace, and reconciliation between husband and wife across decades.

Parents need harbour no shame in their offspring. Children arrive God's way, through the covenant He established; this pathway carries no disgrace. There exists hope that they shall prove virtuous. Well-bred children may rise to preferment in the State, gaining honourable station. Their posterity promises to continue the line of righteousness.

When Proverbs speaks of dispersed fountains, it celebrates not mere biological reproduction, but the sacred multiplication of covenant families—generations flowing outward in blessing, purity, and hope, spreading the heritage of faith across time.