18:14 A person’s spirit 1 sustains him through sickness –
but who can bear 2 a crushed spirit? 3
1 tn Heb “the spirit of a man.” Because the verb of this clause is a masculine form, some have translated this line as “with spirit a man sustains,” but that is an unnecessary change.
2 sn This is a rhetorical question, asserting that very few can cope with depression.
3 sn The figure of a “crushed spirit” (ASV, NAB, NCV, NRSV “a broken spirit,” comparing depression to something smashed or crushed) suggests a broken will, a loss of vitality, despair, and emotional pain. In physical sickness one can fall back on the will to live; but in depression even the will to live is gone.