Proverbs 12:25

12:25 Anxiety ¹  in a person’s heart ²  weighs him down, ³ 

but an encouraging ⁴  word brings him joy. ⁵ 

Proverbs 15:13

15:13 A joyful heart ⁶  makes the face cheerful, ⁷ 

but by a painful heart the spirit is broken.

Proverbs 18:14

18:14 A person’s spirit ⁸  sustains him through sickness –

but who can bear ⁹  a crushed spirit? ¹⁰ 

Ecclesiastes 9:7-9

Life is Brief, so Cherish its Joys

9:7 Go, eat your food ¹¹  with joy,

and drink your wine with a happy heart,

because God has already approved your works.

9:8 Let your clothes always be white,

and do not spare precious ointment on your head.

9:9 Enjoy ¹²  life with your beloved wife ¹³  during all the days of your fleeting ¹⁴  life

that God ¹⁵  has given you on earth ¹⁶  during all your fleeting days; ¹⁷ 

for that is your reward in life and in your burdensome work ¹⁸  on earth. ¹⁹ 

Romans 5:2-5

5:2 through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice ²⁰  in the hope of God’s glory. 5:3 Not ²¹  only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 5:4 and endurance, character, and character, hope. 5:5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God ²²  has been poured out ²³  in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

[12:25]  ¹ tn The word “anxiety” (דְּאָגָה, dÿ’agah) combines anxiety and fear – anxious fear (e.g., Jer 49:23; Ezek 4:16); and for the verb (e.g., Ps 38:18; Jer 17:8).

[12:25]  ² tn Heb “the heart of a man.”

[12:25]  ³ tn Heb “bows it [= his heart] down.” Anxiety weighs heavily on the heart, causing depression. The spirit is brought low.

[12:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “good.” The Hebrew word “good” (טוֹב, tov) refers to what is beneficial for life, promotes life, creates life or protects life. The “good word” here would include encouragement, kindness, and insight – the person needs to regain the proper perspective on life and renew his confidence.

[12:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “makes it [= his heart] glad.” The similarly sounding terms יַשְׁחֶנָּה (yashkhennah, “weighs it down”) and יְשַׂמְּחֶנָּה (yÿsammÿkhennah, “makes it glad”) create a wordplay (paronomasia) that dramatically emphasizes the polar opposite emotional states: depression versus joy.

[15:13]  ⁶ tn The contrast in this proverb is between the “joyful heart” (Heb “a heart of joy,” using an attributive genitive) and the “painful heart” (Heb “pain of the heart,” using a genitive of specification).

[15:13]  ⁷ sn The verb יֵיטִב (yetiv) normally means “to make good,” but here “to make the face good,” that is, there is a healthy, favorable, uplifted expression. The antithesis is the pained heart that crushes the spirit. C. H. Toy observes that a broken spirit is expressed by a sad face, while a cheerful face shows a courageous spirit (Proverbs [ICC], 308).

[18:14]  ¹¹ 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.

[18:14]  ¹² sn This is a rhetorical question, asserting that very few can cope with depression.

[18:14]  ¹³ 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.

[9:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “your bread.”

[9:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “see.”

[9:9]  ²² tn Heb “the wife whom you love.”

[9:9]  ²³ tn As discussed in the note on the word “futile” in 1:2, the term הֶבֶל (hevel) has a wide range of meanings, and should not be translated the same in every place (see HALOT 236–37 s.v. I הֶבֶל; BDB 210–11 s.v. I הבֶל). The term is used in two basic ways in OT, literally and figuratively. The literal, concrete sense is used in reference to the wind, man’s transitory breath, evanescent vapor (Isa 57:13; Pss 62:10; 144:4; Prov 21:6; Job 7:16). In this sense, it is often a synonym for “breath; wind” (Eccl 1:14; Isa 57:13; Jer 10:14). The literal sense lent itself to the metaphorical sense. Because breath/vapor/wind is transitory and fleeting, the figurative connotation “fleeting; transitory” arose (e.g., Prov 31:30; Eccl 6:12; 7:15; 9:9; 11:10; Job 7:16). In this sense, it is parallel to “few days” and “[days] which he passes like a shadow” (Eccl 6:12). It is used in reference to youth and vigor (11:10) or life (6:12; 7:15; 9:9) which are “transitory” or “fleeting.” In this context, the most appropriate meaning is “fleeting.”

[9:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “under the sun”

[9:9]  ²⁶ tc The phrase כָּל יְמֵי הֶבְלֶךָ (kol yÿme hevlekha, “all your fleeting days”) is present in the MT, but absent in the Greek versions, other medieval Hebrew mss, and the Targum. Its appearance in the MT may be due to dittography (repetition: the scribe wrote twice what should have been written once) from כָּל יְמֵי חַיֵּי הֶבְלֶךָ (kol yÿme khayye hevlekha, “all the days of your fleeting life”) which appears in the preceding line. On the other hand, its omission in the alternate textual tradition may be due to haplography (accidental omission of repeated words) with the earlier line.

[9:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in your toil in which you toil.”

[9:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “under the sun.”

[5:2]  ²⁶ tn Or “exult, boast.”

[5:3]  ³¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[5:5]  ³⁶ tn The phrase ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ (Jh agaph tou qeou, “the love of God”) could be interpreted as either an objective genitive (“our love for God”), subjective genitive (“God’s love for us”), or both (M. Zerwick’s “general” genitive [Biblical Greek, §§36-39]; D. B. Wallace’s “plenary” genitive [ExSyn 119-21]). The immediate context, which discusses what God has done for believers, favors a subjective genitive, but the fact that this love is poured out within the hearts of believers implies that it may be the source for believers’ love for God; consequently an objective genitive cannot be ruled out. It is possible that both these ideas are meant in the text and that this is a plenary genitive: “The love that comes from God and that produces our love for God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (ExSyn 121).

[5:5]  ³⁷ sn On the OT background of the Spirit being poured out, see Isa 32:15; Joel 2:28-29.