The heart knows its own bitterness and joy; he will not share these with a stranger.
Parallel Translations
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The heart knows its own bitterness and joy; he will not share these with a stranger.
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The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
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The heart knoweth its own bitterness; and with its joy no stranger can intermeddle.
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Proverbs 14:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 18:14 A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?
- Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
- Proverbs 15:13 A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but an aching heart breaks the spirit.
- Job 10:1 “My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
- John 14:18 I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.
- Revelation 2:17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.
- 1 Samuel 1:10 She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to Yahweh, weeping bitterly.
- Job 7:11 “Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
- Psalms 25:14 The friendship of Yahweh is with those who fear him. He will show them his covenant.
- Mark 14:33-34 He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be greatly troubled and distressed. He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch.”
- John 12:27 “Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time?’ But I came to this time for this cause.
- 1 Peter 1:8 whom, not having known, you love. In him, though now you don’t see him, yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory,
- 2 Kings 4:27 When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to thrust her away; but the man of God said, “Leave her alone; for her soul is troubled within her; and Yahweh has hidden it from me, and has not told me.”
- Job 6:2-4 “Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore have my words been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
- Job 9:18 He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
- Ezekiel 3:14 So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and Yahweh’s hand was strong on me.
- Genesis 42:21 They said to one another, “We are certainly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn’t listen. Therefore this distress has come upon us.”
- John 14:23 Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (21 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain As a man’s conscience is witness of his own…
As a man’s conscience is witness of his own grief, so another cannot feel the joy and comfort which a man feeleth in himself.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Pro 14:10 The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and…
Pro 14:10 The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
Ver. 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness] None can conceive the terrors and torments of a heart that lies under the sense of sin and fear of wrath. A little water in a leaden vessel is heavy. Some can bear in their grief better than others; but all that are under this affliction have their back burden. Job’s "stroke was heavier than his groaning," {Job 23:2} and yet his complaint was bitter too. Some holy men, as Mr Leaver, have desired to see their sin in the most ugly colours, and God hath heard them. But yet his hand was so heavy upon them that they went always mourning to their graves, and thought it fitter to leave it to God’s wisdom to mingle the portion of sorrow than to be their own choosers. {a}
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And the stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.] None but such as are of the "family of faith" {Gal 6:10} can conceive the surpassing sweetness of spiritual joy. The cock on the dunghill knows not the worth of this jewel. It is joy "unspeakable"; {1Pe 1:8} such as none feel but those that stir up sighs "unutterable." {Rom 8:26} It is joy "unspeakable, and full of glory," a hansel of heaven, a foretaste of eternal life. It is the peace that "passeth all understanding"; {Php 4:7} they that have it understand not the full of it, nor can relate the one-half of it. Paul said somewhat to the point, when he said, "I do over abound exceedingly {b} with joy," but words are too weak to utter it. Father Latimer said somewhat, when he said it was the ‘deserts of the feast of a good conscience.’ But sermo non valet exprimere, experimento opus est. {c} It is a thing fitter to be believed, than possible to be discoursed. Tell a man never so long what a sweet thing honey is, he can never believe you so well as if he himself tastes it. Those that never yet "tasted how good the Lord is," {Psa 34:8} are far from intermeddling with the just man’s joy. ‘The world wonders,’ saith Mr Philpot, martyr, ‘how we can be so merry in such extreme misery; but our God is omnipotent, who turns misery into felicity. Believe me, there is no such joy in the world as the people of Christ have under the cross. I speak it by experience.’ {d} Another holy martyr, Richard Collier, after his condemnation sang a psalm; wherefore the priests and the officers railed at him, saying, He was out of his wits. {e}
{a} Dr Sibbes.
{b} υπερπερισσευομαι, 2Co 7:4.
{c} Chrysos.
{d} Acts and Mon., fol. 1668.
{e} Ibid., 1533.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The sense of the verse is this, The inward…
The sense of the verse is this, The inward griefs and joys of men’s hearts, though sometimes they may be guessed at by outward signs, yet are not certainly known to any but a man’s self. Compare 1Co 2:11. The scope of the parable may be to keep men from murmuring under their own troubles, or envying other men’s happiness.
A stranger, any other person without or besides a man’s self, doth not intermeddle with his joy; doth not partake of it, nor understand it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain This agrees with Co1 2:11, What man knows the…
This agrees with Co1 2:11, What man knows the things of a man, and the changes of his temper, save the spirit of a man? 1. Every man feels most from his own burden, especially that which is a burden upon the spirits, for that is commonly concealed and the sufferer keeps it to himself. We must not censure the griefs of others, for we know not what they feel; their stroke perhaps is heavier than their groaning. 2. Many enjoy a secret pleasure, especially in divine consolations, which others are not aware of, much less are sharers in; and, as the sorrows of a penitent, so the joys of a believer are such as a stranger does not intermeddle with and therefore is no competent judge of.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The heart knoweth his own bitterness,.... Or "the bitterness…
The heart knoweth his own bitterness,.... Or "the bitterness of his soul" (l), the distress of his conscience, the anguish of his mind; the heart of man only knows the whole of it; something of it may be known to others by his looks, his words, and gestures, but not all of it; see Co1 2:10; bitterness of soul often arises from outward troubles, pains, and diseases of body, losses, crosses, and disappointments, Sa1 1:10. Sometimes it is upon spiritual accounts; but this is not the case of every heart; men may be in the gall of bitterness, and have no bitterness of soul on account of it; the sensualist and voluptuous worldling feels nothing of it, nor the hardened and hardhearted sinner; only such who are awakened and convinced by the Spirit of God; to these, as sin is a bitter thing in itself, it is so to their taste; it makes hitter work for repentance in them; it brings trembling and astonishment on them; fills them with shame and confusion of face, causes self-loathing and abhorrence, and severe reflections upon themselves; seeing sin in its own colours, they are cut to the heart and killed with it; they are pressed down with the guilt of sin, and the load of it; and, having no views of pardon, are in that distress and bitterness of soul which no tongue can express nor heart conceive but what has felt the same;
and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy; or "mingle himself with it" (m); he does not share in it or partake of it; this is more especially true of spiritual joy, which, as it is unspeakable to the man that possesses it, it passes the understanding of a natural man; he can form no true idea of it: spiritual joy is what a sensible sinner partakes of upon the Gospel, the joyful sound of salvation, reaching his ears and his heart, at the revelation of Christ in him and to him, as a Saviour; when an application of pardoning grace is made to his soul, and he has a view of the complete righteousness of Christ, and his interest in it, and can see all his sins expiated and stoned for by his sacrifice; when he is favoured with a sight of the fulness of grace in Christ, and of the spiritual and eternal salvation he has wrought out for him; and likewise when he is indulged with a visit from him, and enjoys communion with him; and when he has a glimpse of eternal glory, and a well grounded hope of right unto it, and meetness for it: now a stranger, one that is a stranger to God and godliness, to Christ and the way of salvation by him, to the Spirit and his work of grace upon the heart, to the Gospel and the doctrines of it, to his own heart and the plague of it, to the saints and communion with them; knows nothing at all of the above joy, nor can he interrupt it, nor take it away.
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(l) "amaritudine animae suae", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis. (m) "non immiscet se", Michaelis, so Tigurine version; "non miscebit sese", Baynus; "non intermiscet se", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Bitterness - The inward griefs and joys of mens…
Bitterness - The inward griefs and joys of mens hearts, are not known to any but a man's self.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness] מרת…
Verse 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness] מרת נפשו morrath naphsho, "The bitterness of its soul." Under spiritual sorrow, the heart feels, the soul feels; all the animal nature feels and suffers. But when the peace of God is spoken to the troubled soul, the joy is indescribable; the whole man partakes of it. And a stranger to these religious feelings, to the travail of the soul, and to the witness of the Spirit, does not intermeddle with them; he does not understand them: indeed they may be even foolishness to him, because they are spiritually discerned.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Pro 14:10. The heart knoweth its own bitterness —…
Pro 14:10. The heart knoweth its own bitterness — The inward griefs and joys of men’s hearts, though sometimes they may be partly manifested by outward signs, yet are not certainly and fully known to any but the persons themselves who are the subjects of them; or, as Bishop Patrick paraphrases the verse, “Nobody can know what another suffers so well as the sufferer himself; and he alone is privy to the greatness of that joy which springs from the happy conclusion of his sufferings.” The scope of the proverb may be, to keep men from murmuring under their own troubles, or envying other men’s happiness.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain A striking expression of the ultimate solitude of each…
A striking expression of the ultimate solitude of each man’s soul at all times, and not merely at the hour of death. Something there is in every sorrow, and in every joy, which no one else can share. Beyond that range it is well to remember that there is a Divine Sympathy, uniting perfect knowledge and perfect love.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain A graphical illustration of man’s proper individuality! "What man…
A graphical illustration of man’s proper individuality! "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man that is in him?" (1Co 2:11 .) The history of the soul is only fully known and felt by the conscious subject. Each knoweth his own bitterness, deep, interior.†1 The most poignant sufferings often arise from causes, which cannot be told to our dearest friend.†2 No two of us are framed alike; and this diversity of mind and character precludes a perfect reciprocity even in the warmest glow of human sympathy. Each only knows where the heart is wrung. Each therefore must in a measure tread a solitary path, and in that path often submit to be misunderstood. Hannah, knowing her own bitterness, was rashly rebuked by him, who ought to have been her comfort. (1Sa 1:10-13 .) Gehazi harshly repelled the Shunamite, through ignorance of her bitter sorrow. (2Ki 4:27 .) Job’s friends, from misconception, proved to be "miserable comforters, physicians of no value." (Job 13:4 ; Job 16:2 .)
But think of Him, who made himself "a man of sorrows," that he might be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." (Isa 53:3 . Heb 4:15 .) This is not the common love to the whole family, but an individual interest of fellowship, as if each had his whole heart, and each was loved alone. The heart’s bitterness is experimentally known, and effectually relieved. (Isa 50:4-5 .) Man — very man as he is even on the throne of God — he is alive to all our sorrows. (Isa 63:9 .) None of his members are too low for his highest and most endearing thoughts. Into this bosom we may pour the tale of woe, which no ear besides can receive. We may not be able to comprehend it. But he will make us feel, that his sympathy with sorrow is no fiction, but a precious reality. My Savior! Has my heart a bitterness, that thou dost not know, that thou dost not feel with me, and for which thou dost not provide a present cordial and support?
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No less individual is the heart’s joy. It lies deep within itself. A stranger doth not intermeddle with it. Michal could understand David’s bravery, not his joy. She knew him as a man of war, not as a man of God. (1Sa 18:20 . 2Sa 6:16 .) Indeed, joy is a plant in "a garden enclosed," a stream from "a fountain sealed." (Song of Son 4:12 .) It is "the secret of the LORD, which is with the righteous." (Pro 3:32 . Psa 25:14 .) It is the indwelling "Comforter, whom the world cannot receive." (Joh 14:16-17 .) Yes truly — that is the highest joy, that the man hides in his own bosom, covered from observation. There is no noise, or froth on the surface. But they are deep waters of a Divine spring. Christ takes the believer apart from the crowd, feeds him on hidden manna (Rev 2:17 ), and makes him partaker of his own joy. Whatever cause there may be for mourning, there is "joy from our sorrow" (Jer 31:13 ), in the midst of it (Rom 5:3 ), and as the everlasting fruit of it. (Isa 60:20 .)
Footnotes:
†1 1Ki 8:38-39 . ’Every one is inwardly the only true and faithful judge of his own joys and sorrows, and none else can truly perceive them.’ — Diodati in loco. ’Each mind has an interior apartment of his own, into which none but itself and the Divinity can enter.’ — Foster On a Man writing Memoirs of himself, Letter vii.
†2 Thus the Savior separated himself even from his chosen disciples. Mar 14:32-35 .
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Stranger. Such cannot well comfort the afflicted. A man…
Stranger. Such cannot well comfort the afflicted. A man is alone acquainted with the affections of his own heart. Septuagint, "he mixeth not insult" (Symmachus) "with strangers."
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Each one best knows his own sorrows or joys.
Each one best knows his own sorrows or joys.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness — Hebrew,…
10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness — Hebrew, the heart knows the bitterness of his soul; that is, the bitterness of itself, or its own bitterness. Nephesh is often used in default of a reflexive pronoun. Comp. Pro_12:23. When our version was made the neuter singular pronoun its had not come into use. We now say its instead of his. The sentiment of the proverb is, that every one knows his own experiences, whether of sorrow or of joy, better than it is possible for another to know them.
Intermeddle — Intermix or become familiar with, understand thoroughly. Comp. 1Co_2:11; 1Co_5:13. The proverb teaches the perfect individuality of each soul. Something there is in every sorrow, in every joy, that no one else can share. But there is a divine sympathizer, uniting perfect knowledge with perfect love. — Speaker’s Commentary.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 10. The poet of the Christian Year has caught…
10. The poet of the Christian Year has caught something of the beauty and pathos of this proverb as he writes:
“Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe
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Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart.”
“Nor e’en the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh”;
and Matthew Arnold (quoted by Horton):
“Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery waste,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.”
It is worth quoting, if only as a foil to it, the prosaic apothegm, “None knows the weight of another’s burden,” Geo. Herbert, Jac. Prud.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (10) The heart knoweth his own bitterness . .…
(10) The heart knoweth his own bitterness . . .—None Can perfectly sympathise with the sorrows or joys of others, except the ideal Son of Man, who came to “bear our griefs and carry our sorrows” (comp. Heb_4:15), yet could join in the marriage feast at Cana.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The heart knoweth its own bitterness; literally, the heart…
The heart knoweth its own bitterness; literally, the heart (leb) knoweth the bitterness of his soul (nephesh). Neither our joys nor our sorrows can be wholly shared with another; no person stands in such intimate relation to us, or can put himself so entirely in our place, as to feel that which we feel. There is many a dark spot, many a grief, of which our best friend knows nothing; the skeleton is locked in the cupboard, and no one has the key but ourselves. But we can turn with confidence to the God-Man, Jesus, who knows our frame, who wept human tears, and bore our sorrows, and was in all points tempted like as we are, and who has taken his human experience with him into heaven. A stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy. The contrast is between the heart"s sorrow and its joy; both alike in their entirety are beyond the ken of strangers. St. Gregory remarks on this passage ("Moral.," 6:23), "The human mind "knoweth its own soul"s bitterness" when, inflamed with aspirations after the eternal land, it learns by weeping the sorrowfulness of its pilgrimage. But "the stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy," in that he, that is now a stranger to the grief of compunction, is not then a partaker in the joy of consolation." A homely proverb says, "No one knows where the shoe pinches so well as he that wears it;" and an Italian maxim runs, "Ad ognuno par piu grave la croce sua every one his own cross seems heaviest." Septuagint, "The heart of man is sensitive (aisyhtikh ), his soul is sorrowful; but when it rejoices, it has no intermingling of insolence;" i.e. when a man"s mind is sensitive it is easily depressed by grief; but when it is elated by joy, it should receive its pleasure and relief without arrogance and ribaldry.
Incommunicable experience.
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I THE DEEPEST EXPERIENCE IS SOLITARY. This applies both to sorrows and to joys. There are profound sorrows which must lie buried in the hearts of the sufferers, and lofty joys which cannot be breathed to another soul. Sorrow has her shrine, which no intruder can enter without desecrating it; and joy her sweet silence, to break which is to shatter the delight.
1. Each soul lives a separate, life. We are like planets, moving in our own spheres. Though we mingle in social intercourse, we do not touch in our most vital being. The "abysmal depths of personality" are utterly solitary.
2. No two natures are just alike. In common we share many pleasures and pains. But when we come to what is most characteristic, we reach a line of demarcation which the most sympathetic can never cross. We cannot enter into experiences quite unlike our own. We have not the key to unlock the mystery of a lonely sorrow or a rare joy.
3. The deepest experience is shy and reserved. Those who feel most do not cry out the loudest. It is the silent grief that eats out a man"s heart. Though yearning for sympathy, he feels that he cannot breathe a word of his awful trouble. On the other hand, there are pure and lofty joys of soul that would be sullied with a breath.
II FORCED SYMPATHY IS HURTFUL. We ought to be able to "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep". (Rom_12:15) When sympathy can be real, it may be most helpful. But there is no opposition between this thought and that of our text. For just as real sympathy helps, unreal sympathy hurts. Now, sympathy may be unreal without being hypocritical, and even when it is well meant and heartfelt; if we do not understand a person"s feelings, we cannot sympathize with him. We may feel kindly towards him, and may desire to show compassion. But it will be all in vain, we shall not touch the fringe of the trouble, or, if we do penetrate further, we shall jar and wound the sensitive soul by blundering incompetence. It will be like a surgeon trying to dress a wound in the dark. Thus Macduff, when robbed of all his children at one cruel stroke is only vexed by the kindly but impotent condolence of Malcom, and cries, "He has no children.
III GOD"S SYMPATHY PENETRATES TO THE DEEPEST EXPERIENCE.
1. He knows all. We have not to explain our case to him, and then be misunderstood and misjudged after all, as often happens in the attempt to open out the heart to a fellow man. For God reads our most secret thoughts, and the feelings that we will not even confess to ourselves are perfectly known to him.
2. He feels with his children. He is not like the scientific vivisectionist, who handles quivering nerves without a spark of compunction. God tenderly pities his children in their sorrows, and graciously smiles on their innocent joys.
3. He can touch us with sympathy. This sympathy of God is not a distant heavenly experience hidden in the bosom of God. It is shed abroad over his children fur their consolation in sorrow and their blessedness in joy.
4. We should confide in the sympathy of God. It is not wholesome for the soul to be buried in the seclusion of its own feelings. There is healing in the sympathizing touch of God and a consecrating benediction in his smile. Christ is the incarnation of God"s human sympathy, and Christ"s sympathy can reach and save and bless us all.
Vers. 10-13. Loneliness and laughter.
The tenth verse suggests to us the serious and solemnizing fact of
I THE ELEMENT OF LONELINESS IN HUMAN LIFE. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," etc. In one aspect our life path is thronged. It is becoming more and more difficult to be alone. Hours that were once sacred to solitude are now invaded by society. And yet it remains true that "in the central depths of our nature we are alone." There is a point at which, as he goes inward, our nearest neighbour, our most intimate friend, must stop; there is a sanctuary of the soul into which no foot intrudes. It is there where we make our ultimate decision for good or evil; it is there where we experience our truest joys and our profoundest griefs; it is there where we live our truest life. We may so crowd our life with duties and with pleasures that we may reduce to its smallest radius this innermost circle; but some time must we spend there, and the great decisive experiences must we there go through. There we taste our very sweetest satisfactions, and there we bear our very heaviest burdens. And no one but the Father of spirits can enter into that secret place of the soul. So true is it that "Not e"en the dearest heart, and nearest to our own, Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh.
It is well for us to remember that there is more, both of happiness and of sorrow, than we can see; well, that we may not be overburdened with the weight of the manifold and multiplied evils we are facing; well, that we may realize how strong is the reason that, when our cup of prosperity is full, we may have "the heart at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize" with those who, beneath a smiling countenance, may carry a very heavy heart. For we have to consider
II THE SUPERFICIAL ELEMENT IN MUCH HUMAN GLADNESS. "Even in laughter," etc. A man may smile and smile, and be most melancholy. To wear a smile upon our countenance, or to conclude our sentences with laughter, is often only a mere trick of style, a mere habit of life, cultivated with little difficulty. A true smile, an honest, laugh, that comes not from the lips or from the lungs, but from the heart, is a very acceptable and a very admirable thing. But a false smile and a forced laugh bespeak a double-minded soul and a doubtful character. Surely the angels of God weep almost, as much over the laughter as over the tears of mankind. For beneath its sound they may hear all too much that is hollow and unreal, and not a little that is vain and guilty. But, on the other hand, to smile with the glad and to laugh with the merry is a sympathetic grace not to be despised. (Rom_12:15, first clause)
III THE ISSUE OF FALSE SATISFACTIONS. "The end of that mirth is heaviness." How often is heaviness the end of mirth! All enjoyment that does not carry with it the approval of the conscience, all that is disregardful of the Divine Law, all that is a violation of the laws of our physical or our spiritual nature, must end and does end, sooner or later, in heaviness in depression of spirit, in decline of power. It is a sorry thing for a man to accustom himself to momentary mirth, to present pleasure at the expense of future joy, of well being in later years.
LESSONS.
1. Let the necessary solitariness of life lead us to choose the very best friendships we can form; that we may have those who can go far and often with us into the recesses of our spirit, and accompany us, as far as man can, in the larger and deeper experiences of our life.
2. Let the superficiality of much happiness lead us to inquire of ourselves whether we have planted in our soul the deeper roots of joy; those which will survive every test and trial of life, and which will be in us when we have left time and sense altogether behind us.
3. Let the perilous nature of some gratifications impose on us the duty of a wise watchfulness; that we may banish forever from heart and life all injurious delights which "war against the soul," and rob us of our true heritage here and in the heavenly country. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger…
Pro_14:10
The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
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Man unknown to man
You cannot completely know your fellow-man. Every man is, in a measure, self-contained. Alone are we born, one by one; alone do we die, one by one. It is not surprising that we must be, in a measure, unknown to others, since we do not even fully know ourselves. There are points of individuality in each man which render him distinct from every other. Men in their highest and deepest conditions are remarkably secretive. The extreme heights and depths lie in darkness. Learn, then, that we may not judge our brethren as though we understood them, and were competent to give a verdict upon them. If we desire to show sympathy to our brethren, let us not dream that this is an easy task. Study the art of sympathy. We all need sympathy, and there is but One who can fully give it to us.
I. The heart knows a bitterness peculiar to itself. This is true in a natural, common, and moral sense. Concerning any man this is true. The shoe pinches on every foot, and that foot alone knows where the pinch is felt. Do not intrude into the hidden sorrows of any. Most solemnly this is true concerning the godless man and concerning the awakened man. When the Holy Spirit begins to convince the man of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, then the heart knoweth its own bitterness. And concerning the backslider. And concerning the tried believer. But the singularity of his suffering is the dream of the sufferer. Others have seen affliction too. Know thy sorrow well. And remember that the cure for bitterness of heart is to take it to your Lord at once.
II. The heart knows a sweetness which is all its own.
1. The joy of pardoned sin.
2. The bliss of vanquished evil.
3. The joy of perfect reconciliation with God.
4. The joy of accepted service.
5. The joy of answered prayer.
6. The joy of peace in the time of trouble.
7. The joy of communion with God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
On the joy and the bitterness of the heart
The sources of the joy or bitterness of the heart are two.
1. A mans own mind of temper--a mans personal character. Every man is more connected with himself than with any external object. He is constantly a companion to himself in his own thoughts; and what he meets with there must, of all things, contribute most to his happiness or his disquiet. A good conscience, and good temper, prepare, even in the midst of poverty, a continual feast. How sadly the scene is reversed if a mans temper, instead of calmness and self-enjoyment, shall yield him nothing but disquiet and painful agitation. The wounds which the spirit suffers are owing chiefly to three causes: to folly, to passion, or to guilt. The external misfortunes of life, disappointments, poverty, and sickness are nothing in comparison of those inward distresses of mind occasioned by folly, by passion, and by guilt.
2. The connection in which a man stands with some of his fellow-creatures--a mans social feelings. Such causes of sorrow or joy are of an external nature. Having connected us in society by many ties, it is the decree of the Creator that these ties should prove, both during their subsistence and in their dissolution, causes of pleasure or pain immediately, and often deeply affecting the human heart. The most material circumstances of trouble or felicity, next to the state of our own mind and temper, are the sensations and affections which arise from the connections we have from others.
The practical improvement to which this doctrine leads:
1. Let it serve to moderate our passion for riches and high situations in the world. It is well known that the eager pursuit of these is the chief incentive to the crimes that fill the world. Then contemplate these things with an impartial eye.
2. Let these observations correct our mistakes, and check our complaints, concerning a supposed promiscuous distribution of happiness in this world. The charge of injustice brought against Providence rests entirely on this ground, that the happiness and misery of men may be estimated by the degree of their external prosperity. This is the delusion under which the multitude have always laboured, but which a just consideration of the invisible springs of happiness that affect the heart is sufficient to correct. Judge not of the real condition of men from what floats merely on the surface of their state.
3. Let us turn our attention to those internal sources of happiness or misery on which so much depends. What is amiss or disordered within, in consequence of folly, passion, or guilt, may be rectified by due care under the assistance of Divine grace.
4. Let us frequently look up to Him who made the human heart, and implore His assistance in the regulation and government of it. The employments of devotion themselves form one of the most powerful means of composing and tranquillising the heart. Devotion opens a sanctuary to which they whose hearts have been most deeply wounded can always fly. (Hugh Blair, D.D.)
The secret sorrows and joys of the heart known to God
Each mans heart is to himself a solitude, into which he can retire and be alone, indulging his own thoughts without an associate and without a witness. There is a world within which must lie undiscovered by the acutest observer. And we could not make the discovery to others even if we would. It would not be possible to communicate to another all that is within us. It is one of the delights and benefits of friendship that it helps men, in a measure, to open their minds to one another. But this can only be done in part. Every one has his reserve. This is especially true respecting the sorrows and joys of religion. No Christian can find a spirit so perfectly kindred to his own as to be able to comprehend all the sources of his grief or of his gladness. In many a sorrow, and in many a joy, he must be solitary. He could not make a full revelation of himself if he would; he would not if he could. God hath so ordered it that no man can fully reveal to another the secrets of his soul. This truth is of the utmost importance when set beside the other truth, that God knoweth us altogether. Two practical lessons:
1. If God is thus near to us, nearer than the closest and most intimate friend can be, we ought to feel His nearness, and bear about with us the constant sense of it.
2. If our hearts are in a great measure shut out from our fellow-man, and open only to God, it is in His sympathy that we should seek our happiness. (G. Bellett.)
Cases of bitterness of heart
I. Of unrevealed and neglected sorrows, a large proportion arises from a strong, natural propensity to dejection and melancholy. As wounds which are occasioned by external violence are more conspicuous, but less dangerous, than the hidden disease which preys upon the vital parts. Some whose circumstances are prosperous are always in the glooms, their feeble mind spreads its malignant tincture over every surrounding prospect. Spectators form their opinions from exterior circumstances, hence they cannot give their sympathy where they cannot observe sufficient cause of misery. Were they ever so much disposed to give it this miserable man would have none of their comfort.
II. There is a class of men who might succeed better in procuring the sympathy of the world could they but tell the cause of their sorrow. Disappointments in a long train have fallen upon the mans head, and the manliness of his spirit is subdued, and he surrenders himself a willing subject to peevishness and despair. Ambition defeated may fret and chagrin the aspiring mind. Affection slighted gives a deep and incurable wound to the man of a feeling heart.
III. The man who secretly grieves for the treachery of a friend has even a more serious claim upon our sympathy. Such a man is sure to say, My bitterness shall be known only to my own heart.
IV. Domestic sources of disquetude. These, from motives of delicacy, are secreted from the notice and sympathy of the world.
V. Cases of persons who have changed their station in life, and cannot fit to their new conditions. As in imperfectly assorted marriages. What misery is experienced which must be kept in reserve.
VI. The man who carries grief in his bosom on account of conscious imperfection and inconsistency of character. He has often resolved upon reformation, made strenuous efforts against temptations, but has failed and relapsed again under the bondage of sin. This has occasioned miserable agitation and perplexity of soul. He mourns in secret that he is not such as his own resolutions prescribe, and the world around him believes him to be. To all earnest persons it is a matter of deep concern to find that a great proportion of secret sorrow falls to the share of those who are most useful, and deserve best from society. (T. Somerville, D.D.)
The hearts hidden depths
Though men live in towns and cities, and in social gatherings, each man is a world to himself. He is as distinct, even from him who is in closest material or mental contact with him, as one orb of heaven is from another.
I. The heart has hidden depths of sorrow. There is bitterness in every heart.
1. There is the bitterness of disappointed love.
2. There is the bitterness of social bereavement--Rachels weeping for their lost children, and Davids for their Absaloms.
3. There is the bitterness of moral remorse. All this is hidden where it is the most deep.
The deepest sorrow in the human heart is hidden from others from three causes.
1. The insulating tendency of deep grief. Deep sorrow withdraws from society and seeks some Gethsemane of solitude.
2. The concealing instinct of deep grief. Men parade little sorrows, but conceal great ones. Deep sorrows are mute.
3. The incapacity of one soul to sound the depths of another. There is such a peculiarity in the constitution and circumstances of each soul that one can never fully understand another.
II. The heart has hidden depths of joy. A stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy. Though joy is less self-concealing than sorrow, yet it has depths unknown to any but its possessor and its God. The joy that rushed into Abrahams heart when Isaac descended with him from the altar on Moriah; the joy of the father when he pressed his prodigal son to his bosom; the joy of the widow of Nain when her only son raised himself from the bier, and returned to gladden her lowly home; the joy of the broken-hearted woman when she heard Christ say, Thy sins are all forgiven thee; such joy has depths that no outward eye could penetrate. The joy of the true Christian is indeed a joy unspeakable and full of glory. This subject furnishes an argument--
1. For candour amongst men.
2. For piety towards God.
Though men know us not, God does. (Homilist.)
Bitterness of heart
While the Christian has no promise of exemption from the general sufferings of humanity, he has trials peculiar to the life of faith.
I. The nature of the Christians bitterness of heart. It is hazardous to represent the Christian life as a scene of constant sunshine and unaltered joy. This has occasioned much uneasiness and disappointment. The heart that is right with God has much anxiety, disquiet, and sorrow. These are dependent on disposition and temperament.
II. The sources of such inward sorrow and distress.
1. The secret consciousness of guilt.
2. The general infirmity of our intellectual and moral constitution. For instance, that depression of animal spirits to which some of the most regularly constituted minds are often most subject, and which no intellectual energy is at times able to dissipate or surmount.
3. Fears of shortcoming are sometimes the result of that increased spirituality of mind which marks the progress of the Divine life. Whatever be the attainments of the Christian, he has often hours of heaviness and alarm, and is troubled with distressing apprehensions respecting the safety of his state before God. This feeling must, of course, be greatly modified by the temper and circumstances of the believer, and in different individuals may arise from different causes. (John Johnston.)
The bitterness and joy of the heart
1. There is a bitterness and a joy of the heart which may be called more peculiarly its own, because it arises from the temper of the mind, which gives its own tone to circumstances and things in themselves indifferent. There is a marked contrast between the minds of different individuals. Every day is full of events which receive the character of good or evil from the mind of the individual related to them. Then, since so much depends on the cultivation of the mind and heart, let this be your chief concern.
2. The heart alone is conscious of its own feelings. Happiness and misery have no existence but in the conscious breast, and they are in a great measure confined to it. There are some sensations which the heart never attempts to express. There are some which it is our wish and endeavour to express. But how faint is the impression which we can convey to other minds of what is passing in our own. There is but one Being beside ourselves who knows our heart in the joys and sorrows of life. There is but one Being who can enter into our feelings amid the bitterness and joy of death. There is but one Being who can be all in all to our souls, in the changes and chances of this mortal life, and amid the unchanging glories of eternity: Acquaint thyself with Him; and be at peace. (George Cole.)
A private apartment of the mind
Each mind possesses m its interior mansions a solemn retired apartment peculiarly its own, into which none but himself and the Deity can enter. (John Foster.)
The hearts refusal of the worlds interference in its bitterness and joy
If you would seek for God, said a pious man of old, descend into your own heart.
I. The imperfect estimate which we form of the real state of the world. One half the world knows not how the other half lives, and certainly one half has no idea of what the other half feels. All have their calamities and sorrows, so that no man has any real occasion for envying his brother. Our afflictions may be divided into those which we suffer from the cruelty of others, those which arise from our own guilt, and those with which Providence, in the general course of His dealings, visits all of us in our turn.
II. The sin of those who trifle with the feelings of an afflicted heart. Illustrate from the child who has brought distress on loving parents; the seducer of innocence; the slanderer and tale-bearer.
III. Those sorrows which arise from a sense of our state towards God. We live, it is true, in a world of much infidelity and sin, but there are many who have accepted the everlasting gospel as the power of God unto salvation. It must have opened on them a very awful view of the things of this life; and when conscience, awakening them to think upon their duty, points to that holy book from which we shall be judged, they can scarcely fail of looking on their life with terror and dismay.
IV. The sorrow arising from the ordinary visitations of providence. But our religion carries consolation with its sorrows. This comes from the belief in the Omniscience of God; in the grace of God; in the promise of remission of sins; in the assurance of a general resurrection. (G. Mathew, M.A.)
On the secret bitterness of the heart
Nothing is to be estimated by its effects upon common eyes and common ears.
1. Among the mental dispositions which prevail with the sufferer to smother his secret pangs and bitternesses from public inspection, the first is pride, whether of a pardonable or an improper description. Timidity is not less solicitous than pride to wrap up its griefs from general observation. Prudence and a sense of duty exert a similar influence.
2. When the circumstances of a sufferer are outward and visible, his perception of his calamity may be far more acute than the common observer surmises. And the heart of a man may be wrung with an unusual bitterness in consequence of its unusually delicate sense of religious and moral obligation.
Practical improvements:
1. The survey delivers a lecture on resignation and contentment and disproves the notion that there is actually any large inequality in the Divine distribution of good and evil among mankind.
2. The subject suggests an instructive lesson of mutual sympathy and kindness in all the varieties of outward condition. There never has breathed yet one individual in the full enjoyment of pure, unalloyed happiness.
3. Take care that the common and unavoidable uneasiness shall not be aggravated by that self-dissatisfaction which arises from wilful disobedience.
4. Remember that we are passing on to a fairer and more faultless condition of being, where the souls of the pious and penitent shall have their capacity for enjoyment filled up to the brim. (J. Grant, M.A.)
The believers sorrows and joys
I. The believers sorrows. There are sorrows common to believers and to unbelievers. There are some peculiar to the renewed man. Those are the most alive to sin who are most free from sin. A strong sense of sin is one of the characteristics of the real man of God. Believers are also at times unable to receive the promises. When comfort is offered they cannot avail themselves of it. Sometimes there is great spiritual depression under a sense of the withdrawal of Gods favour. But there is nothing more dangerous than to leave the soul in this state of bitterness of heart.
II. The believers joys. What is it in which he finds joy?
1. From the joyful sound of the everlasting gospel.
2. The joy of pardoning grace applied to the soul.
3. The fulness of Divine grace.
4. Communion with God. (H. M. Villiers, M.A.)
The inward unapproachable life
We know each others appearance, but there for the most part our mutual knowledge ceases. It is possible to live on terms of even close intimacy with a person for many years, and yet to find, by some chance uplifting of a curtain in his life, that he cherished feelings which you never even suspected, suffered pains of which you had seen no trace, or enjoyed pleasures which never came to any outward expression. The bitterness which surges in our brothers heart would probably be unintelligible to us if he revealed it, but he will not reveal it, he cannot. And yet we all hunger for sympathy. No human being needs to be misunderstood, or to suffer under the sense of misunderstanding. Let him turn at once to God. If he cannot tell his bitterness to his fellows, he can tell it to God. No human being need imagine that he is unappreciated; his fellow-men may not want him, but God does. No human being need be without a sharer of his joy. And that is a great consideration, for joy unshared quickly dies, and is from the beginning haunted by a vague sense of a shadow that is falling upon it. In the heart of the Eternal dwells eternal joy. All loveliness, all sweetness, all goodness, all truth, are the objects of His happy contemplation; therefore every really joyful heart has an immediate sympathiser in God, and prayer is quite as much the means by which we share our gladness as the vehicle by which we convey our sorrows to the Divine heart. (R. F. Horton, D.D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain "The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger…
CHAPTER 15
THE INWARD UNAPPROACHABLE LIFE
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"The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy."- Pro_14:10
"Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of mirth is heaviness."- Pro_14:13
"Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know."
-Matthew Arnold
WE know each others appearance, it is true, but there, for the most part, our mutual knowledge ceases. Some of us unveil nothing of ourselves to anyone; some of us unveil a little to all; some a good deal to a few; but none of us can unveil all even to the most intimate friend. It is possible to live on terms of complete confidence and even close intimacy with a person for many years, to become thoroughly acquainted with his habits, his turns of expression, his modes of thought, to be able to say with a certain infallibility what course he will take in such and such circumstances-and yet to find by some chance uplifting of a curtain in his life that he cherished feelings which you never even suspected, suffered pains of which you had seen no trace, and enjoyed pleasures which never came to any outward expression.
How true this is we realize at once if we turn inwards and review all the thoughts which chase each other through our brain, and all the emotions which throb in our heart for a single day, and then deduct those which are known to any human being, known or even suspected; the sum total we find is hardly affected at all. We are quite startled to discover how absolutely alone we live, how impossible it is for a stranger, or even for an intimate friend, to meddle with more than a fragment of our inner life. This is not because we have any wish to conceal, but rather because we are not able to reveal, our silent unseen selves: it is not because others would not like to know, but because they have not the instruments to investigate, that within us which we on our part arc quite helpless to express.
"For instance, the desire accomplished is sweet to the soul," {Pro_13:19} yet no one can know how sweet but he who cherished the desire. When a man has labored for many years to secure an adequate maintenance for his family, and at length finds himself in easy circumstances, with his children growing up around him well and happy, no one besides himself can in the least gauge the sense of satisfaction, contentment, and gratitude which animates his heart, because no one can realize without actual experience the long and anxious days, the sickening fears, the blighted hopes, the rigorous sacrifices, through which he passed to attain his end. Or, when an artist has been toiling for many years to realize upon canvas a vision of beauty which floats before the inward eye, and at last succeeds, by some happy Combination of colors, or by some dexterous sweep of the brush, or by some half-inspired harmony of form and composition, in actually bodying forth to the senses that which has haunted his imagination, it is hopeless for anyone else to understand the thrilling joy, the lighthearted ecstasy, which are hidden rather than expressed by the quiet flush on the cheek and the sparkling glance of the eye.
The mystical joy of a love which has just won an answering love; the deep-toned joy of the mother in the dawning life of her child; the joy of the poet who feels all the beauty of the earth and the sky pulsing through his nerves and raising his heart to quick intuitions and melodious numbers; the joy of the student, when the luminous outlines of truth begin to shape themselves before his mind in connected form and startling beauty; the joy of one who has toiled for the restoration of lost souls, and sees the fallen and degraded awaking to a new life, cleansed, radiant, and strong; the joy of the martyr of humanity, whose dying moments are lit with visions, and who hears through the mysterious silences of death the voices of those who will one day call him blessed, -joys like these may be described in words, but they who experience them know that the words are, relatively speaking, meaningless, and they who do not experience them can form no conception of them. "When the desire cometh it is a tree of life," {Pro_13:14} which suddenly springs up in the garden of the heart, puts forth its jubilant leaves of healing, flashes with white wings of scented blossom, and droops with its full offering of golden fruit, as if by magic, and we are surprised ourselves that those around us do not see the wonder, do not smell the perfume, do not taste the fruit: we alone can sit under its branches, we alone can catch the murmur of the wind, the music of achievement, in its leaves.
But this thought becomes very pathetic when we think of the hearts bitterness, which the heart alone can know, -the hope deferred which makes it sick, {Pro_13:12} the broken spirit which dries up the Pro_17:22, the spirit which for so long bore a mans infirmity, and then at last broke because it could bear no more, and became itself intolerable. {Pro_18:14} The circumstances of a mans life do not give us any clue to his sorrows; the rich have troubles which to the poor would seem incredible, and the poor have troubles which their poverty does not explain. There are little constitutional ailments, defects in the blood, slight deformities, unobserved disabilities, which fill the heart with a bitterness untold and unimaginable. There are crosses of the affections, disappointments of the ambitions; there are frets of the family, worries of business; there are the haunting Furies of past indiscretions, the pitiless reminders of half-forgotten pledges. There are weary doubts and misgivings, suspicions and fears, which poison all inward peace, and take light out of the eye and elasticity out of the step. These things the heart knows, but no one else knows.
What adds to the pathos is that these sorrows are often covered with laughter as with a veil, and no one suspects that the end of all this apparently spontaneous mirth is to be heaviness. {Pro_14:13} The bright talker, the merry jester, the singer of the gay song, goes home when the party separates, and on his threshold he meets the veiled sorrow of his life, and plunges into the chilly shadow in which his days are spent.
The bitterness which surges in our brothers heart would probably be unintelligible to us if he revealed it; but he will not reveal it, he cannot. He will tell us some of his troubles, many of them, but the bitterness he must keep to himself.
How strange it seems! Here are men and women around us who are unfathomable; the heart is a kind of infinite; we skim the surface, we cannot sound the depths. Here is a merry heart which makes a cheerful countenance, but here is a countenance unclouded and smiling which covers a spirit quite broken. {Pro_15:13} Here is a cheerful heart which enjoys a continual feast, {Pro_15:15} and finds in its own merriment a medicine for its troubles; {Pro_17:22} but we cannot find the secret of the cheerfulness, or catch the tone of the merriment, any more than we can comprehend what it is which is making all the days of the afflicted evil. {Pro_15:15}
We are confined as it were to the superficial effects, the lights and shadows which cross the face, and the feelings which express themselves in the tones of the voice. We can guess a little of what lies underneath, but our guesses are as often wrong as right. The index is disconnected, perhaps purposely, from the reality. Sometimes we know that a heart is bitter, but do not even surmise the cause; more often it is bitter and we do not know it. We are veiled to one another; we know our own troubles, we feel our own joys, that is all we can say.
And yet the strangest thing of all is that we hunger for sympathy: we all want to see that light in the eyes of our friends which rejoices the heart, and to hear those good things which make the bones fat. {Pro_15:30} Our joy is eager to disclose itself, and often shrinks back appalled to find that our companions did not understand it, but mistook it for an affectation or an illusion. Our sorrow yearns for comprehension, and is constantly doubled in quantity and intensity by finding that it cannot explain itself or become intelligible to others. This rigid and necessary isolation of the human heart, along with such a deep-rooted desire for sympathy, is one of the most perplexing paradoxes of our nature; and though we know well that it is a fact, we are constantly rediscovering it with a fresh surprise. Forgetting it, we assume that everyone will know how we need sympathy, though we have never hung out the signals of distress, and have even presented a most repellent front to all advances; forgetting it, we give expression to our joy, singing songs to heavy hearts, and- disturbing others by unseasonable mirth, as if no icy channels separated us from our neighbors hearts, making our gladness seem frigid and our merriment discordant before it reaches their ears. Yet the paradox forces itself on our attention again; human hearts are isolated, alone, without adequate communication, and essentially uncommunicative, yet all of them eagerly desiring to be understood, to be searched, to be fused. Is it a paradox which admits of any explanation? Let us see.
It has been very truly said, "Man is only partially understood, or pitied, or loved by man; but for the fullness of these things he must go to some far-off country." In proportion as we are conscious of being misunderstood, and of being quite unable to satisfy our longing for sympathy and comprehension at human fountains, we are impelled by a spiritual instinct to ask for God; the thought arises in us that He, though He be very far off, must, as our Creator, understand us; and as this thought takes possession of the heart a tremulous hope awakes that perhaps He is not very far off. There lie before us now some beautiful sayings which are partly the expression of this human conviction, and seem partly to be inspired by the Divine response to it. "If thou sayest, Behold, we knew not this man; doth not He that weigheth the heart consider, and he that keepeth the soul, doth not He know?" {Pro_24:12, marginal reading} "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them." {Pro_20:12} How obvious is the inference that the Maker of the ear and the eye hears those silent things which escape the ear itself, and sees those recesses of the human heart which the human eye is never able to search! "The eyes of the: Lord are in every place, keeping watch upon the evil and the good." {Pro_15:3} Sheol and Abaddon are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of the children of men. {Pro_15:11} He sees in the heart what the heart itself does not see. "All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits." (Pro_16:2, rep. Pro_21:2) In fact, the spirit of man itself, the consciousness which clears into self-consciousness, and becomes in moral matters conscience, this "spirit, is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of the belly," {Pro_20:27} so that a "mans goings are of the Lord"; and he is often moved by this indwelling spirit and guided by this mysterious lamp in a way which "he can hardly understand." {Pro_20:24}
This intimacy of knowledge is not without its most solemn, and even terrible, side. It means of course that the Lord knows "the thoughts of the righteous which are just, and the counsels of the wicked which are deceit." {Pro_12:5} It means that out of His minute and infallible knowledge He will render to every man according to his works, judging with faultless accuracy according to that "desire of a man which is the measure of his kindness," recognizing the "wish of the poor man," which, though he has not power to perform it, is more valuable than the boasted performances of those who never act up to their power of service. {Pro_19:22} It means that "the Lord trieth the hearts just as the tiffing pot tries the silver, and the furnace the gold." {Pro_17:3} It means that in thought of such a searching eye, such a comprehensive understanding on the part of the Holy One, none of us can ever say, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin." {Pro_20:9}
All this it means, and there must be some terror in the thought; but the terror, as we begin to understand, becomes our greatest comfort; for He who thus understands us is the Holy One. Terrible would it be to be searched and known in this minute way by one who was not holy, by one who was morally indifferent, by one who took a curious interest in studying the pathology of the conscience, or by one who had a malignant delight in cherishing vices and rewarding evil thoughts. Though we sometimes desire human sympathy in our corrupt passions and unhallowed desires, and are eager for our confederates in sin to understand our pleasures and our pains, -and out of this desire, it may be observed, comes much of our base literature, and all of our joining with a company to do evil, -yet after all we only desire this confederacy on the understanding that we can reveal as little, and conceal as much, as we like; We should no longer be eager to share our feelings if we understood that in the first contact our whole heart would be laid bare, and all the intricacies of our mind would be explored. We must desire that He who is to search us through and through should be holy, and even though He be strict to mark iniquity, should be one who tries the heart in order to purify it. And when we are awakened and understand, we learn to rejoice exceedingly that He who comes with His lamp to search the inmost recesses of our nature is He who can by no means tolerate iniquity, or pass over transgression, but must burn as a mighty fire wherever He finds the fuel of sin to burn.
Have we not found a solution of the paradox? The human heart is isolated; it longs for sympathy, but cannot obtain it; it seems to depend for its happiness on being comprehended, but no fellow-creature can comprehend it; it knows its own bitterness, which no one else can know; it broods over its own joys, but no one can share them. Then it makes discovery of the truth that God can give it what it requires, that He fully understands, that He can enter into all these silent thoughts and unobserved emotions, that He can offer an unfailing sympathy and a faultless comprehension. In its need the lonely heart takes refuge in Him, and makes no murmur that His coming requires the searching, the chastisement, and the purging of sin.
No human being needs to be misunderstood or to suffer under the sense of misunderstanding. Let him turn at once to God. It is childish to murmur against our fellows, who only treat us as we treat them; they do not comprehend us, neither do we comprehend them; they do not give us, as we think, our due, neither do we give them theirs; but God comprehends both them and us, and He gives to them and to us accurately what is due.
No human being is compelled to bear his bitterness alone, for though he cannot tell it or explain to his fellows, he can tell it, and he need not explain it, to God. Is the bitterness an outcome of sin, as most of our bitterness is? Is it the bitterness of a wounded egotism, or of a remorseful conscience, or of spiritual despondency? Or is it the bitterness which springs from the cravings of an unsatisfied heart, the thirst for self-completeness, the longing for a perfect love? In either case God is perfectly able and willing to meet the need. He delights to turn His knowledge of our nature to the purpose of cleansing and transforming the sinful heart: "By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many," He says. He is ready, too, to shed abroad His own rich love in our hearts, leaving no room for the hankering desire, and creating the peace of a complete fulfillment.
No human being need imagine that he is unappreciated; his fellow-men may not want him, but God does. "The Lord hath made everything for His own purpose, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." He apprehends all that is good in your heart, and will not suffer a grain of pure gold to be lost; while He sees too every particle of evil, and will not suffer it to continue. He knows where the will is set upon righteousness, where the desire is turned towards Him, and will delicately encourage the will, and bountifully satisfy the desire. He sees, too, when the will is hardened against Him, and the desire is set upon iniquity, and He is mercifully resolved to visit the corrupt will and the evil desire with "eternal destruction from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of His might,"-mercifully, I say, for no torture could be more terrible and hopeless than for the evil man to live eternally in the presence of God.
Finally, no human being need be without a sharer of his joy: and that is a great consideration, for joy unshared quickly dies, and is from the beginning haunted by a vague sense of shadow that is falling upon it. In the heart of the Eternal dwells eternal joy. All loveliness, all sweetness, all goodness, all truth, are the objects of His happy contemplation; therefore every really joyful heart has an immediate sympathizer in God; and prayer is quite as much the means by which we share our gladness as the vehicle by which we convey our sorrows to the Divine heart. Is it not beautiful to think of all those timid and retiring human spirits, who cherish sweet ecstasies, and feel glowing exultations, and are frequently caught up in heavenly raptures, which the shy countenance and stammering tongue never could record? They feel their hearts melt with joy in the prospect of broad skies and sunlit fields, in the sound of morning birds and rushing streams; they hear great choirs of happy spirits chanting perpetually in heaven and in earth, and on every side of their obscure way open vistas of inspired vision. No stranger meddles with their joy, or even knows of it.
God is not a stranger; to Him they tell it all, with Him they share it, and their joy is part of the joy of the Eternal.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Pro_14:10. Zöckler reads the latter clause, “Let no stranger,”…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Pro_14:10. Zöckler reads the latter clause, “Let no stranger,” etc. Miller renders the whole verse, “A knowing heart is a bitterness to itself; but with its joy it does not hold intercourse as an enemy.”
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Pro_14:11. Tabernacle, “tent.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_14:10
SECRETS OF THE HEART
I. Opposite dwellers in the same spirit. “Bitterness” and “joy.” The world without us is a type of the world within us. In the world of matter the bitter cold, the desolation of winter, alternates with the brightness and joyous fruitfulness of summer. On the same globe we have at the same time the vineclad regions of southern latitudes, and the dreary shores of arctic regions. Bitterness in the human spirit is a fact of human consciousness, and so is joy. There are few hearts that have not been at different times possessed by both. There are few in which there does not dwell at the same time a root of gladness and a root of sadness.
II. A possession which its possessor may keep a profound secret. It is within the power of a human soul to keep his sorrow or his joy to himself if he so pleases, and under certain conditions this is a desirable thing to do. A man or woman often finds himself or herself surrounded by those who are entire strangers to the circumstances, or the persons, or the experiences which have given birth to the sorrow or the joy. To speak of it to such would be worse than useless. It is a comfort in such circumstances to be able to lock the secret within one’s own breast. There is a consolation in sorrow, and a sense of increase of joy in not being compelled to lay open our feelings to the inspection of the unsympathetic. There are also sorrows of such a nature as to be entirely beyond the power of the tenderest human love to alleviate. To conceal such from all human ken is a kindness to those who love us. We should inflict sorrow upon them without lightening our own burden; and if we are unselfish, we are glad that it is possible in such a case to keep our bitterness within our own breast.
III. There is One who possesses the secret even more truly than the human possessor, and who should always be invited to intermeddle with our sorrow or our joy.
1. We should invite God to intermeddle, because we can do so in the strictest secresy of the soul. It may be impossible sometimes to put into words our joy or our sorrow, and therefore no human being, even the nearest and dearest, can always “intermeddle” with our deep emotions. But the thought is speech to God. He “knoweth what is the mind of the spirit.”
2. Because God’s “intermeddling” will bring softening to our bitterness and refinement to our joy. He “knew the sorrows” of Israel in their bitter bondage (Exo_3:7). He sent His Son to “bind up the broken-hearted” (Isa_61:1). That Son Himself has known a bitterness that is unknowable by any creature. And as He can lighten sorrow so He can refine and increase joy.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Within the range of human experience there is, perhaps, no expression of the ultimate solitude of each man’s soul at all times, and not merely (as in Pascal’s Je mourrai seul) at the hour of death, so striking in its truth and depth as this. Something there is in every sorrow, and in every joy, which no one else can share. Beyond that range it is well to remember that there is a Divine sympathy, uniting perfect knowledge and perfect love.—Plumptre.
The first half of this proverb treats of life experiences which are of too complex a nature to be capable of being fully represented to others, and, as we are wont to say, of so delicate a nature that we shrink from uncovering them and making them known to others, and which, on this account, must be kept shut up in our own hearts, because no man is so near to us, or has so fully gained our confidence, that we have the desire and the courage to pour out our hearts to him from the very depths. If we were to interpret the second clause as prohibitive (see Critical Notes), then this would stand in opposition, certainly not intended, to the exhortation (Rom_12:15), “Rejoice with them that do rejoice,” and to the saying, “Distributed joy is doubled joy, distributed sorrow is half sorrow;” and an admonition to leave man alone with his joy, instead of urging him to distribute it, does not run parallel with the first clause. Therefore we interpret the future as potentialis.—Delitzsch.
Not to let a man be private in his house is a great injury, but not to let a man be private in his heart is a wrong inexcusable. And yet this is the strange presumption of some. They know the heart of another; they know what troubles it and what pains it. Perhaps by some discoveries thou mayest have some conjectures; but let not a small conjecture make thee a great offender. Wrong not another with unjust surmising. Every key a man meets with is not the right key to this lock; every likelihood thou apprehendest is not a sure sign to make thee know the heart of another.—Jermin.
“A knowing heart is a bitterness to itself; but with its joy it does not hold intercourse as an enemy.” We venture upon this translation. We find no spiritual sense in the one heretofore given.… A heart spiritually enlightened is a bitterness to itself on the principle which Christ meant when He said, He “came not to send peace, but a sword” (Mat_10:34); but with its joy, weak as it may be, and small and easily clouded, “it does not,” as the impenitent do, “hold intercourse as with an enemy.” His joy is like his bitterness, a friend; and all will work in opposite direction to the joy of the wicked.—Miller.
Eli could not enter into the “bitterness of soul” of Hannah (1Sa_1:10; 1Sa_1:13; 1Sa_1:16): nor Gehazi into that of the Shunamite woman (2Ki_4:27). Michal, though the wife of David, was “a stranger to his joy” at the bringing up of the ark to Zion (1Sa_18:13; 1Sa_18:20, with 2Sa_6:12-16).—Fausset.
The two extreme experiences of a human heart, which comprehend all others between them, are “bitterness” and “joy.” The solitude of a human being in either extremity is a solemnising thought. Whether you are glad or grieved, you must be alone. The bitterness and the joyfulness are both your own. It is only in a modified sense, and in a limited measure, that you can share them with another, so as to have less of them yourself.… Sympathy between two human beings is, after all, little more than a figure of speech. A physical burden can be divided equally between two. If you, unburdened, overtake a weary pilgrim on the way, toiling beneath a load of a hundred pounds weight, you may volunteer to bear fifty of them for the remaining part of the journey, and so lighten his load by half. But a light heart, however willing it may be, cannot so relieve a heavy one. The cares that press upon the spirit are as real as the load that lies on the back, and as burdensome; but they are not so tangible and divisible.… There are, indeed, some very intimate unions in human society, as organised by God.… The closest of them all, the two “no longer twain, but one flesh,” is a union of unspeakable value for such sympathy as is compatible with distinct personality at all.… The wife of your bosom can, indeed, intermeddle with your joys and sorrows, as no stranger can do, and yet there are depths of both in your breast which even she has no line to fathom. When you step into the waters of life’s last sorrow, even she must stand back and remain behind. Each must go forward alone. The Indian suttee seems nature’s struggle against that fixed necessity of man’s condition. But it is a vain oblation. Although the wife burn on the husband’s funeral pile, the frantic deed does not lighten the solitude of the dark valley. One human being cannot be merged in another. Man must accept the separate personality that belongs to his nature.—Arnot.
It is true, observes a philosophic essayist, that we have all much in common; but what we have most in common is this, that we are all isolated. Man is more than a combination of passions common to his kind. Beyond them and behind them, an inner life, whose current we think we know within us, flows on in solitary stillness. Friendship itself is declared to have nothing in common with this dark sensibility, so repellent and so forbidding, much less may a stranger penetrate to those untrodden shores. We may apply Wordsworth’s lines,—
To friendship let him turn
For succour; but perhaps he sits alone
On stormy waters, tossed in a little boat
That holds but him, and can contain no more.
Jacox.
By this thought the worth and the significance of each separate human personality is made conspicuous, not one of which is the example of a species, but each has its own peculiarity, which no one of countless individuals possesses.—Elster.
Who but a parent can fully know the “bitterness” of his grief who “mourneth for an only son”—of him who is “in bitterness for his first-born.” Who but a parent can sympathise with the royal mourner’s anguish over a son that had died in rebellion against his father and his God! Who but a widow can realise the exquisite bitterness of a widow’s agony when bereft of the loved partner of her joys and sorrows! Who but a pastor can know, in all its intensity, the bitterness of soul experienced in seeing those on whom he counted as genuine fruits of his ministry, and on whom he looked with delighted interest, as his anticipated “joy and crown” in “the day of the Lord,” falling away—going back and walking no more with Jesus.—Wardlaw.
The principal thought of Pro_14:11 has been treated before. See on chapter Pro_2:21-22, etc.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The wicked build houses on the earth; the earth is their home, where they desire to be, and they imagine to settle themselves in it. The upright do set up tabernacles only, seeking another country, and as knowing the uncertainty upon which this world standeth. For though the habitation of the wicked be a house, and rooted in the earth, yet it shall not only be shaken, but overthrown, and though the abiding of the upright be but a tabernacle pinned to the earth, yet shall it stand so safely that it shall flourish like a rooted tree. Wherefore, when in the Revelation we read “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth” (chap. Pro_8:13), St. Jerome understands it of the wicked only. For a godly man is not an inhabiter of the earth, but a stranger and a sojourner. And his tabernacle doth so flourish, that it reacheth to heaven, for he hath his dwelling in heaven to whom the whole world is an inn.—Jermin.
The “house of the wicked” may be a most prosperous one, and may seem to be full of peace; but it is doomed. It must become “desolate,” literally astonished; which is the Eastern way of describing grand downfalls. “But the tent of the upright” (another intensive clause) his slenderest possessions; like a sprout; like some poor tender plant, shall bloom forth. Such is the meaning of “flourish.”—Miller.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain v. 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness, it…
v. 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness, it is best acquainted with its own trouble and resents interference; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy, for no outsider is able fully to enter into the feelings of the heart. This saying does not conflict with Rom 12:15, but is directed against officious intrusion and an unsympathetic prying into the affairs of one’s neighbors.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 14:10 No one can fully understand the emotions of…
14:10 No one can fully understand the emotions of another (cp. Ps 103:14; Isa 63:9; Nah 1:7; Rom 8:27). Bitterness and joy are at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum; this poetic device of referring to polar opposites (merism) covers the whole range in between.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.