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and consequently the short Kametz (Michlol 63b), like שׁרּך Pro 3:8, cf. כּרתה, Jdg 6:28, and on the contrary כרּת, Eze 16:4; it is the fem. of mōr = morr, from מרר, adstringere, amarum esse. Regarding לב, in contradistinction to נפשׁ, vid., Psychol. p. 251. “All that is meant by the Hellenic and Hellenistic νοῦς, λόγος, συνείδησις, θυμός, is comprehended in καρδία, and all by which the בשׂר and נפשׁ are affected comes in לב into the light of consciousness.”
The first half of the proverb is clear: the heart, and only it, i.e., the man in the centre of his individuality, knows what brings bitterness to his soul, i.e., what troubles him in the sphere of his natural life and of the nearest life-circle surrounding him. It thus 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 their very depths. Yet the saying, “Every one knows where the shoe pinches him” (1Ki 8:38), stands nearer to this proverb; here this expression receives a psychological, yet a sharper and a deeper expression, for the knowledge of that which grieves the soul is attributed to the heart, in which, as the innermost of the soul-corporeal life, it reflects itself and becomes the matter-of-fact of the reflex consciousness in which it must shut itself up, but also for the most part without external expression. If we now interpret לא־יתערב as prohibitive, then this would stand (with this exception, that in this case אל instead of לא is to be expected) 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 10a. Therefore we interpret the fut. as potentialis. As there is a soul-sorrow of the man whose experience is merely a matter of the heart, so there is also a soul-joy with which no other (vid., regarding זר, p. 135, and cf. here particularly Job 19:27) intermeddleth (ההערב בּ like Psa 106:35), in which no other can intermeddle, because his experience, as e.g., of blessed spiritual affection or of benevolent feeling, is purely of a personal nature, and admits of no participation (cf. on ἔκρυψε, Mat 13:44), and thus