Verse 13
Pro 15:13 13 A joyful heart maketh the countenance cheerful; But in sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
The expression of the countenance, as well as the spiritual habitus of a man, is conditioned by the state of the heart. A joyful heart maketh the countenance טוב, which means friendly, but here happy-looking = cheerful (for טוב ro is the most general designation of that which makes an impression which is pleasant to the senses or to the mind); on the contrary, with sorrow of heart (עצּבת, constr. of עצּבת, Pro 10:10, as חטאת = חטּאת, from חטּאה) there is connected a stricken, broken, downcast heart; the spiritual functions of the man are paralyzed; self-confidence, without which energetic action is impossible, is shattered; he appears discouraged, whereby רוּח is thought of as the power of self-consciousness and of self-determination, but לב, as our “Gemüt” [animus], as the oneness of thinking and willing, and thus as the seat of determination, which decides the intellectual-corporeal life-expression of the man, or without being able to be wholly restrained, communicates itself to them. The ב of וּבעצּבת is, as Pro 15:16., Pro 16:8; Pro 17:1, meant in the force of being together or along with, so that רוּח נכאה do not need to be taken separate from each other as subject and predicate: the sense of the noun-clause is in the ב, as e.g., also Pro 7:23 (it is about his life, i.e., it concerns his life). Elsewhere the crushed spirit, like the broken heart, is equivalent to the heart despairing in itself and prepared for grace. The heart with a more clouded mien may be well, for sorrow has in it a healing power (Ecc 7:3). But here the matter is the general psychological truth, that the corporeal and spiritual life of man has its regulator in the heart, and that the condition of the heart leaves its stamp on the appearance and on the activity of the man. The translation of the רוח נכאה by “oppressed breath” (Umbreit, Hitzig) is impossible; the breath cannot be spoken of as broken.
Verse 14
Pro 15:14 14 The heart of the understanding seeketh after knowledge, And the mouth of fools practiseth folly.
Luther interprets רעה as metaphor. for to govern, but with such ethical conceptions it is metaphor. for to be urgently circumspect about anything (vid., Pro 13:20), like Arab. ra'y and r'âyt, intentional, careful, concern about anything. No right translation can be made of the Chethib פני, which Schultens, Hitzig, Ewald, and Zöckler prefer; the predicate can go before the פּני, after the Semitic rule in the fem. of the sing., 2Sa 10:9, cf. Job 16:16,
