Keluaran 12:46

12:46 It must be eaten in one house; you must not bring any of the meat outside the house, and you must not break a bone of it.

Amsal 14:30

14:30 A tranquil spirit ¹  revives the body, ² 

but envy ³  is rottenness to the bones. ⁴ 

Amsal 15:13

15:13 A joyful heart ⁵  makes the face cheerful, ⁶ 

but by a painful heart the spirit is broken.

Amsal 18:14

18:14 A person’s spirit ⁷  sustains him through sickness –

but who can bear ⁸  a crushed spirit? ⁹ 

[14:30]  ¹ tn Heb “heart of healing.” The genitive מַרְפֵּא (marpe’, “healing”) functions as an attributive adjective: “a healing heart.” The term לֵב (lev, “heart”) is a metonymy for the emotional state of a person (BDB 660 s.v. 6). A healthy spirit is tranquil, bringing peace to the body (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 158).

[14:30]  ² tn Heb “life of the flesh” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, NIV “gives life to the body.”

[14:30]  ³ tn The term קִנְאָה (qin’ah, “envy”) refers to passionate zeal or “jealousy” (so NAB, NCV, TEV, NLT), depending on whether the object is out of bounds or within one’s rights. In the good sense one might be consumed with zeal to defend the institutions of the sanctuary. But as envy or jealousy the word describes an intense and sometimes violent excitement and desire that is never satisfied.

[14:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “rottenness of bones.” The term “bones” may be a synecdoche representing the entire body; it is in contrast with “flesh” of the first colon. One who is consumed with envy finds no tranquility or general sense of health in body or spirit.

[15:13]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ sn This is a rhetorical question, asserting that very few can cope with depression.

[18:14]  ⁹ 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.