to advance · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular absolute
garment
בֶּ֨גֶדBe.ged
H899
a covering · noun, common masculine singular absolute
cold
קָ֭רָהKa.rah
H7135
coolness · noun, common feminine singular absolute
weather
בְּי֣וֹםbe.Yom
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
vinegar
חֹ֣מֶץCho.metz
H2558
vinegar · noun, common masculine singular absolute
nitre
נָ֑תֶרNa.ter
H5427
mineral potash (so called from effervescing with acid) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
singeth
וְשָׁ֥רve.Shar
H7891
to sing · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
songs
בַּ֝שִּׁרִ֗יםba.shi.Rim
H7892
a song · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
heavy
רָֽעRa'
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
heart
לֶבlev-
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Romans 12:15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Ecclesiastes 3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
James 2:15-16 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
Deuteronomy 24:12-17 And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge:
Proverbs 10:26 As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.
Isaiah 58:7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou…
Job 24:7-10 They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold.
Psalms 137:3-4 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Proverbs 25:20
1. The absurdity here censured is singing songs to a heavy heart. Those that are in great sorrow are to be comforted by sympathizing with them, condoling with them, and concurring in their lamentation. If we take that method, the moving of our lips may assuage their grief (Job 16:5); but we take a wrong course with them if we think to relieve them by being merry with them, and endeavouring to make them merry; for it adds to their grief to see their friends so little concerned for them; it puts them upon ripping up the causes of their grief, and aggravating them, and makes them harden themselves in sorrow against the assaults of mirth. 2. The absurdities this is compared to are, taking away a…
Not only is the incongruity of songs (that is, joyful) and sadness meant, but an accession of sadness, by want of sympathy, is implied.
John Gill on Proverbs 25:20
As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather,.... Either takes it off of himself, or another person, when it would be rather more proper to put another garment on, and so is exposed to the injury of cold weather;
and as vinegar upon nitre: nitre was found in Egypt, beyond Memphis, as Strabo says (p); there were two mines of nitre, which produced much, and thence it was called the Nitriotic Nome: others say, nitre has its name from Nitria, a town in Egypt (q), which gives name to the Nitrian desert, where there is a lake called Latron; from the bottom of which, that sort of nitre, called Natron, arises to the top, as is apprehended, and there, by the heat of the sun, condenses into this…
This group of proverbs has the word רע in each of them, connecting them together. The first of the group represents a false tongue:
Pro 25:18
18 A hammer, and a sword, and a sharp arrow -
A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour.
An emblematic, or, as we might also say, an iconological proverb; for 18a is a quodlibet of instruments of murder, and 18b is the subscription under it: that which these weapons of murder accomplish, is done to his neighbour by a man who bears false witness against him - he ruins his estate, takes away his honour, but yet more: he murders him, at one time more grossly, at another time with more refinement; at one time slowly, at another time more quic…
The Church Fathers
Vinegar upon niter, etc. Niter took its name from the province of Nitria, where it is especially accustomed to be produced; nor does it differ much from the appearance of ammoniac salt. For just as salt is made on the seashore by the heat of the sun, hardening the sea waters into rock, which the greater force of the winds or the heat of the sea itself hurls further onto the shore, so in Nitria, where the prolonged rains of summer soak the land, there is so much heat of the star, which coagulates the very rain waters through the breadth of the sands into a stone very similar to salt or ice in appearance, but having neither any cold rigor nor salty taste. Yet according to the nature of salt, it is accustomed to harden in the heat and to flow and liquefy in cloudy weather. The inhabitants take and keep this, and where it is needed, they use it for washing. Hence the prophet says to sinning Judah, "Though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me," says the Lord God (Jer. II). It fizzes in water like living glass, and it itself dissolves, but it makes the water suitable for washing. Solomon, seeing its nature and to whom it is aptly figured, says, "Like vinegar upon lye, so is he who sings songs to a heavy heart." For if vinegar is put into lye, it immediately bubbles up, and a perverse mind, when rebuked through chastisement, or persuaded to good by the sweetness of preaching, becomes worse through correction; and from that correction, incited to the iniquity of murmuring, it should have been restrained from iniquity.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Fuller — The word “full” is from the Anglo-Saxon fullian, meaning “to whiten.” To full is to press or scour cloth in a mill. This art is one of great antiquity. Mention is made of “fuller’s soap” (Mal. 3:2),…
Fuller’s soap — (Heb. borith mekabbeshim, i.e., “alkali of those treading cloth”). Mention is made (Prov. 25:20; Jer. 2:22) of nitre and also (Mal. 3:2) of soap (Heb. borith) used by the fuller in his operations.…
Medicine — Egypt was the earliest home of medical and other skill for the region of the Mediterranean basin, and every Egyptian mummy of the more expensive and elaborate sort involved a process of anatomy.…
Nitre — (Prov. 25:20; R.V. marg., “soda”), properly “natron,” a substance so called because, rising from the bottom of the Lake Natron in Egypt, it becomes dry and hard in the sun, and is the soda which…
Nitre · A chemi — A chemi
Vinegar · Used with food — Used with food
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Lying can have deadly consequences (see 6:16-19; 14:5, 25).
Rashi on Proverbs 25:20
A worn-out garment on a cold day Heb. מעדה בגד, synonymous with (Isa. 64:5): “בגד עדים, a discarded garment,” a worn-out garment that is fit to be taken off since it is worn out, as we translate into Aramaic “ויסר” (Ex. 7:24) as ויעדי, and He shall remove. Now this is its interpretation: A worn-out garment on a cold day is like vinegar on chalk. chalk Heb. נתר, a kind of soft earth, like our earth that is called creide, which they would hew and make vessels therefrom, and if vinegar falls on it, [the earth] is dissolved and ruined. So... is one who sings songs to a broken heart [lit. on a bad heart. This one] resembles them both. Now what is one who sings songs? This is one who teaches the T…
