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14 A person’s spirit[a] sustains him through sickness—
but who can bear[b] a crushed spirit?[c]

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 18:14 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.
  2. Proverbs 18:14 sn This is a rhetorical question, asserting that very few can cope with depression.
  3. Proverbs 18:14 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.

14 A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness,
    but a crushed spirit, who can bear?

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