The Unshared Joys of Deep and Pure Experiences

“The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.”—14:10.

Interpretation.—Man, in the central chamber of his thoughts and feelings, has sorrows which are fully known to God and himself only. And there also are joys too deep, too pure, to be shared by any fellow-creature, or interfered with even by an enemy. The proverb teaches the individuality of each man‘s nature; hence a certain solitariness which attaches to him in life as well as in death; and hence the need of looking above this world for sympathy, and the duty of neither censuring nor intruding upon the griefs and joys of others.

Illustrations.—Neither Hannah‘s husband, kind and affectionate as he was, nor yet the high priest, could enter into her grief, which she took to God. Michal was quite incapable of comprehending David‘s joy; and Joab of sympathy with his parental anguish. Elisha gently made allowance for the bitterness of the Shunammite‘s feelings, which Gehazi would have disregarded (2 Kings 4:27). Job‘s friends, intruding into his great sorrow, proved “physicians of no value” (Job 13:4). Herod, amid the splendor of royalty, was haunted by a guilty conscience (Mark 6:16). Jesus, even when surrounded by His disciples, was alone, and when He sought their sympathy, found it not (Matt. 26:36–43).

Application.—It is well to remember that, as “I shall die alone,” so to a great extent I must live alone. This reflection will save me from much unhappiness, which they experience who are always craving sympathy and suffer from the want of it. Into the deepest joys and sorrows no human friend, not even a wife, can penetrate. I must, so far as they are concerned, bear my own burden. And hence, I must in a measure submit to be misunderstood. This, true of temporal joys and sorrows, is still more true of spiritual. Utterly unintelligible these are except to the spiritually minded (1 Cor. 2:11), and too complex and delicate to be revealed or comprehended even by them fully. The burden of guilt, the conflict with doubt and temptation, the bliss of deliverance from all these,—what brother, however dear, can share with me that bitterness or that joy? Hence the need of fellowship with God, to make me happy. Hence the unimaginable comfort and support of walking with Jesus, “the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (18:24), who became “a Man of sorrows,” in order that He might “have a fellow-feeling with our infirmities” (Heb. 4:15), and that we might enter into His joy (S. Matt. 25:21). Having Him, I need not live nor yet die alone. For as He will have led me in life, so will He be with me to comfort me in death, when all human aid and sympathy is vain (Ps. 23). Be this, then, the sympathy I count upon for myself, while I endeavor (though not obtrusively) to rejoice and weep with others.

Pearson, C. R. (1880). Counsels of the Wise King; or, Proverbs of Solomon Applied to Daily Life (Vol. 1, p. 114). W. Skeffington & Son. (Public Domain)