Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.
Parallel translations
- WEB Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a kind word makes it glad.
- BSB Anxiety weighs down the heart of a man, but a good word cheers it up.
- NKJV Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, But a good word makes it glad.
- NASB Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs it down, But a good word makes it glad.
- NLT Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word makes it glad. Encouraging words can lift a burdened soul.
Overview
The proverb acknowledges the real weight of anxiety on the human heart and the power of a good word to bring gladness. It commends compassion in our speech toward the troubled. This points to the comfort God gives and to the encouraging ministry believers are to have toward one another, ultimately resting in the peace Christ provides.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Prov 16:24Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
- Prov 15:13A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
- Prov 17:22A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
- Isa 50:4The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
- Prov 15:23A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!
- Prov 12:18There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.
- Prov 27:9Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.
- Zech 1:13And the LORD answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comfortable words.
- Ps 42:11Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
- Prov 18:14The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?
- Prov 25:11A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
- 2 Cor 2:4–7For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.
- Ps 38:6I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.
- Mark 14:33–34And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;
- Prov 14:10The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
- Neh 2:1–2And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.
- Prov 15:15All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 12:25 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.