A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.
Parallel translations
- WEB A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
- KJV A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
- BSB A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.
- NKJV A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.
- NASB A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones.
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
A joyful heart heals and strengthens, while inward despair wastes a person away. Our inner spiritual state powerfully affects our whole well-being.
Overview
This vivid proverb observes that cheerfulness functions like good medicine, while a crushed spirit drains vitality, drying up the 'bones' (the inner frame). It does not promise that gladness cures all illness, but recognizes the deep link between the heart and the body. True and lasting cheer flows from peace with God, and the gospel offers the joy of salvation (Ps. 51:12) and the comfort of Christ even amid suffering.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Prov 15:13A glad heart makes a cheerful face; but an aching heart breaks the spirit.
- Prov 12:25Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a kind word makes it glad.
- Prov 18:14A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?
- 2 Cor 7:10For godly sorrow produces repentance to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world produces death.
- Rom 5:2–5through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
- Eccl 9:7–9Go your way — eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.
- 2 Cor 2:7so that on the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow.
- Ps 102:3–5For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
- Ps 32:3–4When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
- Ps 22:15My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 17:22 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.