Proverbs 25:20 As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart.
First things first. What’s nitre? I like the definition I found in Nave’s Topical Dictionary. His full definition: “a chemical”. There you go. Since I’m no chemist and passed chemistry by the skin of my teeth by putting in Naves-like effort, I’ll give you what little I have come to understand about the aforementioned nitre. This chemical is potassium nitrate, which is a soda or carbonate and when combined with acids, like vinegar, bubbles and fizzes. Apparently it was used to wash clothes in ancient times.
Without exactly knowing that vinegar causes nitre to be as bubbly as a morning newscaster, we can tell by the other example of taking the coat away in the cold, that it isn’t a good thing. It doesn’t do much good taking someone’s coat when they are freezing. It’s also not helpful to spot a person carrying nitre and then start a chemical reaction in their hands. Only a jerk would take away a man’s coat in a blizzard or dump vinegar in a box of a man’s detergent and everyone knows that.
Solomon uses these two illustrations to show it is equally bad to sing songs to a heavy heart. It is trying to overlook the pain of one whose depressed by applying the wrong medicine at the wrong time. Proverbs 17:22 says “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” But be discerning enough to know when to apply this salve to which wound. I had a football coach whose medical treatment for everything was to walk it off and then ice it down. No amount of walking and ice will fix a broken leg though. In other words telling someone to “cheer up” when they have just been devastated is not likely to be the best medicine. Another bit of science, the world doesn’t revolve around you, or me as far as that goes. In fact, almost failing chemistry is one of the ways I learned that said earth’s rotation has little to do with me and my proximity. Because you are not sad, that doesn’t mean others are not, and trying to make them happy by singing songs is not going to help the situation, it is only going to make it worse.
There are exceptions, of course, but if most people could just “cheer up” they would. There is a time to grieve and if you want to be a friend, don’t be superficial with your friends pain. Sympathize, show loving compassion. There is a middle ground between being a clown and being a “friend to Job”.
There is a time to weep and a time to laugh. Learn the difference. With kindly and brotherly affection, weep with them that weep. Help them, hear them, pray for them, and point them to Christ.
