Bible Strands
Proverbs 25:20
Like one who removes a garment on a cold day or vinegar poured on a wound is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The text delivers wisdom instruction to a general audience, positioned between a warning against trusting unreliable allies and a command to show practical mercy to enemies.
The words — חֹמֶץ (Cho.metz) = vinegar and נָתֶר (Na.ter) = soda/alkali describe the corrosive mixture that aggravates an open sore.
The thread — The principle of aligning one’s response to another’s actual condition runs through Romans 12:15, Ecclesiastes 3:4, and James 2:15.
Why it lands — The passage demands that readers stop offering hollow comfort to those in distress and instead recognize when silence or practical aid better serves the situation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
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.
Cross-references
- Romans 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.
- Ecclesiastes 3:4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
- James 2:15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
- Deuteronomy 24:12 If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession;
- Proverbs 10:26 Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the slacker to those who send him.
- Isaiah 58:7 Isn’t it to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your home, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
- Job 24:7 Without clothing, they spend the night naked; they have no covering against the cold.
- Psalms 137:3 for there our captors requested a song; our tormentors demanded songs of joy: “Sing us a song of Zion.”
- Daniel 6:18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No entertainment was brought before him, and sleep fled from him.
- James 5:15 And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.