Proverbs 24:10 - Exposition

If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. The gnome seems to be unconnected with the preceding. There is a paronomasia between צָרָה ( tsarah ), "adversity," and צַר ( tsar ), "small," narrow, which is retained by Fleischer: "Si segnis fueris die angustiae, angustae sunt vires tuae." So we may say in English, "If thou faint in time of straitness, straitened is thy strength." If you fail, and succumb to anxiety or danger, instead of rising to meet the emergency, then you are but a weakling or a coward, and the strength which you seemed to possess and of which you boasted, perhaps, is nothing worth. Such a man hearkens not to the Sibyl's counsel (Virgil, ' AE neid,' 6.95) ―

" Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito,

Quam tua te fortuna sinet ."

The LXX . again varies from the received text, "He shall be polluted in an evil day, and in a day of affliction, until he fail," or "die" ( ἐκλίπῃ ).