What Does Proverbs 15:15 Mean?
All the days of the bowed ones are harm, but the one with a good heart holds an unbroken feast.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.THE KEY
The Hebrew says “good of heart,” revealing a feast that endures as an inward source of abundance even when affliction remains real.
THE MEANING
Affliction makes the days bitter, while a good heart holds a feast that continues. The verse places hardship and inward abundance side by side without claiming that the feast erases the hardship.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that painful circumstances must occupy a person’s whole experience; the verse leaves room for an enduring feast even while affliction remains.
THE ROOT
טוֹב לֵב
tov lev
GROWS FROM
טוב
ṭ-w-b
Goodness: what is good, beneficial, or pleasing.
“good heart” in this verse is tov lev. The phrase reaches beyond a passing mood: the heart is described by its goodness. That goodness becomes the setting for the continual feast, an inward abundance that does not depend on the day being easy.
ALSO GROWS
tov: Good, pleasant, beneficial.
טוֹב
This is the quality ascribed to the heart, giving the feast a source within the person.
tuv: Goodness; good things.
טוּב
This noun makes the heart’s good quality tangible as something that can be experienced as abundance.
רָעִים
ra’im
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad, harmful, or grievous.
“harm” in this verse is ra’im. Here the word describes the painful quality of the afflicted person’s days; it can name calamity as well as evil. The verse speaks of hardship, not a moral verdict on the afflicted person.
ALSO GROWS
ra: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
This adjective describes the hard character of the days in the verse.
ra’ah: Harm, calamity, evil.
רָעָה
This branch shows how the same word family can name trouble a person undergoes.
מִשְׁתֶּה תָּמִיד
mishteh tamid
GROWS FROM
שתה
sh-t-h
To drink.
“unbroken feast” in this verse is mishteh tamid. The word for feast grows from a verb meaning “to drink,” giving the image a concrete sense of provision and celebration. תָּמִיד (tamid, continual) gives that feast its duration.
ALSO GROWS
shatah: To drink.
שָׁתָה
The verb at the root of the feast shows the image as lived participation, not just a pleasant feeling.
mishteh: A drinking-feast or banquet.
מִשְׁתֶּה
This is the feast itself: an image of sustained abundance.
THE PATTERN
Hardship can remain real while an inwardly sustained joy makes room for abundance.
You lay out a table before my face, in full view of those who press me. You make my head rich with oil; my cup is soaked full.So now you have pain, but again I will perceive you, and your heart will rejoice, and no one lifts your joy away from you.THE THREAD
You lay out a table before my face, in full view of those who press me. You make my head rich with oil; my cup is soaked full.The table is set while the enemies are still present, so the feast does not depend on hardship disappearing. Proverbs locates that continuing abundance in the good heart; the Psalm shows it as a table already spread.
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