The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity. That high property or faculty of man called "spirit" enables the body to bear up against trouble and sickness (comp. Proverbs 17:22). The influence of the mind over the body, in a general sense, is here expressed.
But taking "spirit" in the highest sense, in the trichotomy of human nature, we see an intimation that the grace of God, the supernatural infusion of his presence, is that which strengthens the man and makes him able to endure with patience.
But a wounded (broken) spirit who can bear? The body can, as it were, fall back upon the support of the spirit, when it is distressed and weakened; but when the spirit itself is broken, grieved, wearied, debilitated, it has no resource, no higher faculty to which it can appeal, and it must succumb beneath the pressure.
Here is a lesson, too, concerning the treatment of others. We should be more careful not to wound a brother's spirit than we are to refrain from doing a bodily injury; the latter may be healed by medical applications; the former is more severe in its effects, and is often irremediable.
In the first clause, 淚?囹玲? "spirit," is masculine, in the second it is feminine, intimating by the change of gender that in the former case it is a manly property, virile moral quality, in the latter it has become weakened and depressed through affliction.
Septuagint, "A prudent servant soothes a man's wrath; but a man of faint heart ( 恝?貫菅款恝????恝館) who will endure?" The LXX. take "spirit" in the sense of anger, and "infirmity" as standing for a servant, though whore they find "prudent" is difficult to say.
Vulgate, Spiritum vero ad irascendum facilem, quis poterit sustinere? The Latin interpreter takes one form of weakness of spirit, viz. irascibility, as his interpretation of ????, "wounded." St. Gregory ('Moral.
,' 5.78) has yet another version, "Who can dwell with a man whose spirit is ready to wrath?" adding, "For he that does not regulate his feelings by the reason that is proper to man, must needs live alone like a beast."