Proverbs 14:10 (KJV)

What does Proverbs 14:10 mean?

Proverbs 14:10 says that a person has an inward experience of sorrow and happiness that another person cannot fully share. Someone else may know about the experience, but the person living through it knows it from within.

The verse pictures the heart as the place where a person knows bitterness. It then turns from sorrow to joy, placing two very different feelings side by side. The second half speaks of a “stranger,” meaning someone outside that person’s inner experience.

The Hebrew behind Proverbs 14:10

• “heart” — לֵב (lev): This word can refer to a person’s inner life, including thought and feeling. Here, the heart is pictured as knowing its own bitterness.
• “intermeddle” — עָרַב (ʿarav): This word can carry the sense of sharing in something. The phrase “doth not intermeddle with his joy” points to taking part in another person’s joy, rather than simply interfering with it.

Why Proverbs 14:10 matters

• The verse includes both painful and happy experiences. “Bitterness” and “joy” give the saying a wider reach than sorrow alone.
• The saying places inward experience beside outward appearances. In the next verse, the contrast between a “house” and a “tabernacle,” or tent, turns attention to visible homes and their different outcomes.