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13 Even in laughter the heart may ache,[a]
and the end[b] of joy may be[c] grief.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 14:13 sn No joy is completely free of grief. There is a joy that is superficial and there is underlying pain that will remain after the joy is gone.
  2. Proverbs 14:13 tc Heb “and its end, joy, is grief.” The suffix may be regarded as an Aramaism, a proleptic suffix referring to “joy.” Or it may be considered a case of wrong word division, moving the ה (he) to read אַחֲרִית הַשִּׂמְחָה (ʾakharit hassimkhah, “after the joy [may be] grief”) rather than אַחֲרִיתָהּ שִׂמְחָה (ʾakharitah simkhah, “after it, joy, grief”).
  3. Proverbs 14:13 tn The phrase “may be” is not in the Hebrew but is supplied from the parallelism, which features an imperfect of possibility.