Proverbs 25:20

Taketli away. The removal here referred to is not that of a garment from another, but the laying aside of one’s own. It is foolish to lay off warm clothes on a cold day and thus invite sickness.

Nitre. Here, not saltpeter (potassium or sodium nitrate), but an alkali known as natron, which is largely composed of carbonate of soda and which was used for washing (Jer. 2:22). It is both foolish and wasteful to pour vinegar upon natron, for the two chemicals react on each other and leave both the vinegar and the natron changed into a salt that is useless for the duties of either. For “nitre” the LXX reads, “a sore,” or “wound.” To obtain this reading in the Hebrew requires the change of only one consonant so as to read neteq instead of neter.

As foolish and as liable to produce ill effects as the removing of clothes, as wasteful and productive of an angry outburst as the mixing of an acid with soda, so is the singing of merry songs to one whose heart is heavy. The wise and tactful have always known instinctively that it was foolish to joke with the anxious, and to exhort them to pull themselves together and throw off their sorrow without doing anything to alter the circumstances that produced the trouble.