Gloom And Gladness

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.” – Proverbs 12:25

There’s this moment in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship Of The Ring when the fellowship, having been blocked at the pass of Caradhras, reluctantly enter the Mines of Moria, a place “vast and intricate beyond the imagination of Gimli, Gloin’s son, dwarf of the mountain-race though he was.” Gradually the passageways descend, the air grows hot and stifling, and the group is forced to wait as Gandalf tries to decide which way to go, evil forebodings and utter darkness all around them. 

Tolkien writes: “‘Do not be afraid!’ said Aragorn. There was a pause longer than usual, and Gandalf and Gimli were whispering together; the others were crowded behind, waiting anxiously. ‘Do not be afraid! I have been with him on many a journey, if never on one so dark; and there are tales in Rivendell of greater deeds of his than any that I have seen. He will not go astray – if there is any path to find. He has led us in here against our fears, but he will lead us out again, at whatever cost to himself.”

At the heart of this proverb are two words, each repeated twice for emphasis: shachah shachah, samach samach. A minor change and reordering of consonants provide an example of the antithetical parallelism we see so often in Proverbs. Shachah means “to bow down, to sink down.” When you have young children, you realize how different everything is when you’re operating at half the height of an adult: they can’t see where something is on some counters; they can’t reach up to turn on some faucets. When we’re sunk down, our point of view and capacity to function is altered. We see and respond to reality differently. But it goes deeper: our desires and motivations change. Our feelings change: it’s interesting that we use altitudinal language to describe feeling “down” or “low” or “depressed.”

In contrast, samach means “to be glad, to rejoice.” By contrast, this is a kind of lifting up: a difference in view and ability and feeling. I think of Aragorn’s words in the dark: their circumstances had not changed, but the way those circumstances were framed had. It can turn on a word. A good word today can gladden and cheer my husband, my children, a stranger or friend. This can be a family exercise or birthday tradition where we go around and share what we appreciate about someone. A thank-you card. A letter to encourage your child, taped where they can find it. A note slipped into your spouse’s work bag to let them know you appreciate their labors. A timely word of kindness.

We talk a lot about rejoicing at this time of year. Jesus is the good and kind Word, after all, born into a world of anxious cares. He came to show us the “immeasurable riches of his kindness towards us” (Ephesians 2). He, like Gandalf, leads us out of darkness at great cost to himself. There’s a limit to how much we can manufacture joy: ultimately, we must find our gladness in Jesus. Interestingly, shachah is most commonly used in the context of worship, as in Genesis 27:29: “Let the peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.” We worship what we bow down to, and the more we worship Jesus, the more we posture ourselves under His good kindness, the more we will be lifted up to do the same for others.