What Does it Really Mean?

The other day I came across this verse: Proverbs 19:3 The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD.

And I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. We have foolish thoughts which make us do stupid and wrong things, and then our heart is worried before the Lord because we know He is holy, and we’re soooo not.

That sounds good, right? I mean, that’s how we use this word in our every day language. (Unless you’re a guitar player, then you have another use, but that’s different. Hence the reason I said ‘another’.) But it bothered me that the word ‘against’ was in that verse.

I started thinking, do I worry against someone? Worry for me is pretty much the opposite- I worry about a person, or toward a person. But against a person? Hmmm…

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I love definitions. They’re important. The author’s original meaning is key to understanding the context of any passage. So I looked up the definition of the word ‘fretteth’ in the concordance of my Bible program (e-sword is pretty awesome by the way) and found that it doesn’t mean worry. Not at all.

Fretteth- H2196 To boil up, peevish, angry, sad, be wroth.

Oooh. That changes the feeling of that verse completely, doesn’t it?

Thinking the word ‘fretteth’ means ‘worry’ assumes that I am responding in humility. That I know the Lord is holy, and I am ashamed of myself, and worried to come before Him, or worried that He will punish me.

But when I know the word ‘fretteth’ means ‘angry, sad, wroth’, that is not humility. That is me still acting in pride. That is my heart, the center of my will, boiling up in anger against the Lord.

Oof.

So I looked up all the other times a form of this word is used relating to people (and not God) in scripture, which isn’t very many, and found something very interesting.

Fret:H7481 Tumble, violenty agitated, irritate, roar, thunder.
Know who that verse is talking about?

It’s describing how Hannah felt when her husband’s second wife would provoke her for not having children.
1 Samuel 1:6 And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.

Who was Hannah fretting against? Did Peninnah make her not able to have children? Nope. It was the Lord. She was fretting against the Lord. We are taught that Hannah was a mild-mannered, soft person, but she definitely had her issues with anger.

H2734 Glow, or warm. Blaze up in ager, burn, be displeased.
Know who this verse is about? It’s a warning from King David not to get angry about people who are doing evil. Don’t get all worked up, because those who do evil will not live forever (vs. 2). Again this word means anger.
Psalm 37:1 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

H7107 Burst out in rage.
This verse is talking about Israel during a time of wandering and consequences. Burst out in rage. Why? They’re gonna be hungry, and be so mad at their king and God, that they will curse them both.
Isaiah 8:21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

All these times that the word fret is used in scripture, not once does it relate to worry. It’s rage. Anger. That certainly changes how I view these scriptures, and how they apply to me, and how I should examine myself differently.

What word did you think you knew what it meant, but after studying it out, found that you were wrong? Did you learn something new from it? I’d love to hear it, so share in the comments below. Have a happy Monday!