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 the end of this intention, that in which it issues) are the ways of death. He who thus deceives himself regarding his course of life, sees himself at last arrived at a point from which every way which now further remains to him leads only down to death. The self-delusion of one ends in death by the sentence of the judge, that of another in self-murder; of one in loathsome disease, of another in a slow decay under the agony of conscience, or in sorrow over a henceforth dishonoured and distracted life.

Verse 13
Pro 14:13 13 Even in the midst of laughter the heart experiences sadness;     And to it, joy, the end is sorrow. Every human heart carries the feeling of disquiet and of separation from its true home, and of the nothingness, the transitoriness of all that is earthly; and in addition to this, there is many a secret sorrow in every one which grows out of his own corporeal and spiritual life, and from his relation to other men; and this sorrow, which is from infancy onward the lot of the human heart, and which more and more depends and diversifies itself in the course of life, makes itself perceptible even in the midst of laughter, in spite of the mirth and merriment, without being able to be suppressed or expelled from the soul, returning always the more intensely, the more violently we may have for a time kept it under and sunk it in unconsciousness. Euchel cites here the words of the poet, according to which 13a is literally true: “No, man is not made for joy; Why weep his eyes when in heart he laughs?” From the fact that sorrow is the fundamental condition of humanity, and forms the background of laughter, it follows, 13b, that in general it is not good for man to give himself up to joy, viz., sensual (worldly), for to it, joy, the end (the issue) is sorrow. That is true also of the final end, which according to that saying, μακάριοι οἱ κλαίοντες νῦν ὅτι γελάσετε, changes laughter into weeping, and weeping into laughter. The correction אחרית השּׂמחה (Hitzig) presses upon the Mishle style an article in such cases rejected, and removes a form of expression of the Hebr. syntaxis ornata, which here, as at Isa 17:6, is easily obviated, but which is warranted by a multitude of other examples, vid., at Pro 13:4 (also Pro 5:22), and cf. Philippi's Status Const. p. 14f., who regards the second word, as here שׂמהה, after the Arab., as accus. But in cases like שׂנאי שׁקר,