Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart,.... Worldly sorrow, as opposed to lawful mirth and cheerfulness, and especially to spiritual joy: or "anger" z, as the word may be rendered, and often is; either at the providence of God, or at the correction of friends; all perturbations of the mind; all fierceness of spirit, and fiery passions, to which youthful age is subject: or all those things, as Jarchi observes, that provoke God to anger; sinful lusts and pleasures, the end and issue of which also is sorrow to men; and which agrees with our version;
and put away evil from thy flesh; or body; such as intemperance and uncleanness, to which young men are addicted: the advice is much the same, in both clauses, with that of the apostle's, "flee youthful lusts", 2 Timothy 2:22. Jarchi interprets this of the evil concupiscence;
for childhood and youth [are] vanity; which quickly pass away; come into manhood, and soon slide into old age, and are gone presently, and all things within that compass: all actions done in that age are for the most part vain and foolish; and all the delights, joys, and pleasures thereof, vanishing and transitory. The last word a, used to express the juvenile age, either is akin to a word which signifies the "morning"; youth being the morning and dawn of man's age, and increases as that; and as soon as it is peep of day with him, or he enters into life, he possesses vanity: or as having the signification of "blackness"; because, as Jarchi observes, the head of a young man is black: and so the Targum,
"childhood, and the days of blackness of hair, are vanity;''
whereas the hair of an aged man is gray.
z כעס "iram", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus; "indignationem", Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus "God's anger", Broughton. a השחרות "ortus" Junius Tremellius "aurora", Cocceius, Gejerus, so Aben Ezra and Ben Melech; "dies nigredinis pili"; so the Targum, and Abendana.