2. Figuratively, in two senses. (1) To vex. Tindale says {Sxpos., Parker Soc. p. 31), 'And the nature of salt is to bite, fret, and make smart' ; whence Adams passes to the fig. sense (// Peter, p. 47 on V) ' Do we cut, and fret, and trouble you : remember we are salt, the sharper the better.' So in AV, Ezk 16" 'Because thou hast not remembered the dajrs of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things' (•'p-ij-iiji; Amer. RV 'raged against'). (2) To disquiet oneself, Ps 37' ' Fret not thyself because of evildoers ' (nnnpi-Sij, so 37'- *, Pr 24") ; Is 8=' ' when they shall be hungry they shall fret themselves' (isprin, Del. 'it is roused to anger ' ; ChejTie, ' he shall be deeply angered ' ; Skinner, ' he shall break out in anger ').
The AV trn is partly from the Oen. * he shal euen treat him self,' and partly from the Bish. *they will bee out of patience.' • He is out of pacience ' is Ooverdale's ; Wye [1382J ' it shal wrathen,' [1388] *it schal be wrooth,' and the Douay • he will be angrie,* are both nearer the meaning of the verb, being both after the Vulg. 'irascetur'; but both miss the force of the special form [Hlthpael], which is found only here. The LXX gives Awnj^^ff-wtfi ; Luther, 'werden sie zurnen.' A very close parallel occurs in Sir Thomas Wiat (Skeat's Specimens, p. 226) —
• And whilst they claspe their lustes in armes a-crosse, Graunt them, good Lord, as thou maist of thy might. To freate inward, for losyng such a losse.'
2. Intransitively, be irritable, chafe, grieve, the modem meaning : 1 S 1' ' And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret' (a^ir;? ii3y,3), and Pr 19' ' his heart fretteth against the LORD ' (IBi:). So Shaks. Jul. Com. IV. iii. 42—
* Fret till your proud heart break.
J. Hastings. FRIEND. — Heb. history has supplied the world with an example of true friendship, as romantic and beautiful as any in Grecian story ; and Heb. literature, though it contains no treatise de Amicitid, abounds in proverbs, setting forth, as eloquently as Laelius himself, the nature of this fine human relation, the claims which it makes, and the blessings which it brings. If Jonathan and David are the Pylades and Orestes of the Bible, tb" pithy sayinjjs of the J^okhma Lit. contain the philosophy of friendship. A genuine attachment 19 possible only between the virtuous — this is im- plied in all the directions given in the Book of Pr to the young man for his guidance in life, and ex- pressly indicated in the warnings of 13*' 28', wliere the word (li'i) rendered companion is that else- where often translated /nenrf. That even natural ties cannot compare with the bond of friendship for strength and endurance, is said, not ^\'ithout a touch of satire, in IS^* ' He that maketh many friends doeth it to his own destruction ; but there Is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.' David, in his lament, describes the affection
of Jonathan for him as ' passing the love of women ' That, as Lord Bacon puts it in his Essay, the principal fruits of friendship are healthful and sovereign, both for the aflections and the understandinj;, comes out in the striking proverb (27"), ' Iron sharpeneth iron ; so a man sliarpeneth the countenance of his friend ' ; while the anguish inflicted on a true heart when one trusted and loved proves false or unkind, is exhibited in a concrete form in the behaviour of Job's three friends, and in many a passionate cry wrung from that patriarch (Job &*■'" 19-'), or from a psalmist under similar provocation (Ps 41").
Among the duties of friendship Cicero places high that of frankness in reproof and counsel ; and this could not fail of characteristic recognition in the proverbs of Israel, ' Faithful are the wounds of a fnend ; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful ' (Pr 27°), while in 17° are indicated the tact and delicacy necessary in the discharge of this duty.
Pr 27'° is the Heb. equivalent for the saying that ' old friends are best ' ; and that poverty and trouble are, like length of time, tests of the genuineness of friendly profession, in contrast with the pretended attachment of flatterers and parasites, is the theme of proverbs like 14™ 19*'. True friends are rare \vitn the great and powerful, yet, as Bacon says, they set a higher rate than others on the rare possession, and the Bible gives many instances of the confidence of intimacy between kings and subjects, e.g. David and Husliai ; prophets and apostles and their disciples, e.g. Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy.
But, while the Bible presents an ideal of friend- ship equal to that demanded by other literature, it does not leave it there. It elevates it in a manner all its o^vn to a transcendent height. It presents it, not only as a human relationship, but one possible between God and man. Abraham was the friend of God (2 Ch 20', Is 41«, Ja 2=»;. With Moses, too, J" spake ' face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend (Ex 33"), and the Son of Grod used the name friend in preference to servant, not only of the apostles, but also of all for whom He laid down His lUe (Jn 15''- '*• ">).