If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Note, 1. In the day of adversity we are apt to faint, to droop and be discouraged, to desist from our work, and to despair of relief. Our spirits sink, and then our hands hang down and our knees grow feeble, and we become unfit for anything. And often those that are most cheerful when they are well droop most, and are most dejected, when any thing ails them. 2.
If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death,.... Or "taken for or unto death" (h), in a violent way; who are taken by thieves and robbers, and used in a barbarous manner, as the man in the parable, whom the priest and Levite took no notice of, and was helped by the good Samaritan; or who are unjustly sentenced and appointed to...
Literally, "If thou fail in the day of straits (adversity), strait (or, small) is thy strength," which is then truly tested.