「矧」字習見於《尚書》，《孔傳》皆釋爲況，歷來都無異說。自王引之首先提出其中有若干矧字不能以況訓解後，學者多從其說，並陸續指出，《尚書》中還有其他句子中的矧字也不能以況字解釋。
本文認爲前人所舉有疑義的辭例，其實均可以況作解；只是由於矧字是以「比較」的方式表現強調之意，因而原文中的比較對象被省略或不明顯時，即不易掌握。
爲求合理解釋前述學者所提矧不能訓況的句子，本文首先檢尋矧在先秦古籍的所有辭例，剔除有爭議的部份，得出況爲矧字常訓的假設。透過此一假設，本文復整理出矧在句中表示「強調」，且此一作用必須同時伴隨反詰和對比才得以表現的性質。根據此一性質，本文假設前人認爲不能以況解釋的句子，其實是因爲原文中的比較對象不明顯或被省略；另一方面，也主張可以根據語境復原原文的對比形式。透過以上的操作，除了可以串講有關的句子，對原文語意也可以有更深入的了解。

The character shen (矧) is commonly seen in the Shangsbu (尚書). The commentary on this classic supposedly authored by Kong Anguo (孔傳) glosses this character consistently as kuang (況). This definition went unchallenged until Wang Yinzhi (王引之) suggested that in some cases glossing this character as kuang was not appropriate. Wang's suggestion has been widely accepted, and since then some scholars have gone on to point out that there are even more instances in the Shangsbu where shen should not be glossed as kuang.
In this article, we argue that, contrary to the assertions of Wang and others, shen can in fact be understood as kuang when it occurs in the Shangshu. It is just that in these questionable cases, shen is being used in a comparative sense for emphasis. In such cases, however, the object being used to set up the comparison is either omitted in the original text or is difficult to ascertain.
In this paper we will first look at how shen is used in other pre-Qin texts and, after screening out questionable examples, we will show that this character was indeed commonly glossed as kuang. From there, we will look at examples in which then is used to indicate a sense of emphasis to see that an object of comparison is needed to achieve this sense. Next, we hypothesize that the reason why earlier scholars questioned glossing then with kuang was due to the object of comparison in the sentence being either omitted or being difficult to ascertain. At the same time, we argue that from context it is possible to determine the object of comparison in each of these examples. As a result, we are not only able to explain the text, we are also able to obtain a better understanding of the meaning of the original.