Bible Commentaries

Nehemiah 9:26 — sufficiently disgrace them. This is the property and practice of the true penitentiary. They cast thy law behind their backs — That is, they vilipended and undervalued it. God drew them by the cords of a man (so the cords of kindness are called, Hosea 11:4 , because befitting the nature of a man, and likeliest to prevail with rational people), but they, like men (or rather like beasts), transgressed the covenant; and, as if God had even hired them to be wicked, so did they abuse all his benefits to his

Esther 2:19 — officer, saith Severus; and he attended still upon his office, not fawning on Esther, nor prowling for preferment. His ambition was to be quiet, and to do his own business, intra pelliculam suam se continere, Negotiorum familiarium curator: 1 Thessalonians 4:11 , φιλοτιμεισθαι ησυχαζεν , high seats he knew were never but uneasy, and long robes cannot but contract much soil. In the place he

Esther 9:14 — Achmetes Bassa into prison, the janizaries in an uproar insolently answered the Great Turk, that they would by and by teach him, as a drunkard, a beast, and a rascal, to use his great place and calling with more sobriety and discretion (Turk. Hist. fol. 444). Ahasuerus well enough knew his own power, and was therefore the more bold in disposing, after this manner, of the lives of his subjects, who were ready to say to him, as once Tiberius did to Justinus, Si tu volueris, ego sum; si tu non vis, ego

Job 11:11 — seeth all, how closely and cleanly soever hypocrites think to carry the matter; first hiding God from themselves, and then vainly hoping to hide themselves also from God; but "his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men," Psalms 11:4 . He seeth their wickedness or unreasonableness (as the word properly signifieth), for wicked men are absurd men, 2 Thessalonians 3:2 , they are compact of mere incongruities, solecizing in opinion, speeches, actions, all. Will he not then consider

Job 11:13 — If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him; If thou prepare thine heart — viz. To meet God, Amos 4:12 , humbly submitting to his justice, and heartily imploring his mercy. The sum of what Zophar saith in the following verses is this: If thou truly repent, thou shall prosper; as if not, thou shall perish. This he might have said more fitly to most

Job 15:5 — mouth uttereth thine iniquity — Heb. Thy crooked, wry disposition, that standeth across to God and goodness, Psalms 51:5 , Homo est inversus decalogus. Solomon speaketh of perverse lips, as if the upper lip stood where the nether should, Proverbs 4:24 . And St Jude speaketh of hard speeches, uttered by ungodly sinners, Judges 1:15 , such as Job was none, whatever Eliphaz, by misinterpreting, made of him, wresting his words to a wrong sense, as Psalms 54:5 , and, by a spiritual unmannerliness,

Job 19:7 — an answer of prayer (saith one) that we can pray, though unheard and unanswered. I cry aloud — Heb. I set up my note, cam gemitu et ululatu, with groaning and howling. Men never pray so earnestly as in greatest afflictions, Hebrews 5:7 Hosea 12:4 ; then their prayers, like strong streams in narrow straits, bear down all that stands before them.

Job 20:19 — and you kill him. They which read it, And forsaken the poor, give us this good note, that as it is sinful to forsake the poor, though we have never oppressed them, Matthew 25:35-36 (not to do justice is injustice, not to show mercy is cruelty, Mark 3:4 ), so to oppress, and then forsake them, is far more sinful. Because he hath violently taken away — Violently and in open view, in an impudent manner. He pulleth down men’s houses, but never thinketh of repairing them; so some read this

Job 21:22 — upon him to do that. Such as was Alphonso the wise (the fool rather), who feared not to say openly, that if he had been of God’s counsel at the creation, some things should have been better made and marshalled (Roderic, Sanct. Hist. Hispan, p. 4, ch. 5). The wisest men are benighted in many things; and whatever light they have it is from the Father of lights, whose judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out. What a madness were it therefore for any mortal to prescribe to the

Job 28:9 — He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. He putteth forth his hand upon the rock — "He," that is, mortal man, the miner, Job 28:4 (not God, as Mercer would have it), "putteth forth his hand"; sc. to dig down these rocks, that he may come at that treasure, and make himself master of that spoil that is hidden in their entrails. Alexander the Great being asked, How he so

Job 29:20 — otherwise, outwardly and inwardly, according to that above, Job 17:9 , "The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger." Robur meum instaurabitur maiusque reddetur (Vatab.). See Genesis 49:24 1 Samuel 2:4 .

Job 29:6 — whence also it hath its name (not unlike that berry which the French call, Uva de Spine, the grape of a thorn); but this whole verse seemeth to be a hyperbole (not unlike that of Zophar, Job 20:17 , and that of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:13 ; confer Genesis 49:11 Psalms 80:15 ), importing the very great abundance of all outward comforts and contentments that Job once enjoyed. He had the reward of humility and the fear of the Lord, even riches, and honour, and life, Proverbs 22:4 . Riches he had quantas optare

Job 30:9 — loquuntur (Disc.). The ale stakes served David in like sort; the drunkards upon their ale bench tossed his name as dogs do carrion, making him their ballad and their byword, Psalms 69:12 . The whole Church complaineth of the like contempt, Psalms 79:4 Lamentations 3:14 ; Lamentations 3:63 Ezekiel 33:32 . Thus when the invincible Armada, as they called it, was coming for England, Don Bernardino Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in France, solaced himself with a vain and false poem or song of England’s

Job 32:15 — friends of Job were at this time, they answer no more. They leave speaking — They desert a good cause, or betray it by a cowardly silence. It may be feared the spirit of faith is no indweller, where the door of the lips move not right, 2 Corinthians 4:13 . He speaks thus of those three seniors in a third person, by way of irony and contempt, turning his talk to the bystanders, whereof it is likely there were many; or (as Tremellius thinketh) to Job, with whom he seeketh to ingratiate.

Job 4:1 — — Then, when Job had laid about him in this sort; and, giving his tongue too much liberty to lash out, had uttered words little better than blasphemous and contumelious against God; then Eliphaz, Temanites ille, the first born of Esau, Genesis 36:4 (saith R. Salomon), brought up in the bosom of Isaac, and so inured to revelations from on high. Others think he descended of Teman, nephew to Esau, … A man of great wisdom he was, and of great discourse; one that could speak his mind fitly,

Job 7:8 — which are in them, Revelation 20:13 , then shall Adam see all his nephews at once, … Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not — Thou even lookest me to death; like as elsewhere God is said to frown men to destruction, Psalms 80:16 Psalms 104:29 ; they are not able to endure his flaming eyes, sparkling out wrath against them. What mad men therefore are they that speak and act against him who can so easily do them to death! If God but set his eyes upon them for evil (as he oft threateneth

Job 8:19 — υονιμον (Naz.). And out of the earth shall others grow — Alii qui alieni erunt ab eo (Drus.). Others who had no relation to him shall succeed him, enjoy his estate, and eat the sweet of all his labours, Job 27:16-17 Ecclesiastes 2:18 ; Ecclesiastes 4:8 Proverbs 12:3 , "A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved." See another sense of this, and the three foregoing verses, Job 8:18 .

Psalms 2:2 — all. It was a poor comfort to our Henry VIII to be told upon his death bed that he was now going to the place of kings. Some such there have been as proved nursing fathers to the Church, and propagated the kingdom of Christ in their generations, Isaiah 49:23 but what a vain vaunt was that of those bloody tyrants in the primitive times, who sounded the triumph beforehand, and thus engraved the victory upon pillars of marble, Nomine Christianorum delete qui Remp. evertebant? What was all this but a blaze

Psalms 34:4 — LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. I sought the Lord — Even when I was in the enemies’ hands, and playing my pranks as a mad man among them; I prayed secretly and inwardly, I sent up some ejaculations, as Nehemiah 2:4 , and was heard, though unworthy. And delivered me out of all my fears — Which were not a few, 1 Samuel 21:13 , besides his inward terrors upon his unwarrantable practices to save his life. Sense fights sore against faith, when it is upon its

Psalms 45:6 — for so is he Head of the Church, and King of Israel, for ever. The sceptre of thy kingdom, … — Thy government is not with rigour, but with righteousness; thou camest rightly by it, casting out Satan the usurper, Matthew 12:29 Hebrews 2:14 ; and dost most righteously administer it, Deuteronomy 4:8 .