Bible Commentaries

Job 30:2 — (when they could come by it), and sleep, and sport, and fleer, jeer at God’s afflicted, with words as full of scorn as profane wit or rancoured malice can make them. These are excrements in human society; pests, the Scripture styleth them, Psalms 1:1 ( λοιμοι . Septuag.). In whom old age was perished? — Their fathers also were old dottrels, in ipsa senectute, senectute carentes, old, but not wise (Moriae Encore.); like the Brabanti, who are said to be

Job 31:26 — horse to the sun, as the swiftest to the swiftest; and the idolatrous Israelites had their horses of the sun, which Josiah took away. It is not amiss to behold the sun, moon, and stars in their pomp and lustre. It is sweet, saith Solomon, Ecclesiastes 11:7 . Comfortable, saith David, Psalms 97:11 , and useful in many respects; to mind us of our present beauty and safety, Revelation 12:1 Psalms 84:11 , and of our future felicity and glory, Matthew 13:46 Daniel 12:3 ; but above all, of Christ, that Sun

Job 37:2 — mouth. All is ascribed to God; though naturalists tell us, and truly, that there are second causes of thunder and lightning (Aristot. Pliny); wherein, nevertheless, we must not stick, but give God the glory of his majesty, as David teacheth, Psalms 29:1-3 , and as blind heathens did, when they called their Iove Altitonantem, the high thunderer. The best philosophy in this point is to hear God Almighty by his thunder speaking to us from heaven as if he were present; and to see him in his lightnings,

Psalms 11:2 — religion. Nebuchadnezzar, for instance, Antiochus, that little antichrist, the primitive persecutors, and still the Papists, with their cruel inquisition, and otherwise. But what saith the apostle, In nothing be terrified by your adversaries, Philippians 1:28 . Be not afraid with any amazement, 1 Peter 3:6 . Nos quidem neque expavescimus neque pertimescimus ea quae ab ignorantibus patimur, saith Tertullian, We fear not what any of you can do to us, do your worst ( Ad Scapulain). Contemptus est a me Romanus

Psalms 127:1 — « A Song of degrees for Solomon. » Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh [but] in vain. A Sony of degrees for Solomon — As Psalms 72:1 . Penned by David not long before his death, and left his son Solomon, to teach him that nothing can be gotten or kept, no, not children begotten, but by God’s blessing. This last was a fit lesson for Solomon, who, by so many wives and concubines,

Psalms 15:5 — taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these [things] shall never be moved. He that putteth not out his money to usury — To biting usury, so some distinguish it from Tarbith, the toothless usury. But both these are condemned, Ezekiel 18:8 ; Ezekiel 18:13 , and no man of note in all antiquity (Jews and Manichees excepted) for one thousand five hundred years after Christ hath ever undertaken the defence thereof. Here and Nehemiah 5:7-11 it is plainly cried down; neither is there any

Psalms 26:6 — I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O LORD: I will wash mine hands in innocency — As Exodus 40:32 1 Timothy 2:8 ; see Deuteronomy 21:6 Isaiah 1:15 James 5:8 . If in our addresses to God we cannot wash our hands in innocency, yet we must wash them in tears: Quem poenitet peccasse, pens est innocens, saith Seneca, Penitence is well nigh as good as innocence;

Psalms 41:1 — judgment and a desire to do all good offices, saith one. It signifieth to give comfort and instruction to the weak, saith another, wisely weighing his case, and ready to draw out, not his sheaf only, but his "soul to the hungry," Isaiah 58:10 . This is a blessed man, presupposing him to be a believer, and so to do it from a right principle, viz. "Charity out of a pure heart, of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned," 1 Timothy 1:5 . The Lord will deliver him — i.e. The

Psalms 47:9 — willing to come under the common yoke of his obedience, with the rest of the people of the God of Abraham, the common sort of Christians (Socrates). For the shields of the earth belong unto God — That is, those princes and magistrates also, Hosea 4:18 Psalms 89:18 , belong to the covenant of election; though not many mighty, not many noble are called, 1 Corinthians 1:26 , and it was grown to a proverb, omnium bonorum Principum imagines in uno annulo sculpi posse. The Spanish friar was wont to say

Psalms 49:5 — Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, [when] the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about? Wherfore should I fear in the days of evil? — All the days of the afflicted are evil, Proverbs 15:15 . But why should either I, or any other afflicted servant of God, be overly troubled, as if some strange thing had befallen us; or staggered at the better condition of worse men, all things considered? When the iniquity of my heels — Or, of

Proverbs 15:25 — will pull him, as it were, by the ears out of his tabernacle. He will surely unroost him, unnest him, yea, though he hath set his nest among the stars, as he did proud Lucifer, who "kept not his first estate, but left his habitation," Judges 1:6 which indeed he could hold no longer; for it spewed him out into hell, that infernus ab inferendo dictus. See Trapp on " Proverbs 12:7 " See Trapp on " Proverbs 14:11 " But he will establish the border of the widow. — Not

Proverbs 15:3 — thy works only, but thy labour in doing them. And as for the offender, though he think to hide himself from God, by hiding God from himself, yet God is nearer to him than the bark is to the tree; "for in him all things subsist," Colossians 1:17 "and move"; - understand Acts 17:28 it to be the mind’s motions also. And this the very heathen saw by nature’s rush candle. Vide Sen. Ep. ad Lucil. 34. For Thales Milesius being asked, Whether the gods knew not when a man doth

Proverbs 15:9 — abomination. — Not his sacrifices only, but his civilities; all his actions - natural, moral, recreative, religious - are offensive to all God’s senses, as the word signifies. The very "ploughing of the wicked is sin": Proverbs 21:4 all they do is defiled, yea, their "very consciences." 2 Timothy 1:15 Their hearts, like some filthy bog or fen, or like the lake of Sodom, send up continual poisonous vapours unto God: and he, not able to abide them, sends down eftsoons

Proverbs 6:14 — σολοικιζει . though he twinkle with his eye, and tinkle with his feet, …? "When he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart." Proverbs 26:25 Even those seven next mentioned here, Proverbs 6:16-19 as Aben Ezra conceiveth upon that text. He deviseth mischief continually. — Heb., At all times. Pliny speaks of the scorpion, that there is not one minute wherein it doth not put forth the sting. The soul of a wicked man is "in a sling,"

Ecclesiastes 3:7 — would tear too soon. Fuller. It was a custom among the Jews to rend their clothes in the case of sad occurrences. The prophet Ahijah rent Jeroboam’s new garment in twelve pieces, to show that God would rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon. 1 Kings 11:31 Schismatics rend the Church, heretics the Scriptures. God will stitch up all in his own time, and heal the breaches thereof. Psalms 60:2 A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. — It is a singular skill to "time a word,"

Ecclesiastes 5:9 — kind of uses. Alma mater, terra ferax. "Then shall the earth yield her increase; and (therein) God, even our own God, shall bless us." Psalms 67:6 "Can any of the vanities of the heathens give rain," or grain? No, neither. Jeremiah 14:22 Can the earth bring forth fruit of herself? αυτοματως . So, indeed, our Saviour seems to say, "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear"; Mark 4:28 but then

Ecclesiastes 9:10 — be doing, that the Lord may be with you. “ Praecipita tempus; mors atra impendet agenti. ” - Silius Castigemus ergo mores et moras. The devil is therefore more mischievous because he knows "he hath but a short time," Revelation 12:12 and makes all the haste he can to outwork the children of light, in a quick despatch of deeds of darkness. Oh, learn for shame of the devil, as Latimer said once in another case, therefore to do your utmost, because "the time is short,"

Isaiah 26:1 — take day for return of thanks, but to do it forthwith. In that same day shall this song be sung. — As an evidence and effect of their spiritual joy and security, mentioned Isaiah 25:9 . "Is any man merry? let him sing psalms," James 5:13 and so set an edge upon his praises and thanksgivings. Thus Israel sang, Exodus 15:1 Numbers 21:7 "Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it." Thus, in the apostles’ times, Romans 15:9 and afterwards Justin, Tertullian, Athanasius, others,

Isaiah 9:1 — her, carried captive those and all the rest of the ten tribes; similarily Christ, first preaching in Galilee, converted and called from there various of his disciples, and afterwards, when he was lifted up from the earth, he drew all men unto him. John 12:32 He rode upon his white horse, the apostles, conquering the world, and to conquer. Revelation 6:2 And hence that sincere joy in the hearts of his servants, far exceeding that of harvest, which is not without great toil, or that of soldiers dividing

Isaiah 9:4 — from the burdenous yokes of their enemies, both corporal and spiritual; that taking thine easy yoke, thy light burden upon them, they might "serve thee without fear in holiness and righteousness before thee all the days of their lives." Luke 1:74 The Jewish doctors expound all this of Sennacherib’s tyranny, and their deliverance therefrom. But the prophet intendeth a further matter Isaiah 9:6-7 And the staff of his shoulder. — Wherewith he was beaten and bastinadoed. thrashed