Bible Commentaries

Psalms 11:1 — to my soul, Flee [as] a bird to your mountain? In the Lord put I my trust — This was that which David had and held, wherewith to answer him that reproached him (and it was an excellent good one), that he trusted in God’s word, Psalms 119:42 . When it was that he gave this answer, "In the Lord put I my trust" (whether when Saul’s courtiers, under pretence of friendship, counselled him to quit the court for fear of Saul, which he was very loth to do, see the like Nehemiah

Psalms 4:6 — Plato, but Dei ludibria, banded up and down like tennis balls, from one to another? A spiritual man heeds not wealth, or at least makes it not his business. What tell you me of money? saith Paul; I need it not, but to further your reckoning, Philippians 4:1 . And David, having spoken of those rich and wretched people that have their portion here in all abundance, Psalms 17:14 , concludeth, I neither envy their store nor covet their happiness; it is enough for me that, when I awake, sc. at the resurrection

Psalms 8:1 — saith another, Admiration brought forth philosophy: let it breed devotion in us, and a desire to praise God, who hath therefore displayed his excellencies in his works, that we might give him his due glory. The angels shouted at the creation, Job 38:4-6 , and shall we be dull and dumb? God tells Job of his own great works (the elephant and whale especially), and thereby brings him to a right temper. The elephant is in Chaldee called pil, of a word that signifieth wonderful; because the wonders of

Proverbs 27:2 — to the hindrance of the truth, or to the hurt of the Church, or impairing of God’s glory, as Paul. 2 Corinthians 11:1-33 ; 2 Corinthians 12:1-21 Let a man "do worthily in Ephrata," and he shall be "famous in Bethlehem"; Ruth 4:11 he need not be his own trumpeter, as Jehu, the proud Pharisee, and other arrogant, vain glorious braggards. See my Common Place of Arrogance. God will take order that those that honour him be honoured of all, and that fame shall attend virtue, as

Ecclesiastes 3:1 — - Tertul. which set the teeth on edge, and breed stomach worms. They labour in vain that would prevent the time prefixed by God, as those hasty Ephraimites in Egypt 1 Chronicles 7:22 Psalms 78:9-10 those heady Israelites in the wilderness. Numbers 14:40 Moses would be acting the judge before his time, Exodus 2:12 he is therefore sent to keep sheep in Midian. Exodus 2:15 David stayed God’s leisure for the kingdom, those in Esther for deliverance - they knew that God would keep his day exactly,

Ecclesiastes 7:13 — will suffer, lest I add passive disobedience to active. Aaron, his predecessor, had done the like before him upon the same consideration, in the untimely end of his untowardly children. Leviticus 10:3 Jacob, likewise, in the rape of Dinah. Genesis 34:5 Agnovit haud dubie ferulam divinam, saith Pareus on that text; he considered the work of God in it, and that it was in vain for him to seek to make that straight which God had made crooked. There is no standing before a lion, no hoisting up sail in

Ecclesiastes 7:16 — consists in a mediocrity. Omne quod est nimium vertitur in vitium. A rigid severity may mar all. Est modus in rebus. "Let your moderation, το ετιεκες , be known to all men"; Philippians 4:5 prefer equity before extremity: utmost right may be utmost wrong. He is righteous over much that will remit nothing of his right, but exercise great censures for light offences; this is, as one said, to kill a fly upon a man’s forehead with

Ecclesiastes 8:8 — thine anger cast down the people, O God." Psalms 56:7 Every man should die the same day that he is born; the wages of death should be paid him presently; but Christ begs their lives for a season, he is the "Saviour of all men," 1 Timothy 4:10 not of eternal preservation, but of temporal reservation, that his elect might lay hold on eternal life, and reprobates may have this for a bodkin at their hearts one day: I was in a fair possibility of being delivered.

Ezekiel 1:4 — stables with horses; carried them up into the air, and dashed them against the mountains, see Habakkuk 1:6-7 ; Habakkuk 1:9-10 and consider that those Chaldeans were of God’s sending. A great cloud. — Nebuchadnezzar’s army, Jeremiah 4:13 that peditum equitumque nubes Liv. 2 Kings 25:1 Ezekiel 39:9 that stormed Jerusalem. And a fire infolding itself. — Heb., That receiveth itself within itself, as in a house on fire. Understand it of Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath against Jerusalem,

Ezekiel 28:2 — forgot himself to be a man. Tabaal, Josephus, out of Berosus, calleth him; Diodorus Siculus, Ithobaal; others, Ethbaal. A most proud and presumptuous person he was, and a type of the devil, who is the "king of all the children of pride." Job 41:34 Here he holdeth himself to be wiser than Daniel; Ezekiel 28:3 yea, to be the sum and perfection of all wisdom; Ezekiel 28:12 to excel the high priest in all his ornaments, os humerosque Deo similis Ezekiel 28:13 yea, to be above Adam ( ib. ); above

Hosea 10:4 — verba mera. ” Swearing falsely in making a covenant — A foul business, whether it be understood of covenant with God (whereof before) or with the Assyrian, with whom they broke, to ingratiate with "So, king of Egypt," 2 Kings 17:4 . How God plagueth perjurers, …, covenant breakers, see Zechariah 5:3 Malachi 3:5 . See Trapp on " Zechariah 5:3 He will See Trapp On" Malachi 3:5 appoint the sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, Leviticus 26:25 , as he did

Hosea 11:1 — begotten Son," …, John 3:16 . Here then beginneth our prophet’s first evangelical sermon, as Tarnovius observeth, who also readeth the text thus: Albeit Israel was a child, such a forlorn outcast child, as is described Ezekiel 17:1-24 Ezekiel 23:1-49 , yet I loved him, and adopted him for my son; not for any defect on my part (for I had an only begotten Son, in whom I am well pleased), or for any desert on his part, for I found him in his blood, in his blood, in his blood, when I

Hosea 11:10 — another mind and other manners; they shall walk after the Lord, non pedibus sed affectibus; they shall be carried after him with strength of desire and delight, which he shall work in them; they shall follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, Revelation 14:4 . God’s people are said in Scripture to walk before him in godly sincerity, to walk with him in a humble familiarity, to walk after him in a holy conformity, yielding unto him the obedience of faith. As Israel in the wilderness, so must we,

Hosea 12:11 — the furrows of the fields. Is there iniquity in Gilead — What, in Gilead, a city of priests? Hosea 6:8 See Trapp on " Hosea 6:8 " yea, Gilead is a city of those that work iniquity, a very Poneropolis, a place of naughty packs, Hosea 4:15 . Now there is not a worse creature on earth than a wicked priest, nor a worse place than a wicked Gilead. The Hebrew hath it thus, Is Gilead iniquity? Or as Luther, Drusius, and others, Surely it is so ( àí certe, vere, profecto ).

Hosea 9:16 — Christ’s curse; and as a vine smitten by great hailstones, and beaten down to the ground. "The Lord shall smite Israel," saith another prophet, "as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel," …, 1 Kings 14:15 , root and branch in one day. The root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit — "The root of the righteous shall not be moved," Proverbs 12:3 . "The root of the matter is found in me," saith Job, Job 19:28 . "The holy

Joel 2:1 — admonish before he punish, Fιλει ο Yεος προσημαινειν (Herod.). He dealt so with Cain, to whom he read the first lecture of repentance, Genesis 4:9-15 , as he had done of faith to his father Adam, in the chapter before. He dealt so with the old world, with the Sodomites, Ninevites. Sound an alarm in my holy mountain — Ring the bells backwards (as among us they do), the house is on fire,

Joel 3:3 — delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire," said God not without very great indignation, to their idolatrous parents, Ezekiel 16:21 . His they were more than theirs, by virtue of the covenant he had made with that people; hence Deuteronomy 14:1 , "Ye are the children of the Lord your God," and can he bear with your misusages? "Should he deal with our sister as a harlot?" said they with courage (as the great Zaijn, in Zonah, importeth) Genesis 34:31 . So here, should they

Amos 8:10 — the mother of all the rest, saith Mercer. And baldness upon every head — You shall pull off your hair for grief; or, because they had learned of the heathens, their neighbours, in token of lamentation, to shave their heads, Ezekiel 7:18 Jeremiah 48:37 , and beards too, Isaiah 15:2 , which yet was forbidden them to do, Leviticus 19:27 ; Leviticus 21:9 , unless it were to show their sorrow for sin, Isaiah 22:12 . And I will make it as the mourning of an only son — Which was very bitter, Jeremiah

Jonah 1:6 — dozing person. ŒD into the boiling caldron; but such is not God’s manner of dealing with his people, though he be deeply displeased. Correct them he will, but with judgment, not in his anger, lest they be brought to nothing, Jeremiah 10:24 . Instruct them also he will ("Corrections of instruction are the way of life," Proverbs 6:23 ) by one means or other, as he did here Jonah by a rude mariner, and as long before he had done Abraham and Sarah by Abimelech, a heathen prince,

Jonah 4:10 — parents and poets, saith Aristotle ( παντες αγαπωσι μαλλον τα εργα αυτων . Ethic. 1, 4); proving thereby, that those which have received their riches from their parents are more liberal than they which have gotten them by their own labour. Neither madest it grow — Thou hast neither planted nor watered it, or any way added to it,