Bible Commentaries

Nehemiah 13:10 — tenuitatem beneficiorum necessario sequitur socordia sacerdotum, lean benefits make leaden ministers (Panormit.). This the magistrate must look to, and provide that they may have the double honour that is due to them, of countenance and maintenance, 1 Timothy 5:17 ; or else religion will soon go to wreck. That the portions of the Levites had not been given them — And why? because the high priest was so bad, and the Levites, therefore, thought to be little better. How apt are men to dispute

Nehemiah 13:6 — far out of order. So when Moses was gone into the mount, the people set up the golden calf; they turned aside quickly, saith God, Exodus 32:8 . So were the Corinthians and Galatians so soon as St Paul’s back was but turned upon them, Galatians 1:6 , Levitate prorsus desultoria. And so were these Jews, notwithstanding their better purposes, promises, covenants; yea, and beginnings of reformation. See Nehemiah 10:30 . And after certain days — Heb. At the end of days; that is, at a year’s

Nehemiah 9:21 — greatest pomp as these rebellious Israelites were in the wilderness: they had their quails and their manna, and the rock to follow them, … So that they lacked nothing — Nor more shall they that seek the Lord lack any good thing, Psalms 34:10 ; Psalms 84:11 . God will not be a wilderness to them, or a land of darkness, Jeremiah 2:31 . A sufficiency they shall be sure of, if not a superfluity; yea, in the midst of straits they shall be in a sufficiency, 1 Timothy 6:6 . The ungodly are not

Esther 5:13 — Something they must have to complain of that shall give an unsavoury verdure to their sweetest morsels, and make their felicity miserable. Totum hoc non est utile mihi, I enjoy nothing of all this. No more did Ahab, when sick of Naboth’s vineyard, 1 Kings 21:4 . His heart did more afflict and vex itself with greedy longing for that bit of earth than the vast and spacious compass of a kingdom could counter comfort. So long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate — So full

Esther 5:8 — elect the fiercest creatures (as he did the lions to Daniel, and other savage beasts to the martyrs, whom they would not meddle with), and turneth the king’s heart, as the rivers of water, into what channel soever he pleaseth to put it, Proverbs 21:1 , as the ploughman doth the watercourse with his paddle, or the gardener with his hand. And if it please the king — See Esther 5:4 , and submit to God, James 4:7 . And I will do tomorrow as the king hath said — She had learned to prefer

Job 12:18 — looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle. He looseth the bonds of kings — He degradeth them, taking away all command and authority from them, which is the bond that bindeth the people to obedience and subjection, Job 30:11 Isaiah 45:1 ; Isaiah 45:5 ; as our Henry III, who was called Regni dilapidator, unloved by his people, and far a less king, saith Daniel, by striving to be more than he was; the just reward of violations. And girdeth their loins with a girdle —

Job 13:14 — willingly to betray mine own life? (Vatab.) Non sum ira crudelis, ut totus perdi velim, I am not yet so cruel to myself (whatever you may gather by my complaints and outcries) as utterly to cast away my confidence and all care of my life and soul. See 1 Samuel 19:5 . To despair in part and for a time may befall a godly man. See Mr Perkins’s discourse of Spiritual Desertion, where he remembereth that Luther lay (after his conversion) three days in desperation. And the like is recorded of Mr Robert

Job 13:9 — which ye have said for him, but all against me? The time will come when God will surely search out all controversies, that they all may be ashamed who, under a pretext of religion and right, have spoken false things, and subverted the faith of some. See 1 Corinthians 3:17 . Or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? — Be not deceived; God is not mocked, deluded, beguiled, as clients are by their corrupt lawyers; as patients are by their cogging quack healers. Sorry man may be mocked, and

Job 14:10 — ghost, and where [is] he? But man dieth, and wasteth away — Heb. Strong and lusty man, Homo quantum vis robustus (Vat.), dieth and wasteth away, or is cut off, sc. worse than a tree, for he grows no more; or is discomfited, vanquished, as Exodus 17:13 ; Exodus 32:18 , sc. by death, and so carried clean out of this world. Yea, man giveth up the ghost — Homo vulgaris et plebeius. All of all sorts must die, whether noble or ignoble, as Rabbi Abraham here observeth. Job is very much in this

Job 15:10 — With us [are] both the grayheaded and very aged men, much elder than thy father. With us are the grayheaded, … — Job had said, Job 12:12 , "With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days is understanding." This, though modestly spoken, yet was very ill taken; and is here replied unto with a great deal of heat. Sed ita solent importuni homines, …, saith Mercer

Job 18:10 — tent by his own soldiers (Euseb.). Ezekiel foretelleth the degenerate sons of Josiah, that they shall be taken by the king of Babylon as beasts in a toil. So Pharaoh, that natural brute beast, was "made to be taken and destroyed," 2 Peter 2:12 Exodus 9:16 . So Saul complaineth that God had forsaken him, and the Philistines, those savage creatures, were upon him, 1 Samuel 28:15 "Behold, I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them," …, Jeremiah 16:16 .

Job 21:7 — is to live a long while even after the head is off and the heart out. Of some creatures we use to say, that they have nine lives; of some wicked men it may be thought so, they do evil a hundred times, and yet their days are prolonged, Ecclesiastes 9:12 . Manasseh reigned longest of any king in Judah. Pope John XXII. (that monster and mortalist) lived longest of any pope, and died richest. God gives wealth, health, and long life to many wicked, Non aliter ac siquis crumenam ingentem aure plenam latrinae

Job 22:25 — Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver. Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence — Or, thy gold, for the same word signifieth both, Job 36:19 , because gold is the worldly man’s defence, Proverbs 18:11 , though but a sorry one, Zephaniah 1:18 Proverbs 11:4 Ezekiel 7:19 . It is as if he should say, Either thou shalt have gold gods plenty; or else, thou shalt have that which is better

Job 23:8 — his judgments also are unsearchable, and his paths past finding out. True it is, that the whole world is nothing else but Deus explicatus, God expounded, a mirror or theatre wherein God may he seen; yea, felt and found out by those who are blind, Acts 17:27 . If a man hear a sermon by night, and in the dark, though he see not the preacher, yet he knows he is there. So Job questioned not God’s omnipresence; but complaineth that himself was benighted, and forsaken of his hopes to be eased of his

Job 24:8 — and the apostle reckons it for a piece of his sufferings that he was ανεστιος , and had no settled station, no certain dwelling place, αστατουμεν , 1 Corinthians 4:11 .

Job 27:3 — Periphrasis vitae, - Dum spiritus hos regat artas, While I have an hour to breathe, I will hold to this oath of mine; neither may you ever hope to dispute me out of mine integrity. Life is described by breath, which, when it faileth, the man dieth, 1 Kings 17:17 Psalms 146:4 Isaiah 2:22 . Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, every moment ready to puff out. What is man, saith Nazianzen, but soul and soil, breath and body, a puff of wind the one, a pile of dust the other, no solidity

Job 3:24 — before I eat — It cometh unsent for, as evil weather useth to do, and most unseasonably surpriseth me at my repast. I mingle my meat with my tears, with every bit of bread I have a morsel of sorrows; and I mingle my drink with weeping, Psalms 102:9 , though indeed Job’s was not so much a shower of tears as a storm of sighs, and a volley of roarings, betokening extremity of grief, such as was beyond tears, and vented itself as the noise of many waters; for my roarings, saith he, are poured

Job 4:6 — it not appear (saith Eliphaz here) that thou hast been merely mercenary, serving God while he prospered thee; and now kicking against him, because he affiicteth thee? See how near this man cometh, saith Mercer, to that first instigation of Satan, Job 1:9 , in hoc Satanae factus minister, herein acting the devil’s part, though unwittingly, as Peter also did, Matthew 16:22-23 . The uprightness of thy ways and thy hope? — q.d. Thou hast taken to thyself many fair titles, and made a great

Job 7:12 — upon our mouths; as Psalms 39:9 , "I was dumb," or (as others read it) I should have been dumb … "because thou didst it." But it is a fair step to perfection and victory when one can kiss God’s rod and say, as Psalms 44:17 , All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, nor declined from thy way. Job was not without his impatience; but being he was right for the main, and at length bewailed them, God looked not upon him as he doth upon those refractories,

Job 8:11 — quod per simplex praeceptum teneri non possit, per similitudines teneretur, that that which could not be remembered by simple precepts, might be retained by similitudes drawn from natural things, which are as shadows to us of spiritual (Hieron. in cap. 19, Matth.). And first from the rush, which hath its name from drinking; because it lives in liquor, it loves and delights in a moorish soil. Can the rush (or bulrush, Exodus 2:3 Isaiah 18:2 ) grow up? Heb. perk and pride itself, bear the head aloft,