Bible Commentaries

Job 39:5 — to them that he could touch them almost, they snuff up the wind, kick up their heels, and run quite away; so nimble they are, that they can hardly be taken, much less tamed? To the colt of this wild creature is a natural man compared by Zophar, Job 11:12 , for his extreme rudeness and unruliness. The prophet Jeremiah hath the like of the idolaters of his time, Jeremiah 2:24 , who were lawless and lewd losels, obstinate, and refractory; such as multo facilius fregeris quam flexeris, will sooner break

Job 39:6 — Zωον πολιτικον , saith Aristotle, Nature’s good fellow, as one Englisheth him; and no sooner had the Philippians received the gospel but they were in fellowship to a day, Philippians 1:5 . The communion of saints is as well a point of Christian practice as an article of Christian belief; and they have much to answer for who sty up themselves, and forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; these are in

Psalms 11:6 — inevitably: for the first thing that God shall rain upon them is snares, to catch and hold them fast, that they may surely suffer the rest that follow. "Take him, and lead him away safely," saith Judas concernmg Jesus to the soldiers, Mark 14:44 . And the same in effect saith God to his judgments concerning the wicked, on whom for that purpose he raineth snares, i.e. he suddenly surpriseth them; as by unexpected foul weather. Fire and brimstone — Hell from heaven, as once upon Sodom

Psalms 39:5 — to die, saith he, when I begin to be wise. But stultus semper incipit vivere, saith Seneca; and such complaints are bootless. Oh live quickly, live apace, and learn of the devil at least to be most busy, as knowing that our time is short, Revelation 12:12 . To complain of the miseries of life, and to wish for death, as David here seemeth to do (and as did Job, Job 3:19 ; Job 6:9 ; Job 7:15 ; and Moses, Numbers 11:11 ; Numbers 11:15 ; Elijah, 1 Kings 19:4 ; Jeremiah, Jeremiah 20:14 ; Jonah, Jonah

Proverbs 10:23 — bondage. Was he a father or a monster, think you, that, playing with his own child for a pastime, put his thumbs in the boy’s eyes, and thrust out the balls thereof This was Robert de Beliasme, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the reign of our Henry I, A.D. 1111. Speed. And what a mad sport was that of Joab and Abner, 2 Samuel 2:14 to see and set those youngsters of Helkath Hazzurim to sheath their swords in their fellows’ bowels! And that of Nero, who set the city of Rome on fire for his pleasure,

Proverbs 10:24 — The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted. The fear of the wicked shall come upon him. — "A sound of fear is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him." Job 15:21 Pessimus in dubiis Augur Timor. Statius in Theibad. Thus it befell Cain, Saul, Belshazzar, Pilate (who, for fear of Caesar, delivered up Christ to be crucified, and was afterwards by the same Caesar kicked off the bench - yea, off the stage of the

Proverbs 14:1 — plucketh it down with her hands. Every wise woman buildeth her own house. — Quaevis pia perita. Every holy and handy woman buildeth her house; not only by bearing and breeding up children, as Rachel and Leah builded the house of Israel, Ruth 4:11 but by a prudent and provident preventing of losses and dangers, as Abigail; as also by a careful planning, and putting everything to the best: like as a carpenter that is to build a house, lays the plan and platform of it first in his brain, forecasts

Proverbs 17:13 — an action, αποστασιου , of a master against a servant ungrateful for his manumission, not doing his duty to his late master: such were again to be made bond-slaves. Val. Max., lib. ii. cap. 1. Who can choose but abhor that abominable act of Michael Balbus, who that night that his prince (Leo Armenius) had pardoned and released him, got out and slew him? Zonaras, in Annal. And that of Muleasses, king of Tunis, who cruelly tortured to death

Ecclesiastes 6:1 — that are "in deaths often," that have borne God’s yoke from their youth, that have suffered troubles without and terrors within, and who, if they had hope in this life only, were, by their own confession, of all men the most unhappy. 1 Corinthians 15:19 And yet so it is; God is forced to smoke us out of our clayey cottages, and to make life unto us to be nothing better than a lingering death, that we may grow weary of it, and breathe after a better, Aeterna vita vera vita. - August.

Song of Solomon 4:7 — with her and providence over her, proceeds in her commendation. A perfection of parts he here grants her, though not of degrees, a comparative perfection also in regard of the wicked, whose "spot is not the spot of his children." Deuteronomy 31:5 He calls her his spouse in the next verse. The Hebrew word Calab of Calol, to profit. imports that, being dressed in all her bride attire, she is all fair, and hath perfection of beauty, Jeremiah 2:32 and is all glorious within and without, not having

Isaiah 11:6 — truth according to godliness, confessor general to all Protestants troubled in mind, and the treasury into which restored ill-gotten goods were cast, to be bestowed on the poor according to his discretion, Sleidan, lib. xxi., p. 650. Bucholc., A.D. 1548. Act, and Mon., 919; Fuller’s Church History, fol. 405. And the leopard shall lie down with the kid. — As they did at the creation, and afterward in Noah’s ark; all bloodiness and rapine laid aside. Those that love not one another

Isaiah 58:1 — Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Cry aloud. — Heb., Cry with the throat, or, With full throat. as Jeremiah 12:6 Ne frigide arguas, et in aenigmatibus ac obscure. - Oecol. Plenis faucibus, voce sonora, et quasi tubali: Set up thy note; not only say to the wicked, "It shall be ill with him," Isaiah 3:11 there is no peace to him, Isaiah 57:21 but cry

Jeremiah 23:28 — — Or, Let him tell it as a dream, and not as a divine revelation, making more of it than the matter comes to, and “ Laudans venales quas vult obtrudere merces. ” What are dreams ordinarily but very vanities, Ecclesiastes 5:7 Zechariah 10:2 pleasant follies and delusions, the empty bubbles of the mind, children and tales of fancy, idle and fruitless notions, mere baubles? Why, then, should men make so much of them? why should they tell their Midianitish dreams to others with so much

Hosea 12:14 — bitter things, that is, sins that embitter God’s Spirit and put thunderbolts into his hands. Excusserunt ex suavissimo pectore meo suavitatem. As a bee stings not till provoked, so neither doth God punish till there be no remedy, 2 Chronicles 36:16 . If Ephraim will provoke him to anger (which he will not dare to do to his landlord), if he will put it to the trial, whether God can be angry, as those did ( εδοκιμασαν ), Hebrews 3:9 , he

Hosea 13:1 — interdicere; vel adversus eum scribere, qui potest proscribere. It is dangerous meddling with the lion’s beard. Nebuchadnezzar’s majesty was such that "all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him," Daniel 5:19 ; wheresoever his commands or armies came there were very great heart quakes and concussions of spirit. "Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?" Ecclesiastes 8:4 . Job was no king; and yet

Hosea 9:9 — wicked; nothing better then those sons of Belial, the men of Gibeah, that were sunk to sin’s bottom; totally transformed into sin’s image, extremely flagitious, so that a worse people could hardly be found upon the face of the earth, Judges 19:12-30 . As it was given in answer to a godly man who desired to know of God, why Phocas was set up for emperor? because there could not be a worse man found, and that the sins of Christians required it. Lipsius maketh mention of one Tubulus (about

Obadiah 1:16 — here begin the consolatory part of the prophecy, and make this verse an apostrophe to the afflicted Jews thus: Like as ye my people have drunk your part of the cup of affliction (an ordinary metaphor, not in Scripture only, as Ezekiel 23:32 Jeremiah 49:12 Matthew 20:22 , but also in heathen writers, in allusion perhaps to the cup of poison given at Athens to malefactors, or, as some think, to the manner of their feasts, whereat the symposiarch, or ruler of the feast, John 2:9 , gave order what, and

Jonah 1:17 — Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish — A whale, Matthew 12:40 , which is a great fish indeed. Pliny tells of one taken that was six hundred feet in length, and three hundred and sixty in breadth; when they swim and show themselves above water, annare insulas putes, saith the same author, you would think them

Jonah 4:7 — every gourd to smite it, a worm to waste it, besides the worm of conscience bred in that froth and filth, for a perpetual torment. And it smote the gourd that it withered — Plants have also their wounds, diseases, and death, saith Pliny (lib. 17, cap. 14). The gourd being gnawed at the root, and robbed of its moistness, withered. Sic transit gloria mundi. So fleeting is the glory of the world. But "the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree" (not like this palm crist), Psalms

Micah 3:2 — αποστυγουντες , "and cleave," or be fast glued, κολλωμενοι , "to that which is good," Romans 12:9 . You are direct antipodes to the godly, Psalms 15:4 , and have nothing in you of the Divine nature, 2 Peter 1:4 , or of the spot of God’s children, but are a "perverse and crooked generation," Deuteronomy 32:3 . Who pluck off their