Bible Commentaries

Job 34:18 — king, Thou art wicked? — Heb. Belial; that is, Thou yokeless, lawless, masterless monster. Kings are not wont to be so accosted and aviled, nor is it lawful, Exodus 22:28 . It is blasphemy in the second table to speak evil of dignities, Judges 1:8 , Qui dicit regi Apostata (Vulg.). It was some disadvantage to St Paul that, although provoked and unjustly smitten, he called the high priest whited wall, Acts 23:3 ; he was glad to excuse it by his ignorance. And Luther cried our Henry VIII mercy,

Psalms 3:1 — born; and in that distemper departed the world, which so often himself had distempered. When he fled from — Heb. From the face of Absalom, which he had too much admired, and was now afraid of. Then when he went up Mount Olivet weeping, 2 Samuel 15:30 , made he this psalm, say the Rabbis. So in the sack of Ziklag he comforted himself in the Lord his God, 1 Samuel 30:6 . A Christian is never without his cordial. Absalom his son — His darling, his tidling, his one eye. Such another good son

Ecclesiastes 10:1 — apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: [so doth] a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom [and] honour. Dead flies cause the ointment, … — The Preacher had said that "one sinner destroys much good"; Ecclesiastes 9:18 here he affirms the same of "one sin"; be it but a small sin, a peccadillo, no bigger than a few "dead flies" fallen into a pot of sweet odours, it is of that stinking nature, that it stains a good man’s esteem, and blows

Ecclesiastes 12:14 — shelter, since rocks shall rend and mountains melt at the presence of the Judge. Let us therefore judge ourselves, if he shall not judge us, and take unto us words against our sins, if we will not have him to take unto him words against our souls. Hosea 14:2 And then, Ira vivamus, ut rationem nobis reddendam arbitretour, saith the heathen orator, Let us so live as those that must shortly be called to an account. For who can tell but that he may suddenly hear as that Pope did, and was soon after found

Ecclesiastes 12:9 — holy penman, guided by the spirit of truth, and filled with wisdom from on high for the purpose. To them, therefore, and to the word of prophecy by them, must men "give heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place," … 2 Peter 1:19 He still taught the people knowledge. — He hid not his talent in a napkin, but used it to the instruction of his people. "Have not I written for thee excellent things" (or three various types of books - viz., proverbial, penitential,

Song of Solomon 2:1 — field," that grows without man’s labour, having heaven for its father, earth for its mother. So had Christ, "made of a woman," "manifested in the flesh," without father as man, without mother as God. Hebrews 7:3 ; Hebrews 9:11 The tabernacle of Christ’s human nature - so called because therein "the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily" Colossians 2:9 - was "not made with hands"; that is, not by man’s help; it was "not of this building,"

Song of Solomon 3:8 — word, that sword of the Spirit, that twoedged sword, far beyond that of Goliath, and yet David said there was none to that, that they may be able and apt by sound doctrines both to exhort the tractable and to "convince the gainsayer." Titus 1:9 Those that either cannot or will not do thus, are no way fit to be of Christ’s guard, because they are more likely to betray him into the hands of his enemies than to defend him from them, to act a Judas’s part than a Peter’s, who

Song of Solomon 5:13 — we not then make out to him, and despise all for him with Paul? Why do we not, with David, chide ourselves and others for loving vanity and seeking after leasing? Psalms 4:2 "How long wilt thou go about, O backsliding daughter," Jeremiah 31:22 and fetch a compass? knowest thou not that "the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth? a woman shall compass a man"; Isaiah 7:14 that is, "a virgin shall conceive and bear a son," even the man Christ Jesus, in whom it pleased

Song of Solomon 7:13 — and Tremellius renders it not mandrakes, but lovely flowers, yielding a savour pleasant to the eye, and sweet to the smell. The Chaldee paraphrast calleth it balsam. ( Legesis August. lib. xxii. contra Faust. Manichaeum, cap. lvi.; Jun. in Genesis 30:14 ; Drus. in fine Comment. in Ruth). Aben Ezra saith that mandrakes are fragrant, and yield a pleasant savour; that they have head and hands like unto a man. But how they should be good to cause conception he wondereth, since by nature they are cold.

Song of Solomon 8:2 — could say that he could pardon all men’s faults but his own. Plut.; Dio. And Augustus, going about to redress some abuses in the state, was upbraided with his own domestic disorders. Abraham had a well ordered family; so had Joshua, Joshua 24:15 David. Psalms 101:1-8 And although his house were not so with God, yet that was all his desire. 2 Samuel 23:5 And he well knew that it was the care, not the cure, of his charge that he stood charged with. Curam exegeris, non curationem. - Bern. Noah

Isaiah 6:10 — things are less sensible, and fat hearted people are noted by Aristotle for dull and stupid. There is not a greater mischief can befall a man on this side hell than to be given up to a dead and dedolent disposition, such as was that of those Ephesians 4:18 of the Jews in Christ’s time, and ever since, and of many Papists, who continue blind in the midst of so much light, and will not renounce those errors whereof they are clearly convinced. And make their ears heavy. — Preach them to hell.

Isaiah 66:24 — have safety here, and salvation hereafter. "They shall also look upon the carcases," …; they shall be eye-witnesses of God’s exemplary judgments executed on the wicked, that would not have Christ to reign over them, Revelation 19:21 who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the glory of the Lord and from the presence of his power. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 This the righteous shall "see, and fear, and laugh at them," Psalms 52:6 giving God the glory of his

Jeremiah 7:18 — The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead [their] dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Ver 18. The children gather wood. — Distribuunt inter se munera. All sorts, sizes, and sexes are as busy as bees: “ Sed turpis labor est ineptiarum. ” Oh that we were so intent, with united forces, to the worship of the true God of heaven!

Ezekiel 40:1 — the promised land. To those Jews who here hence expect a most glorious temple and state at the coming of their imaginary Messiah, and for whose sakes these high things are thus expressed, Christ may well say, as afterwards he did to Nicodemus, John 3:12 "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I telI you of heavenly?" The wiser of their Rabbis, R. Abba, R. Solomon. - Gal., lib. v. cap. 12. as Galatinus testifieth, convinced by good reasons, understand

Daniel 3:1 — [was] threescore cubits, [and] the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold. — Having taken Tyre, which was that great service spoken of in Ezekiel 29:18 , subdued Egypt, which was his pay for his pains at Tyre, and overthrown Nineveh, as Nahum had foretold, he was so puffed up with his great success that he set up this monstrous statue of himself, to be adored by all on pain of death. That it was his

Hosea 1:8 — God had waited and long looked for their conversion; but all in vain, he resolved upon their utter rejection. And first he sent for his love tokens back again: he weans them and takes them off from those "breasts of consolation," Isaiah 66:11 , the holy ordinances, deprived them of those dugs (better than wine, Song of Solomon 1:4 ) that they had despised, carried them far away from that good land that abounded with milk and honey: the men of the East should be sent in upon them "to

Hosea 4:8 — They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. They eat up the sin of my people — That is, the sin offerings, as Exodus 29:14 . This they might lawfully do, Leviticus 6:16 ; Leviticus 6:18 ; Leviticus 6:23 ; Leviticus 6:26 ; Leviticus 6:29-30 ; Leviticus 10:17 . But they were greedy dogs; and looked every one to his gain from his quarter, Isaiah 5:6 ; Isaiah 5:11 . They winked

Hosea 5:14 — Aelian, is robustissimum et bellicosissimum animal, a most strong and stout creature; hence Semiramis gloried much when in hunting she had taken not a lion, but a lioness. "What is stronger than a lion?" said those Philistines to Samson, Judges 14:18 . See 2 Samuel 1:23 Proverbs 30:30 . The lion (but especially the young lion, that is in his hot blood) fears no other creature, falls upon his prey with great fury, and teareth it; carrieth it away when he hath done in his mouth, or devours it

Joel 2:3 — once Mercury spared Jupiter’s thunderbolts, which he dared not steal, lest they should roar too loud, or, at least, burn his fingers. The land is as the garden of Eden — i.e. of all kind of pleasures and delights. See Genesis 2:8 ; Genesis 13:10 . Eden inde ηδονη . Strabo speaks spitefully of the land of Canaan, as if it were a dry, stony, and barren country, not worth the seeking after, Rabshakeh shows more ingenuity than this, Strabus et pravus Strabo (as one

Joel 2:31 — shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood — By strange and stupendous eclipses: such as was that of the moon for 12 nights together, a little before the last destruction of Jerusalem; and that of the sun this present 29th day of March, 1652, wherein I write these things, but could scarce see to write, or forbear to behold: for though busy enough to bring this work