EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 8.—“For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever.” In this judgment tears will not prevail, prayers will not be heard, promises will not be admitted, repentance will be too late, and as for riches, honourable titles, sceptres and diadems, these will profit much less, and the inquisition shall be so curious and diligent, that not one light thought, not one idle word (not repented of in thy life past) shall be forgotten, for truth itself hath said, not in jest, but in earnest, of every idle word which men have spoken, they shall give an account in the day of judgment. Oh, how many which now sin with great delight, yea, even with greediness (as if we served a god of wood or of stone which seeth nothing nor can do nothing) will be then astonished, ashamed, and silent. Then shall the days of thy mirth be ended, and thou shalt be overwhelmed with everlasting darkness, and in stead of thy pleasures thou shalt have everlasting torments.—Thomas Tymme.

Verse 8.—“For it cost more to redeem their souls: so that he must let that alone for ever.”—Prayer-book Version.

Verse 8.—“It ceaseth for ever.” That is, wealth for ever comes short of the power necessary to accomplish this. It has always been insufficient; it always will be. There is no hope that it ever will be sufficient, that by any increase in the amount, or by any change in the conditions of the bargain, property or riches can avail for this. The whole matter is perfectly hopeless as to the power of wealth in saving one human being from the grave. It must always fail in saving a man from death. The word rendered ceaseth—חָדַל, khadal, means to leave off, to desist, to fail. Gen. xi. 8; Ex. ix. 34; Isa. ii. 22.—Albert Barnes.

Verse 11.—“Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever.” This is the interpretation of our actions, when we do not make God our portion, but trust in the abundance of our riches; this is our “inward thought,” the saying of our heart, Ye are my god. We do in effect say, Thou art my confidence, my hope, and my joy, and will stand by me when all things cease and fail, and wilt not suffer me to want, or to be wrong, as long as thou lastest: these are the secret speeches of our hearts. Christians! many may (orator like), declaim against the vanity of the creature, and speak as basely of money as others do, and say, We know it is but a little refined earth; but their hearts close with it, they are loth to part with it for God’s sake, or upon God’s declared will. As he that speaketh good words of God, is not said to trust in God; so speaking bad words of worldly riches doth not exempt us from trusting them. There is a difference between declaiming as an orator, and acting like a Christian.—Thomas Manton.

Verse 11.—“Their inward thought.” If good thoughts be thy deep thoughts, if, as we say, the best at the bottom, thy thoughts are then right, and thou art righteous; for as the deep thoughts of worldlings are worldly thoughts, and the deep thoughts of wicked men are wicked thoughts, so the deep thoughts of good men are good thoughts. ’Tis a notable observation of the Holy Ghost’s concerning worldly men, that “their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever,” etc. Why? is there any thought that is not an inward thought? No, but the meaning is, though they have some floating thoughts of their mortality, and the vanity and transitoriness of all worldly things, swimming, as it were, on the top; yet they do not suffer such thoughts to sink into their hearts, or to go to the bottom; but the thoughts that lodge there are such as his, who is said by our Saviour to have thought within himself, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” Luke xii. 19. Note the phrase, “he thought within himself.” There are other kinds of thoughts that sometimes knock at the door of the worldling’s heart, nay, sometimes look in at his windows, as Paul’s sermon began to press in upon Felix his heart, and to set him a-trembling; but there are other thoughts within, which if they cannot keep good thoughts quite out, they will keep them off from making any due or deep impression upon the heart. Now, these thoughts that nestle themselves as it were at the very heart-roots, to keep others out from reaching thither, these deep thoughts are they which the Scriptures call the “inward thoughts,” according to that of the Psalmist (Psalm lxiv. 6), “The inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.”—Faithful Teat in “Right Thoughts the Righteous man’s Evidence,” 1666.

Verse 11.—“They call their lands after their own names.” God makes fools of them, for how few have you that go beyond the third generation? How few houses have you that the child or the grandchild can say, “This was my grandfather’s, and my great grandfather’s”? How few houses have you that those that are now in them can say, “My ancestor dwelt here, and these were his lands”? Go over a whole country, few can say so. Men when they build, together with building in the earth, they build castles in the air; they have conceits. Now I build for my child, and for my child’s child. God crosses them. Either they have no posterity, or by a thousand things that fall out in the world, it falls out otherwise. The time is short, and the fashion of this world passeth away; that is, the buildings pass away, the owning passeth away, all things here pass away; and, therefore, buy as if you possessed not, buy, so as we neglect not the best possession in heaven, and so possess these things, as being not possessed and commanded of them.—Richard Sibbes.

Verse 11.—Mr. A. was a wealthy farmer in Massachusetts, about sixty years of age, and it had been his ruling, and almost only passion in life to acquire property. His neighbour B. owned a small farm, which came too near the centre of A.’s extended domain, was quite a blot in his prospect, and destroyed the regularity of his lands, and on the whole it was really necessary, in his opinion, that he should add it to his other property. B. became embarrassed, and was sued; judgments were obtained, and executions issued. A. now thought he should obtain the land, but one execution after another was arranged, and finally the debt was paid off without selling the land. When A. heard of the payment of the last execution, which put an end to his hopes of obtaining the land, he exclaimed, “Well, B. is an old man, and cannot live long, and when he dies I can buy the lot.” B. was fifty-eight, A. was sixty! Reader, do you ever expect to die?—K. Arvine’s Cyclopædia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes.

Verse 11.—I have purchased, saith one, such lands, and I have got so good a title to them, that certainly they will remain mine and my heirs for ever; never considering how all things here below are subject to ebbings and flowings, to turns and vicissitudes every day.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 11.—The fleeting nature of all earthly possessions is well illustrated in the life of William Beckford, and the unenduring character of gorgeous fabrics in the ruin of his famous Babel, Fonthill Abbey. Byron sang of Beckford’s palace in Spain, in language most applicable to Fonthill:—

Verses 11, 12.—“They call their GROUNDS after their names. But the GROUNDLING, in the midst of splendour, endureth not.” In verse 11, we have אֲדָמוֹת, “grounds.” In verse 12, it is אָדָם, “groundling,” with a designed iteration and play upon the word; for want of an attention to which the passage has not been fully understood.—John Mason Good.

Verse 12.—“Man being in honour abideth not.” The rabbins read it thus: “Adam being in honour, lodged not one night.” The Hebrew word for abide signifies “to stay or lodge all night.” Adam, then, it seems, did not take up one night’s lodging in Paradise.—Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity.

Verse 13.—“This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings.” Master Baxter speaks very well of this in his “Saints’ Everlasting Rest,” which is a very choice book. The gentry teach their children to follow pleasure, and the commonalty their children to follow profit, and young ones are ready to follow old ones. “This their way is their folly.” The very heathen condemn this, and yet Christians mind it not. Crates the philosopher said, that if possibly he might, he would willingly mount to the highest place of the city, and there cry aloud in this manner, “What mean you, my masters, and whither run you headlong? carking and caring all that ever you can, to gather goods and make riches as you do, whiles in the meantime you make little or no reckoning at all of your children, unto whom you are to leave all your riches? Do not most care more for the wealth of their children’s outward man, than for the health of their inward man?”—J. Votier’s Survey of Effectual Calling, 1652.

Verse 13.—“This their way is their folly.” The folly of man seldom appears more than in being very busy about nothing, in making a great cry where there is little wool; like that empty fellow that showed himself to Alexander—having spent much time, and taken much pains at it beforehand—and boasted that he could throw a pea through a little hole, expecting a great reward; but the king gave him only a bushel of peas, for a recompense suitable to his diligent negligence, or his busy idleness. Things that are vain and empty are unworthy of our care and industry. The man that by hard labour and hazard of his life did climb up to the top of the steeple to set an egg on end, was deservedly the object of pity and laughter. We shall think him little better than mad that should make as great a fire for the roasting of an egg as for the roasting of an ox.—George Swinnock.

Verse 13.—“Their folly: yet their posterity approve.” Dr. Leifchild, in his “Remarkable Facts,” records the following incident, of a person of property, who had been accustomed regularly to attend his ministry, but who had always manifested a covetous disposition: “I was sent for to offer to him the consolation of religion as he lay upon his dying bed. What was my surprise, after having conversed and prayed with him, to find that he was unwilling to take my hand, muttering that he knew that he had not done what was right in reference to the support and furtherance of religion, but intended to amend in that respect. He then requested me to say what I thought would become of him. How could I reply, but by exhorting him to repent, and relinquishing all further thoughts of a worldly nature, to betake himself to the sacrifice and mediation of the Son of God for pardon, safety, and salvation in that world which he was to all appearance soon about to enter? He gazed at me with a look of disappointment. Upon a hint being given me to inquire into his thoughts at that moment, I questioned him very pointedly, and to my astonishment and horror, he reluctantly disclosed to me the fact that, while thus seemingly about to breathe his last, his hands were under the bed clothes grasping the keys of his cabinet and treasures, lest they should be taken from him! Soon after, he departed this life, and there was, alas! reason to fear that, together with his property, he had transmitted somewhat of his fatal passion to those who survived him. It was distressing to me to reflect that a hearer of mine should quit this world with his fingers stiffened in death around the keys of his treasures. How strong, how terrible, was the ruling passion in the death of this man!”

Verse 13.—“Selah.” See “Treasury of David,” Vol. I., pp. 23, 26, 27; and Vol. II., pp. 224-227.

Verse 14.—“Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling,” or as we put in the margin, “The grave being an habitation to every one of them, shall consume their beauty.” Some may object, Is not this true of godly men too? are not they thus handled by death and the grave? doth not death feed on them? and doth not the grave consume their beauty? I answer, Though it doth, yet it hath not to feed upon, nor consume them, as it feeds upon and consumes wicked men. For the Psalmist speaks here of death as it were triumphing over the wicked, whereas the godly triumph over death. For, first, he saith, The wicked are laid in the grave like sheep: they lived like wolves or lions, but they are laid in the grave like sheep. If it be asked, Why like sheep? I answer, not for the innocency of their lives, but for their impotency in death; as if it had been said, when once death took them in hand to lay them in the grave, they could make no more resistance than a sheep can against a lion or a wolf. And when death hath thus laid them in the grave, then secondly, saith the Psalmist, “Death shall feed on them,” as a lion doth upon a sheep, or any wild beast upon his prey, which is a further degree of death’s triumph over the wicked. And, thirdly, “Their beauty shall consume in the grave,” that is, all their bodily and natural beauty (and this is all the beauty which they have) shall consume in the grave, whereas the godly have a beauty (and they count it their only beauty) which the grave cannot consume, and that is the beauty of their graces, the beauty of holiness, the spiritual beauty of the inner man, yea, and the spiritual beauty of their outward holy actings shall not consume in the grave; for, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” Rev. xiv. 13.—Joseph Caryl.