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Ver. 8. He keepeth the paths of judgment.] Well may they walk uprightly that are so strongly supported. God’s hand is ever under his; they cannot fall beneath it. “He keepeth the feet of his saints.” (1 Samuel 2:9)
Ver. 9. Then shalt thou understand righteousness.] Not as cognoscitiva, standing in speculation; but as directiva vitae, a rule of life. Knowledge is either apprehensive only, or affective also. This differs from that, as much as the light of the sun, wherein is the influence of an enlivening power, from the light of torches.
Ver. 10. Is pleasant to thy soul.] Spiritual joy mortifies sin. His mouth hankers not after homely provision that hath lately tasted of delicate sustenance. Pleasure there must be in the ways of God, because therein men let out their souls into God, that is the fountain of all good; hence they so infinitely distaste sin’s tasteless fooleries. Crede mihi, res severa est verum gaudium, saith Seneca. True joy is a solid business.
Ver. 11. Discretion.] Heb., Thoughtfulness, or good advisement. Cogito quasi coagito. Notat sereitatem, such as is that of the wife “to please her husband,” (1 Corinthians 7:34) casting this way and that way how to give best content: or that of the good housewife to “build her house,” (Proverbs 14:1) studying in every business how to set everything in order, as the carpenter studies how to set every part of the frame in joint. Becman, μεριμνα.
Ver. 12. That speaketh froward things.] As if his mouth were distorted, or the upper lip stood where the nether should. See Acts 20:30. διεστραμμενα.
Ver. 13. To walk in the ways of darkness.] As thieves, drunkards, dicers, and our other solifugae, that abuse even gospel light; that put not light under a bushel, but under a dunghill; that, when they have walked themselves weary in these byways, highways to hell, sit down “in darkness, and in the shadow of death,” (Luke 1:79) which posture imports, (1). Continuance there; (2). Content, as well paid of their seat. These “hate the light because their ways are evil.” (John 3:20) The light stands in the light of their wicked ways, as the angel did in Balaam’s way to his sin.
Ver. 14. Who rejoice to do evil.] It is their meat, drink, sport; (Proverbs 4:27 10:23) they cannot be merry unless the devil be their play fellow. This is reckoned as an aggravation of Jerusalem’s sin: “When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.” (Jeremiah 11:15) But better is the sorrow of him that suffereth evil than the jollity of him that doth evil, saith Augustine. Melior est tristitia iniqua patientis quam laetitia iniqua facientis.
Ver. 15. Whose ways are crooked.] How justly may God say to such, as the crab in the fable did to the serpent, when he had given him his death’s wound for his crooked conditions, and then saw him stretch himself out straight, At oportuit sic vixisse: It is too late now, you should have lived so. And who are froward.] Absurd, ´ Ατοποι. (2 Thessalonians 3:2) Men made up of mere incongruities, solacising in opinion, speeches, actions, all.
Ver. 16. From the strange woman.] Forbidden thee by God, as strange fire, strange gods, &c. Which flattereth with her words.] Whose lips are nets, whose hands are bands, whose words are cords to draw a man in as a fool to the stocks, or an ox to the slaughter.
Ver. 17. Which forsaketh the guide of her youth.] That is, Her husband; as Helena, Herodias, Bernice, (Acts 25:13) and other odious harlots. Adulterium quasi ad alterum, vel ad alterius torum. This wanton never wants one, though her husband be ever so near. And forgetteth the covenant of her God.] Marriage is a mixed covenant, partly religious and partly civil: the parties tie themselves first to God, and then to one another. The bond is made to God, who also will be ready enough to take the forfeiture. For whores and adulteresses God will judge. (Hebrews 13:3) Becman.
Ver. 18. For her house inclineth unto death.] Terence calleth harlots Cruces, quia iuvenes macerent et offligant. Venery is death’s best harbinger: Venus ab antiquis λυσιμελης dicta. She provideth, saith one, not for those that are already born, but for those that shall be born. Of Pope Paul the Fourth, that old goat, it went for a byword, Eum per eandem partem animam profudisse, per quam acceperat. Pope John the Twelfth being taken with an adulteress, was stabbed to death by her husband. Alexander the Great and Otho the Third test their lives by their lusts. But how many, alas! by this means have lost their souls. Fleshly lusts, by a specialty, “fight against the soul.” (1 Peter 2:12) And nothing hath so much enriched hell, saith one, as beautiful faces. And her paths unto the dead.] Heb., El Rhephaim, to the giants: To that part of hell where those damned monsters are, together with those sensual Sodomites, who, giving themselves over to fornication, and “going after strange flesh, are thrown forth, προκεινται, proiecti sunt, for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (Jude 7) The practice or pursuit of sexual pleasure; indulgence of sexual desire. Jacob. Revius. Barns. παρα τω Αδη μετα των γηγενων —Sept.
Ver. 19. None that go unto her return again.] Some of the ancients have herehence concluded that adultery is an unpardonable sin; but “all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men,” saith our Saviour, “save only the sin against the Holy Ghost.” (Matthew 12:31) True it is, that “a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit”; -that (Proverbs 23:27) “whoredom, and wine, and new wine take away the heart”; -that (Hosea 4:11) such are said to be “destitute of understanding,” and to have lost even the light of nature; (Proverbs 6:32 Romans 1:28) to be “past feeling, and given up to a dead and dedolent disposition”; (Ephesians 4:18,19) to be “impudent,” (Jeremiah 2:3) -wherefore also they are compared to dogs (Deuteronomy 23:18 2 Samuel 3:8) -and for the most part impenitent. (Ecclesiastes 7:28) Grace, as one well observeth, is seated in the powers of nature. Now carnal sins disable nature, and so set us in a greater distance from grace, as taking away the heart, &c. Howbeit “all things are possible with God”; (Mark 9:23,27) and though few have awakened out of this snare of the devil, yet some have, as David, and that woman in Luke 7:37,50, lest any humbled sinners should despair. κυνος ομματ εχων.—Hom.
Ver. 20. That thou mayest walk in the way.] This is another work of wisdom—as to keep us from bad company, so to put us into good, where much good may be learned. Dr Taylor, martyr, rejoiced that ever he came in prison, there to be acquainted with that angel of God, John Bradford (so he called him). Latimer and Ridley, while they lived, kept up Cranmer by intercourse of letters, and otherwise, from entertaining counsels of revolt. A child having been brought up with Plato, returned home to his father’s house, and, hearing his father to chide, and exclaim furiously in his anger, used these speeches to his father, “I have never seen the like with Plato.” Acts and Mon. Ibid. Sen., De Ira, lib. iii. cap. 11.
Ver. 21. For the upright shall dwell in the land.] Of Canaan, a type of heaven; for by these outward and corporeal things, inward, spiritual, and eternal are understood. Here the wise man speaks after the manner of Moses’ law, under which he lived; (Deuteronomy 11:8) and howsoever upright men suffer hardship and hunger here, yet they enjoy great tranquillity and felicity, as seeing God in all, and depending wholly upon him for help. “Well for the present, and it will be better hereafter”;—this is the upright man’s motto. Heaven, thinks he, will make amends for all. He that sees visions of glory will not matter, with St Stephen, a shower of stones. How much less will he think much, though “the Lord give him the bread of adversity, and water of affliction.” (Isaiah 30:20)
Ver. 22. But the wicked shall be cut off.] Certainly, suddenly, utterly, cum maxime velint vivere, when they have feathered their nests, and set up their rest, and reckon upon long life, as the fool in the Gospel: “God will shoot at them with an arrow suddenly,” and fetch them off when they least look for it. The wicked may die sinning. The saints shall not die till the best time—not till that time when, if they were but rightly informed, they would even desire to die. Shall be rooted out.] Heb., Plucked up, as degenerate plants. Exorientur, sed exurentur. “God shall likewise destroy thee for ever: he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwellingplace, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah.” (Psalms 52:5)