An exposition with practical observations upon the three first chapters of the book of…

This 21. verse doth further explicate who are the bitter in soul, even such as long for death; when a soul (from natural principles) finds a sweetness in death, that soul is in bitterness; Our affliction and our misery is indeed worm-wood and gall, as the Church complains, (Lam. 2.19.) when death is as honey, and longed for as the honey-comb. There is bitterness in the death of the body, and yet some are so bitter in soul, that they account the very bitterness of death, sweetness; They say not as Agag, (1 Sam. 15.32.) Surely the bitterness of death is past, but O that the sweetness of death would come. To be rid of sin makes us long for death spiritually, to be rid of pain makes us desire death naturally; therefore he saith, the bitter in soul long for death.

This 21. verse doth further explicate who are the bitter in soule, even such as long for death; when a soule (from naturall principles) finds a sweetnesse in death, that soule is in bitternesse; Our affliction and our misery is indeed worme-wood and gall, as the Church complaines, (Lam. 2.19.) when death is as honey, and long'd for as the honey-combe. There is bitternesse in the death of the body, and yet some are so bitter in soule, that they account the very bitternesse of death, sweetnesse; They say not as Agag, (1 Sam. 15.32.) Surely the bitternesse of death is past, but O that the sweetnesse of death would come. To be rid of sin makes us long for death spiritually, to be rid of paine makes us desire death naturally; therefore he saith, the bitter in soule long for death.

The word which we translate [by longing] signifieth a very vehement desire, as you know in our tongue, to long for a thing, ¹is the highest and hottest acting of desire, after a thing. It signifieth properly to gape or to breathe: Hence (by a Trope) it signifieth strong desire; because they who desire a thing much, are said to gape or breath after it: just as an hungry man gapes after meat, wheresoever he sees it, and his mind runs upon it, when he cannot see it, that is the force of the word. Hence also the word is used in Scripture, to note the strong actings of faith, and vehement expectations of hope in God, when the soul is raised up mightily to believe the word of promise, then it longs after and opens its mouth wide (as it were) to receive the thing promised. As in