A35438:498
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the Book of Job being the substance of XXXV lectures delivered at Magnus near the bridge, London / by Joseph Caryl.
London: printed for L. Fawne, 1656
AN EXPOSITION Upon the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Chapters o… › Chapter 4 › Verses 19-21
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
How much less on them that dwell in houses of clay.
How much lesse on them that dwell in houses of clay.
The Hebrew bears a double rendering, either how much less, (as we) or how much more: If it be rendered how much less, then it refers to the first clause of the former verse; Thus, if he 1puts no trust in his Angels, then much less doth he put trust in men, who dwell in houses of clay. If it be rendered, how much more, then it refers to the latter clause of that verse; Thus, If he charged his Angels with folly, then how much more may he charge them with folly, who dwell in houses of clay? Which words, are a description of man, either in his civill condition, or in his natural constitution. Some take these words in the very letter, The house, for that which we ordinarily call a house, the house wherein man ordinarily inhabits; as if Eliphaz had thus said, Angels dwell in Heaven, they have everlasting mansions, but man, dwells in a house of clay, the best and goodliest houses are but clay and dust, a little refined and sublimated by art or nature, brick and stone, all these materials, or but dirt concocted by the heat of fire and Sun; so that, if the allusion were to the very houses in which man-kind dwells, in opposition to the habitation of Angels, these set them far inferior to, and below the Angels. As, these take it for the house wherein man lives, so some understand it, of the house, where man lies being dead, namely the grave: The Chaldee is express paraphrasing thus, How much more the wicked, who dwell in a sepulchre of clay? That, the grave is called a house, the Prophet helps us. Isa. 14. 18, 19. All the Kings of the Nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house, that is, in the grave, as the next ⟨p. 145⟩words prove, But thou art cast out of thy grave, &c. But I rather take it (as was before intimated) to be an expression of mans natural constitution, He dwells in a house of clay, whose foundation is in the dust. And so the Apostle is express (