An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

Here are two sorts of places, a strait, and a broad place: What a strait place, properly taken, is, all know. The Heb ew is, He would have removed thee out of the mouth of the strait. ¹The Septuagint render, He would have removed thee out of the mouth of the enemy. An enemy puts us to straits; and therefore the same word signifies a strait and an enemy: he would have removed thee out of a strait place; the hand of an enemy is so. But mo•e generally, by the strait place, we are to understand any kind of tribulation or trouble whatsoever. Troubles of any sort are justly called straits, for they enclose and imprison us, they abridge us of our liberty, they tie us short up, where we can scarce stir or breath. A man in trouble, is a man in straits. Some expound these words allegorically, taking the mouth of the strait for Hells mouth; they that descend thither, are indeed in everlasting straits; for, though Tophet be deep and large, as the Prophet speaks (Isa. 30.33.) yet all that are there, are in straits. Hell is la ge to take in, but strait to let out,² so strait, that it will not let one out for ever. Others expound it tropologically, or with respect to manners; he would have delivered thee out of the mouth of the strait, that is, from the power of thy sins and corruptions, for they indeed are straits; and though we easily fall into them, yet we hardly get ou•,³ or free of them again. But we need not take up, either Allegories, or Tropologies; the words are plain. That which Elihu here inten•s by straits, is great trouble, deep misery, into which a man being cast, knows neither how to subsist, nor how to escape: Ye• out of that strait place he promiseth deliverance; He would have removed thee out of a strait ⁴Into a broad place;

Here are two sorts of places, a streight, and a broad place: What a streight place, properly taken, is, all know. The Heb ew is, He would have removed thee out of the mouth of the streight.