An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…

though some of the old men, who remembered the first Temple, wept when the foundation of this was laid. That Scripture (Zach. 4.7.) speaks of the same thing, where the Prophet, in the Spirit, fore-seeing the disappointments of all the enemies of the people of God, thus triumphs over them by faith; Who art thou, O great Mountain, before Zerubbabel? thou shalt become a plain; he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shouting. That is, the building of Jerusalem, or the restoring of the Temple shall be brought to perfection; and then they shall cry, grace, grace, unto it.

though some of the old men, who remembred the first Temple, wept when the foundation of this was laid. That Scripture (Zach. 4.7.) speaks of the same thing, where the Prophet, in the Spirit, fore-seeing the disappointments of all the enemies of the people of God, thus triumphs over them by faith; Who art thou, O great Mountain, before Zerubbabel? thou shalt become a plain; he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shouting. That is, the building of Hierusalem, or the restoring of the Temple shall be brought to perfection; and then they shall cry, grace, grace, unto it.

Now in allusion to the practice both of men in common, and of the people of God in special, at the raising of great structures; the Lord tells us here, that when he laid the foundations of the earth, and when he fastened the corner-stone thereof, there was a Triumph made: Then the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Thus we have the state of this verse, either taking it for another instance of the power of God in creating the Stars and the Angels; or else subjoining it as an acclamation to the former instance of the power of God; the Stars and Angels rejoicing at the laying of the foundations of the earth. And the general reason why the Lord b•ings in the stars and the sons of God rejoicing at the laying the foundations of the earth, and finishing that work, we may conceive to be this; that the Lord would thereby convince Job of his murmuring and complaining, or of the unquietness of his spirit under the works of his providence. As if he had said, The stars and all the sons of God rejoiced at the founding of the Earth, extolling the work,