For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south, comes exaltation.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 6. Troubled. Hebrew “plundered,” or “stupified.” Bert.—The haughty and blasphemous Sennacherib, Rabsaces, and so forth were full of dismay, when the destroying angel slew 185,000 ( Calmet.) in the dead of the night.
“What dire astonishment, ye men
Of Media, sunk you to despair?” Hymn on War, p. 52. Bible.
—Sleep in death. Job 27:19.—Of riches, with which they are possessed, as with a fever, (Seneca, ep. cxix.) and of which they dream. Isaiah 29:8. Calmet.—Yet the most opulent must die, and are foolish in clinging to riches, since they can carry nothing away. Menochius.—Hands. Hebrew “the men of the army have not found their hands.” Bert.—They could not use their arms against a spirit. Bible.—Christ has enlightened the mountains, his apostles; and fools despise their instructions, as the Athenians did Saint Paul’s, being too much attached to the world. Saint Augustine Bert.—Though they may be troubled, they will not open their eyes to be convinced. Hence, they have no oil of good works, when they awake in eternity. Worthington.