Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress Take cognizance of my case, and use such means for my relief as thou pleasest. It is a matter of comfort to us, that the troubles which oppress our spirits are perfectly known to God, and that his eye is continually upon them. Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death Thus was Moses's prediction, Deuteronomy 32:25, fulfilled, The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs. Virgil describes a similar scene, when he says,
“ Crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago.” ÆN. 2:368.
“All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears; And grisly death in sundry shapes appears.” DRYDEN.
By death, in this clause, the pestilence is meant, as in Jeremiah 15:2, where see the note: death acting, as it were, in propria persona, in its own proper person, and not by the instrumentality of another, as when a person is slain by the sword. So our great poet, in his description of a lazar-house,
“ Despair
‘Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch; And over them triumphant death his dart Shook.”
PARADISE LOST, book 11. 50:489, &c.
Instead of, At home there is as death, Lowth proposes reading, there is certain death, observing, that the particle of similitude in the Scriptures sometimes implies a strong affirmation, as John 1:14, We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, meaning such a glory as could belong to none but the Son of God.