Proverbs 1:24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Because I have called, &c. By my ministers, my judgments, the motions of my Spirit, and your own consciences; and ye refused To obey my call; I have stretched out my hand Offering mercy and grace to you, and earnestly inviting you to accept of them; and no man regarded Few or none complied with my will, and accepted my offers. But ye have set at naught all my counsel Have despised or made void my design of doing you good, and have disregarded my commands, counsels, and exhortations; I also will laugh at your calamity As you have scoffed at me and my ways, so I will not pity and relieve you, when sickness, pain, and death assault you, as they soon will do; I will mock when your fear cometh The misery which you do or should fear. When your fear cometh as desolation As the sword, or some desolating judgment, which quickly overruns a whole country; and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind Which instantly spreads itself from place to place with great and irresistible violence, sweeping all before it, and making terrible destruction; when distress, outwardly, and anguish, inwardly, cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me When it is too late, and would gladly be beholden to me for that mercy, which they now reject and make light of; but I will not answer Because when I called they would not answer me: all the answer then will be, Depart from me, I know you not. This has been the case of some, even in this life, as of Saul, whom God answered not by Urim, or by prophets; but ordinarily, while there is life there is room for prayer, and hope of being answered; and therefore this must chiefly refer to the inexorable justice of the last judgment. Then those that slighted God will seek him early, that is, earnestly, and without delay, but in vain; they shall not find him, because they did not seek him when he might be found, Isaiah 55:6. The rich man, in torment, begged in vain for a drop of water to cool his tongue; and much more would he have been denied if he had begged to be released out of the infernal prison.