2 Corinthians 1:9 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves; we verily thought we should have been killed; and so it is expounded by the last words of the former verse, we despaired even of life. And this God did to teach us, that we should, when we are in dangers, look above the creature, and have no confidence in created means, but only look up to him, who raiseth the dead; as Abraham offered up Isaac, Hebrews 11:17-19, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. Abraham had a promise to bottom such a faith upon; God had told him: That in Isaac his seed should be called: so had Paul, God having revealed to him, that he had a farther work for him to do. So have not all Christians; we do not know our courses, nor what work God hath in his eternal counsels laid out for us, and therefore cannot be confident of deliverances in this life by the Almighty power of God; but yet we, under our greatest trials, may trust in God, who will certainly raise us from the dead; of which faith we have an instance in Job, Job 19:25-27. However, for our comfort in our distresses we may observe: That God, in his great deliverances of his people, useth to suffer them first to be brought to the greatest extremities; that in the mount of the Lord it may be seen, and that they may learn to know that their salvations are from him; more from his Almighty power, than from the virtue of any means they can use, though yet it be our duty to use what lawful means his providence affordeth us.