Like sheep; which for a season are fed in large and sweet pastures, but at the owner's pleasure are put together in close and comfortless folds, and led away to the slaughter, not knowing nor considering whither they are going. In the grave; or, in hell; for the Hebrew word signifies both. Death shall feed on them; the first death shall consume their bodies in the grave, and the second death shall devour their souls. The upright; good men, whom here they oppressed and abused at their pleasure. In the morning; either,
1. Suddenly, or within a very little time, as this phrase is oft used, as Psalms 30:5, Psalms 46:5 101:8 113:8. Or,
2. In the day of general judgment, and the resurrection of the dead. For death being called the night, 1 Thessalonians 9:4, and sleep in many places, that day is fitly compared to the morning, when men awake out of sleep, and enter upon that everlasting day. But whether this or the former be the true meaning of the phrase, it is sufficiently evident the thing here spoken of is not done in this life, but in the next; for,
1. This proposition and privilege being general, and common to all upright persons, is not verified here, it being the lot of many good men to be oppressed and killed by the wicked, as is manifest both from Scripture, as Psalms 44:22 Ecclesiastes 8:14, Ecclesiastes 9:2, and from the experience of all ages of the church.
2. This dominion of the just over the wicked happens after the wicked are laid in their grave, as is here expressed, and consequently supposeth their future life and resurrection; for when one person rules over another, both are supposed to exist or have a being. Nor is there any argument against this sense, but from a vain and absurd conceit which some men have entertained, that the saints in the Old Testament had no firm belief nor expectation of the recompences of the life to come; which is against evident reason, and against many clear places of the Old Testament that cannot without force be wrested to any other sense, and against the express testimony of the New Testament concerning them, Heb 11, and in many other places. Their beauty; or, their form or, their figure, or image; all which come to one, and seems to intimate that all their glory and felicity had in this life was rather imaginary than real, and indeed but a shadow, as it is called, Ecclesiastes 6:12, Ecclesiastes 8:13. Shall consume, Heb. is to consume, or to be consumed, i.e. shall be consumed; the infinitive verb being here put for the future, as it is Psalms 32:8 Malachi 3:4, Malachi 12:10. From their dwelling i.e. they shall be hurried from their large, and stately, and pleasant mansions, into a close and dark grave. But those words are by divers interpreters rendered otherwise, and that peradventure more truly and fitly to this purpose, word for word, the grave (or rather hell, as before and this word sheol is confessedly oft used in the Old Testament, but no where more conveniently than here) shall be a dwelling, or for a dwelling, unto him, or them, or every one of them; which in the prophet's phrase is called dwelling with everlasting burnings, Isaiah 33:14, and in the phrase of the New Testament, to be cast into and abide in the lake of fire and brimstone, Revelation 20:10.