Him that ladeth himself with thick clay.
Heavy clay
It is the glory of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ when it is regarded in its moral aspect, that it is not the religion merely of transcendental and unpractical truths, but that its motives and precepts go down to the minutest details of everyday duty. Note--
1. The danger of a false start and a false aim in life. God has given us a complex nature, and He has given us the use of our reason and the other faculties, physical and mental, which He bestows upon men. And the great end of man is to glorify God. If a man uses his powers only to found a family or amass wealth, we earnestly warn that man. He has mistaken the great end of his being.
2. A form in which the lading of thick clay is found is greed of money. Covetousness in some one or other of its forms or specious disguises is one of the besetting idolatries of the day. This greed of money manifests itself in money-getting and in money-losing, and also in money-spending. Comparatively few recognise the principle of stewardship to God in the expenditure of their income.
3. Another form in which this heavy clay is sometimes found is anxiety. What our Lord and His apostles tell us to avoid is the carking, distracting care which turns a man’s mind away from God, and keeps him continually on the rack, forgetting the loving Father who is willing to be the bearer of all his cares.
4. Another form of this clay among business men is sharp practice. Sharp practice is in our manufactories, upon the exchange, with lawyers, and not only among the little petty hucksters, but among tradesmen who make a much fairer show in our streets.
5. Another form is a worldly tone and spirit. To be a Christian, there is no necessity to leave your work and to lead the life of a recluse. Go into the world and make your money, but do not worship it. (Canon Miller, D. D.)
Under a heap of clay
The avaricious “accumulate on themselves thick clay.” Hardly, indeed, an avaricious man can be found who is not a burden to himself, and to whom his wealth is not a source of trouble. Everyone who has accumulated much, when he comes to old age, is afraid to use what he has got, being ever solicitous lest he should lose anything; and then, as he thinks nothing is sufficient, the more he possesses the more grasping he becomes, and frugality is the name given to that sordid and, so to speak, that servile restraint within which the rich confine themselves. In short, when any one forms a judgment of all the avaricious of this world, and is himself free from all avarice, having a free and unbiassed mind, he will easily apprehend what the prophet says here,--that all the wealth of this world is nothing else but a heap of clay, as when any one puts himself of his own accord under a great heap which he had collected together. The general truth to be drawn from the expression is, that all the avaricious, the more they heap together, the more they lade themselves, and as it were, bury themselves under a great load. Riches acquired by frauds and plunders are nothing else than a heavy and cumbrous lump of earth; for God returns on the heads of those who thus seek to enrich themselves whatever they have plundered from others. Had they been contented with some moderate portion, they might have lived cheerfully and happily, as we see to be the case with all the godly, who, though they possess but little, are yet cheerful; for they live in hope, and know that their supplies are in God’s hands, and expect everything from His blessing. (John Calvin.)
Making money
Whatever we do to please ourselves, and only for the sake of the pleasure, not for an ultimate object, is “play,” the pleasing thing, not the useful thing The first of all Enish games is making money. That is an all-absorbing game; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that than at football or any other rougher sport; and it is absolutely without purpose. No one who engages heavily in that game ever knows why. Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money; he never knows. He doesn’t make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. “What will you make of what you have got?” you ask. “Well, I’ll get more,” he says. Just as at cricket you get more runs. There’s no use in the runs, but to get more of them than other people is the game. And there’s no use in the money, but to have more of it than other people is the game. (John Ruskin.)