But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
Ver. 29. This then I say, brethren] The best counsel I can give you, is, that you hang loose to all these outward comforts, as having yourselves but a while to be here. You have a long task, and but a little time. God hath hanged the heaviest weights upon the weakest wires; for upon this moment depends eternity. Castigemus igitur mores et moras nostras. Up, therefore, and be doing.
The time is short] Gr. συνεσταλμενος, contracted and rolled up, as sails used to be by the mariners, when the ship draws nigh to the harbour. Others say, it is a metaphor from a piece of cloth rolled up, only a little left at the end. So hath God rolled up all his works, only he hath left a little at the end, and then all his glory shall appear. The time is short, saith the apostle, and you have business enough another way; therefore let other things (as wiving and buying, &c.) pass, and mind the main. There is water little enough to run in the right channel, therefore let none run beside. Some that have lain dying would have given a world for time: as I have heard (saith a reverend man) one crying day and night, Call time again. And I also have known the like of a great lady of this land. Let us therefore use all speed and diligence, lest (so as children have usually torn their books) we have ended our lives before we have learned our lessons; or (as Themistocles) we begin but to be wise when we come to die.
They that have wives, &c.] Not be uxorious, since they know not how soon God may take from them, as he did from Ezekiel, the delight of their eyes, their dearest spouses. The Jews of this day have a custom, when a couple are married, to break the glass wherein the bridegroom and bride drank; thereby to admonish them of their dying condition, and that there must be a parting again ere long. (Sphinx. Philos.)