The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
Ver. 7. The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob] i.e. by himself, the matter of Jacob's chief boasting, there being no God like unto their God (their enemies themselves being judges, Deu 32:31), neither any nation so great as to have God so nigh unto them as Israel had, in all things that they called upon him for, Deuteronomy 4:7. So that this oath of God grates upon their ingratitude for such imparallel privileges, and it is uttered in great wrath, as appeareth by the following angry aposiopesis, a wherein the apodosis b is not set down but understood.
lf I ever forget any of their works] Forget to punish them. These oaths, cum reticentia, are very dreadful. Take heed lest by stubbornness we provoke God to swear in his wrath that we shall not enter into his rest, Psalms 95:11. Take heed lest a promise of entering being left us, and a proffer made us, we should seem to come short of it, to come lag or late, Hebrews 4:1, υστερηκεναι, a day after the fair, an hour after the feast. God is now more quick and peremptory than ever in rejecting men that neglect so great salvation, Hebrews 2:3; the time is shorter, he will not wait so long as he was wont to do. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark 16:16. Surely God "will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will he make in the earth," Romans 9:28. "The time is short," saith the apostle, 1 Corinthians 7:29, a metaphor, say some, from a piece of cloth rolled up (συνεσταλμενος), only a little left at the end. "Let us therefore fear" (as the same apostle inferreth upon the consideration of God's oath, Hebrews 3:18; Hebrews 4:1, and let our fear not weaken but waken our diligence in well doing, lest he swear and repent not, lest he come to a resolution and decree (God's oath is nothing else but his inviolable and invariable decree) to cast us off as he did Saul, for his wilful disobedience, 1 Samuel 15:20,23. Saul lived long after his utter rejection, and men could see no alteration in his outward condition; but God had sworn, as here, never to forget any of his works. Now, saith Samuel to him (and it is fearful), the eternity of Israel (the excellency of Jacob) "will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent," 1 Samuel 15:29. Do not think this a case that seldom comes; it is done every day upon some or other, saith a great Divine; but woe be to that man upon whom it is done! it had been much better for him that he had not been born, Matthew 26:24. Oh consider this all ye that forget God, lest he swear by his excellency, "Surely I will never forget any of your works."
a A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed. ŒD
b The concluding clause of a sentence, as contrasted with the introductory clause or protasis; now usually restricted to the consequent clause in a conditional sentence, as ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him.' ŒD