All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea [is] not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
Ver. 7. All the rivers run into the sea.] And the nearer they come to the sea, the sooner they are met by the tide; sent out, as it were, to take their tribute due to the sea, that seat and source of waters. Surely as the rivers lead a man to the sea, so do all these creatures carry him to God by their circular motion. A circle, we say, is the most perfect figure, because it begins and ends; the points do meet together; the last point meets in the first from whence it came; so shall we never come to perfection or satisfaction till our souls come to God, till he make the circle meet. A wise philosopher could say, that man is the end of all things in a semicircle; that is, all things in the world are made for him, and he is made for God, to whom he must therefore hasten.
Unto the place from whence the rivers come.] Sc., From the sea, through the pores and passages of the earth, where they leave their saltness. This is Solomon's opinion, as it was likewise the opinion of the ancient philosophers, which yet Aristotle finds fault with, and assigns another cause of the perennity of rivers, of their beginning and origin - viz., that the air thickened in the earth by reason of cold, doth resolve and turn into water, &c. a This agrees not with that which Solomon here saith by the instinct of the Holy Ghost. And therefore Averroes is by no means to be hearkened unto in that excessive commendation he gives Aristotle - viz., that there was no error in his writings, that his doctrine was the chiefest truths, and that his understanding was the utmost that was by any one attainable; himself the rule and pattern that Nature invented to show her most perfect skill, &c. b
a Hinc poetae fingunt Inachum fluvium ex Oceano genitum.
b Alsted. Chronol., p. 460.