Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate.
Ver. 13. Yet all this availeth me nothing] It is seldom seen, saith a right reverend interpreter here, that God allows unto the greatest darlings of the world a perfect contentment. Something they must have to complain of that shall give an unsavoury verdure to their sweetest morsels, and make their felicity miserable. Totum hoc non est utile mihi, I enjoy nothing of all this. No more did Ahab, when sick of Naboth's vineyard, 1 Kings 21:4. His heart did more afflict and vex itself with greedy longing for that bit of earth than the vast and spacious compass of a kingdom could counter comfort.
So long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate] So full of torment is envy, if it cannot come at another man's harm, it will feed upon its own. Who would ever set by the profits, pleasures, and preferments of this present life, that yield so little sound and sincere contentment to those that have most of them? In the very pursuit of them is much anguish, many grievances, fears, jealousies, disgraces, interruptions, &c., and after the unsanctifed enjoyment of them (if any such thing there be, for even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, Proverbs 14:13, and there is a snare, or a cord, in the sin of the wicked, Proverbs 29:6, to strangle their joy with) followeth the sting of conscience, that will inexpressibly torment the soul throughout all eternity; besides the vexation of it, to see such as Mordecai, the Jew, whom they once would not have set with the dogs of their flocks, sitting, not at the king's gate, but on Christ's own throne, Revelation 3:21, as partakers of all his glory.