And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
Ver. 3. My Spirit shall not always strive,] that is, I'll consult no longer, but resolve to ruin them, as some gloss it; or, I'll pull the sword out of the sheath, the soul out of the body, as others gather out of the Hebrew word a here used. But they do best, in my mind, that sense it thus: My Spirit - whereby I hitherto "went and preached," by Noah and other patriarchs, to those "spirits" (once in pleasure, now) "in prison," Ecclesiastes 11:9 1Pe 3:18-19 but prevailed not - shall not always strive with perverse men by preaching, disputing, convincing, in the mouths of my servants, whom I have sent unto them; nor in their own minds and consciences, by inward checks and motions, which they have made no good use of. Delicata res est Spiritus Dei. Grieve it once, and you may drive it away for ever. It "bloweth where it listeth," and will not be at your whistle.
For that he also is flesh.] He is therefore the worse, because he ought to be better, b God expects singular things from his people, and takes it ill when they are "carnal and walk as men". 1Co 3:3 They should be higher than others by head and shoulders, as Saul was; and all that is in them, or comes from them, should be as the fruit of the trees in Paradise, fair to the eye, and sweet to the taste.
Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.] It shall be so long ere I destroy. This longsuffering of God is celebrated by St Peter, 1 Peter 3:19,20 2Pe 2:5 and well it may; for had he not been God, and not man, he could never have held his hands so long. Neither indeed did he; for so extreme was the provocation, that he cut them off twenty years of this promised count: that all the earth might "know" to their woe his "breach of promise". Num 14:34
a Sunt qui deductum volunt a Nadan, Vagina.
b Ideo deteriores sumus, quia meliores esse debemus - . Salv.