Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, [that there shall] not [be] a man [left]: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them!
Ver. 12. Though they bring up children, yet will I bereave them] "If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword; and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread," Job 27:14. This was fulfilled in Ahab's seventy sons, beheaded together, 2 Kings 10:6,7, in whom be had vainly promised himself the establishment of his house, which God had threatened to root out: in Jehu and his posterity after the fourth generation: those Romans that went out against the enemy at the Porta scelerata wicked gate, (as it was thereupon called) and never returned again; and that Eckius Raschachius, a German captain, at the siege of Buda, A.D. 1541, whose son, a valiant young gentleman, being got out of the army without his father's knowledge, bare himself so gallantly in fight against the enemy, in the sight of his father and the army, that he was highly commended of all men, and especially of his father, that knew him not at all. Yet before he could clear himself he was compassed in by the enemy, and valiantly fighting, slain. Raschachius, exceedingly moved with the death of so brave a man, ignorant how near he touched himself, turning about to the other captains said, This worthy gentleman, whatsoever he be, is worthy of eternal commendation, and to be most honourably buried by the whole army. As the rest of the captains were with like compassion approving his speech, the dead body of the unfortunate son rescued, was presented to the most miserable father; which caused all them that were there present to shed tears. But such a sudden and inward grief surprised the aged father, and struck so to his heart, that after he had stood a while speechless, with his eyes set in his head, he suddenly fell down dead.
Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them] This is indeed worse than all the rest; this is that only evil spoken of by Ezekiel: hell itself is nothing else but a separation from God's presence, with the ill consequents thereof; and the tears of hell are not sufficient to bewail the loss of that beautiful vision. How miserable was Cain when cast off by God! Saul, when forsaken of him! David, when deserted, though but for a few months! Job, for a few years, Suidas saith seven! While God was graciously with him, and prospered him, he was Jobab (that same mentioned Genesis 36:34, as some think), but when under sense of God's absence, contracted into Job. See the like, Gen 17:5 Ruth 1:20. His desertion was far more comfortable than David's; it was probational only, but David's penal, for chastisement of some way of wickedness. O lay we hold upon God (as the spouse doth upon her Beloved), and cry, as the prophet did, "Lord, leave us not," Jeremiah 14:9. If he seem to be about, and his back be turned, cry aloud after him, as the blind man in the Gospel did, till Jesus stood: set up thy note, as Micah did after his lost idols, Judges 18:24. Ye have taken away my gods, saith he, and what have I more? as if he should have said, I esteem all that you have left me as nothing, now that my gods are gone. Jerusalem, the joy of the whole earth, pleased not Absalom, unless he might see David's face. God was no sooner gone from Miriam but the leprosy appeared in her face. But of this before.