I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; [but] thou saidst, I will not hear. This [hath been] thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice.
Ver. 21. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity.] Heb., In thy prosperities, or tranquillities. Prosperity rendereth men refractory. Demetrius called a peaceable and prosperous life a dead sea; because, being not tossed with any considerable troubles, it slayeth the simple, as Solomon hath it. Pro 1:32 Men are usually best when worst, and worst when best: like the snake which, when frozen, lieth quiet and still, but waxing warm, stirreth and stingeth. The parable of the sun and the wind is known, Anglica gens est optima flens et pessima ridens. The English people are best crying and worst laughing. Some of those who, in Queen Mary's days, kept their garments close about them, wore them afterwards more loosely. It is as hard to bear prosperity, as to drink much wine and not be giddy. It is, at least, as strong waters to a weak stomach; which, however they do not intoxicate, yet they weaken the brain: plus deceptionis semper habet quam delectationis; it always has greater deception then amusments, it is able to entice, and ready to kill the entangled. In rest we contract rust; neither are men's ears opened to hear instruction but by correction. Job 33:16 God holdeth us to hard meat, that he may be true to oar souls. Psa 119:75
This hath been thy manner from thy youth.] "Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked," is an old complaint. Deu 32:15 To have been an old sinner, habituated and hardened in iniquity, is no small aggravation of it: Ezekiel 20:13, "But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness"; there they murmured against God and Moses ten times; "forty years was he there grieved with that perverse generation." They began as soon as ever they were moulded into a state, like as Esau began to persecute Jacob in the very womb, that no time might be lost.