He that is ready to slip with [his] feet [is as] a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
Ver. 5. He that is ready to slip with his feet] He who is in a declining, tottering condition, ready to fall and perish under the burden of his afflictions, though formerly he was looked upon and made use of as a lamp or torch, yet when he is at an under, and brought low, is shamefully slighted by such as have the world at will; like as a torch when wasted and waxen short is cast out of the hands, and trodden on with the feet of him that held it. The holiest men, if afflicted, do but smother instead of shining. When Christ himself was a man of sorrows, he was therefore despised and rejected of men, who hid, as it were, their faces from him, and esteemed him not, Isaiah 53:3. The prodigal's elder brother speaks scornfully of him, because poor, Luke 15:30, "This thy son." He saith not, This my brother, &c. Gregory saith, that the poor just man is here compared to a lamp extinct, because he shineth inwardly by the virtue of an upright heart; but outwardly is as it were extinct, because there is nothing outward to commend him; no glorious apparel, no goodly houses, &c.; whence they are slighted by the rich wretches of this world. But such a lamp (saith he, following the Vulgate translation) is set for an appointed time; that is, the day of judgment, when he shall shine most brightly, even as the sun, &c., when the world's favourites shall be thrust into utter darkness.