Your remembrances [are] like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
Ver. 12. Your remembrances are like unto ashes, &c.] Mr Beza readeth the whole verse thus: Your speeches are the words of ashes, and your stately bulwarks are but bulwarks of clay. And thus he paraphraseth: For these things which you allege as matters gathered by long observations, and which you thunder out against me as if they were most certain and grounded axioms, are indeed no more sound and substantial than ashes; and those your high forts, as it were, and turrets, out of which you assail me, are made but of dirt and mire. Others, by "your remembrances," understand with Mercer, quicquid in vobis memorabile est, whatsoever it is for the which you are so often remembered and mentioned by others, as your wealth, dignity, power, splendour, name, and fame, yea, your very life, is nothing else but ashes, and all shall return to ashes, and come to nought, according to that of Abraham, I am but dust and ashes, Genesis 18:27; such an infinite distance there is between God's unconceiveable highness and your extreme meanness, or rather, utter nothingness.
Your bodies to bodies of clay] i.e. To images made of clay or earth; or, that which is highest in you, even your best enjoyments, your chiefest eminences, or greatest elevations, are like to a lump of clay, terrae quam terimus, terrae quam gerimus. See Job 4:19. See Trapp on " Job 4:19 "