If a man die, shall he live [again]? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.
Ver. 14. If a man die, shall he live again?] This he speaketh in way of admiration at that glorious work of the resurrection. See the like question Job 15:11 Genesis 3:1; Genesis 17:17. So the apostle, Romans 8:30,31, having spoken of those glorious things, predestination, vocation, justification, glorification, concludeth in these words, "What shall we say then?" We cannot tell what to say to these things, so much are we amazed at the greatness of God's goodness in them. Surely, as they have a lovely scarlet blush of Christ's blood upon them, so they are rayed upon with a beam of divine love, to them that are in Christ. We read of that godly and learned Scotch divine, Mr John Knox, that a little before his death he got up out of his bed, and being asked by his friends, why, being so sick, he would offer to rise, and not rather take his rest? he answered, that he had all the last night been taken up in the meditation of the resurrection, and that he would now go up into the pulpit, that he might impart to others the comforts which thereby himself had received. And surely if he had been able to have done as he desired, I know not what text fitter for his purpose he could have taken, than these words of Job, "If a man die, shall he live again?" He shall without question; and those that deny it or doubt it (as the Sadducees of old, and some brain sick people of late), they err, not knowing the Scriptures (this among the rest), which are express for it, and the power of God, Matthew 22:29, being herein worse than devils, which believe it and tremble, worse than some heathens, who held there would be a resurrection, as Zoroastes, Theopompus, Plato, &c., worse than Turks, who at this day confess and wait for a resurrection of the body at such a time as the fearful trumpet (which they call Soor) shall be sounded by Mahomet, say they, at the command of the great God of the judgment.
All the days of mine appointed time (or warfare) will I wait, till my change come] i.e. Till my death, (Proverbs 31:8, men appointed to die are called in the original children of change) or till the resurrection come, when we shall all be changed, 1 Corinthians 15:51, our vile bodies shall be changed and conformed to Christ's most glorious body (the standard), Philippians 3:21, in beauty, agility, impassibility, and other angelical perfections. When I awake, saith David, sc. at that general resurrection, I shall be full of thine image, Psalms 17:15. I shall be brought from the jaws of death to the joys of eternal life, where are riches without rust, pleasures without pain, &c. Three glimpses of this glorious change were seen: 1. In Moses' face. 2. In Christ's transfiguration. 3. In Stephen's countenance when he stood before the council. Such change as this is well worth waiting for: what would not a man do? what would he not suffer, with those noble professors, Hebrews 11:33,40, to obtain a better resurrection? I would swim through a sea of brimstone, saith one, that I might come to heaven at last. The stone will fall down to come to its own place, though it break itself in twenty pieces: so we, that we may get to our centre, which is upwards, &c. Sursum cursum nostrum dirigamus; et minantem, imminentem, et exterminantem mortem attendamus: ne simul, cum corporis fractura, animae iacturam faciamus. Let us wait and wish every one for himself, as he once did:
Mi sine nocte diem, vitam sine morte, quietem
Det sine fine, dies, vita, quiesque Deus.