It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.
Ver. 32. It shall be accomplished before his time] Heb. In not his day. That recompense before mentioned of calamity and death shall be hastened, so that they shall not live out half their days, Psalms 55:22, but die tempore non suo, Ecclesiastes 7:15, then when it were better for them to do anything rather than to die, since they perish in their corruptions, they are killed with death, Revelation 2:23; see Proverbs 7:27. Death ever taketh a wicked man unprovided, Haec enim vena nobis ab Adam agnata est, ut nullam arborem ad suspendium aptam invenire possimus: neque unquam caro mortem eligit, nisi pressa iudicio (Brent. in loc.). We naturally dream of an immortality here, neither yield we to die till there be a necessity, Miserandum est autem, saith Lavater; but it is a pitiful thing, that, being all so desirous of life, we should so little care for those things that would lengthen our lives, such as are piety, justice, temperance, &c.; we forget that short way to long life, Psalms 34:12 .
His branch shall not be green] Heb. His crooked or bowed down branch; this is his full estate or numerous issue, those boughs of his, laden and bowed down with fruit, shall not be green, but blasted and dried up; ramificans eius non virescet. It is a misery to be the branch of a wicked stock, for such, as they leave the rest of their substance to their little ones, Psalms 17:14, so they leave them God's curse, as Joab's legacy, 2 Samuel 3:29, or as Gehazi's leprosy, 2 Kings 5:27, a wretched bequeath.