Howbeit he will not stretch out [his] hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.
Ver. 24. Howbeit he will outstretch not his hand to the grave] He will not dig up the dead, as the Papists dealt by Bucer and others, to afflict them any more. Quid facere poterunt? Occident? Nunquid, resuscitabunt ut iterum occidant? What can they do? said Luther concerning his enemies who threatened him. Will they kill me? but what then? Will they raise me up to life again, that they may kill me again? No: Charles V, emperor, when he might have done that, and was moved to do it, would not. Mors requies aerumnarum. Dead men are at rest, was Chaucer's motto. There, in the grave, the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest, Job 3:17. Thus Job speaketh, going no further than the afflictions of the body, as being for his own part fearless of eternal punishment. But as for the wicked, when they die out of bodily misery, it is but as the man's flying from a lion, and a more savage bear meeteth him; or going from it into the house (this house mentioned in Job 30:23), and that more venomous serpent (the devil, who hath the power of death, Heb 2:14) there biteth him, Amos 5:19 .
Though they cry in his destruction] i.e. While God is crushing or killing of them. Or, Is there any cry in his destruction? It was never yet known that dead men made moan; whatever the Popish legenders tell us of one that cried out, I am dead, I am judged, I am damned; which gave occasion to Bruno to found the Carthusian order.