Doth not their excellency [which is] in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
Ver. 21. Doth not their excellency which is in them go away?] Journeyeth not their excellency with them? so Broughton rendereth it. By their excellence here some understand the soul, called by David his glory. A philosopher said, there was nothing excellent in the world but man, nothing in man but his soul (Favorinus). The Stoics affirmed that the body was not a part of a man, but the instrument, or rather the servant, of the soul. Hence the Latins call the body Corpus, or Corpor (as of old they speak), quasi cordis puer sive famnlus. And Plato saith that that is not the man that is seen of him; but the mind of a man, that is the man (ουκ εστιν ανθρωπος το ορωμενον). And in the Job 4:19 man is said to dwell in a house of clay; that is, the soul to inhabit the body. The soul goes away with the name of the whole person; the soul indeed is the man in a moral consideration, and is, therefore, elsewhere called the inward man, and the hidden man of the heart, 2Co 4:16 1 Peter 3:4; the body, compared to it, is but as a clay wall encompassing a treasure, a coarse case to a rich instrument, a leathern sheath to an excellent blade, Daniel 7:15, or as a mask to a beautiful face. Now at death this excellence of a man departeth, returneth to God that gave it, Ecclesiastes 12:7. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish," even the most excellent effects of his mind and spirit, as the word signifieth, Psalms 146:4. And as that, so all other excellencies go away at death, Psalms 39:11; Psalms 49:13; even the whole goodliness of man, Isaiah 40:6, whether it be the good things of the mind, as wisdom, science, conscience, judgment; or of the body, as beauty and health; or of fortune, as they call it, as favour and applause, together with plenty of prosperity. No man's glory goeth down with him into the grave, Psalms 49:16. Where is now the flourishing beauty and gallantry of Caesar, saith one? his armies and honours, his triumphs and trophies? Where are the rich fool's great barns? Nebuchadnezzar's great Babel? Agrippa's great pomp? &c. Have not all these made their bed in the dark, leaving their excellence behind them? Are they not, many of them, gone to their place, as a stone to the centre, or as a fool to the stocks?
They die, even without wisdom] Heb. They die, and not with wisdom; they die like so many beasts (but for their pillow and bolster), without any care to lay hold on eternal life; they die as a fool dieth, 2 Samuel 3:33. Not in wisdom; that is, in abundance of folly, saith Pineda. And this is most men's case; their wit serves them not in this weighty work of preparing to die; they put far away the thoughts of it, and hence they die tempore non suo, Ecclesiastes 7:17, when it were better for them to do anything rather than to die. To live with dying thoughts is a high point of heavenly wisdom, Psa 90:12 Deuteronomy 32:29. How might one such wise Christian chase a thousand foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men's soul in perdition and destruction! 1 Timothy 6:4 .