So [are] the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish:
Ver. 13. So are the paths of all that forget God] To remember God is as necessary as to draw breath, saith Chrysostom. This the wicked man doth not, Psalms 9:17. He will neither have God in his head, Psalms 10:4, nor heart, Psalms 14:1, nor words, Psalms 12:2, nor ways, Titus 1:16. What wonder then though his paths wither, though his life, health, wealth, power, perish, since he is in such a posture of distance from, and defiance with, the fountain of living waters, the Father of all mercy and consolation; by whose favour such flourish for a time, sed exoriuntur, ut exurantur?
And the hypocrite's hope shall perish] Every wicked man is a hypocrite; and if there were nothing else to evince it, yet his very hope and groundless confidence in the mercies of God without warrant of promise, would undoubtedly prove it. Praesumendo sperat, et sperando petit, saith an ancient; he presumptuously hopeth, and by hoping perisheth; he lays his own shadow for a bridge, and so must needs fall into the brook. Trust thou in the Lord and do good, saith David, Psalms 37:3. But this man, though he cannot tell of one tear for sin, nor one hour spent in the practice of mortification; yet he affirmeth deeply of going to heaven, and is ready to rap, yea, bounce at heaven's gate with Lord, Lord, open unto us: but what saith the psalmist? "As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways" (though they do it never so slily, as if they would steal a passage to hell, and the world never the wiser), "the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity," with gross offenders, Psalms 125:5, as malefactors are led forth to execution; and when the filthy sinner (so the word here rendered hypocrite signifieth) goes damned to hell, what shall become of the zealous professor, with all his fair hopes and possibilities? Surely God rejecteth their confidences; they shall not prosper in them, Jeremiah 2:37 .