As the whirlwind passeth, so [is] the wicked no [more]: but the righteous [is] an everlasting foundation.
Ver. 25. As the whirlwind passeth away.] The whirlwind is terrible for the time, but not durable. Lo, such is the rage of tyrants and persecutors. Nubecula est, cito transibit, said Athanasius of the Arian persecution. Our Richard III and Queen Mary had, as the bloodiest, so the shortest reigns of any since the Conquest. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. Dioclesian, that cruel persecutor, giving over his empire, decreed to lead the rest of his life quietly, a But he escaped not so, for after that his house was wholly consumed with lightning and a flame of fire that fell from heaven. He, hiding himself for fear of the lightning, died within a little while after. "Then terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and, as a storm, hurleth him out of his place. For God shall cast upon him, and not spare: he would fain flee out of his hand. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place," as Job elegantly and emphatically sets it forth. Pro 26:20-23
But the righteous is an everlasting foundation.] Or, Is the foundation of the world; as firm as the world's foundation, which remains unmoveable. The Hebrews sense it thus, - The righteous is the foundation of the world, which, but for their sakes, would soon shatter and fall to ruin. b Sanctum semen statumen terrae Isa 6:13 "I bear up the pillars of it," saith David. Psa 75:3
a Euseb., De Vit. Const, lib. iii.
b Absque stationibus non staret mundus.