There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death.
Ver. 12. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man.] Sin comes clothed with a show of reason; Exo 1:10 and lust will so blear the understanding, that he shall think that there is great sense in sinning. "Adam was not deceived"; 1Ti 2:14 that is, he was not so much deceived by his judgment - though also by that too - as by his affection to his wife, which at length blinded his judgment. The heart first deceives us with colours; and when we are once a-doting after sin, then we join and deceive our hearts, Jam 1:26 using fallacious and specious sophism, to make ourselves think that lawful today which we ourselves held unlawful yesterday, and that we are possessed of those graces whereto we are perfect strangers.
But the end thereof are the ways of death.] Via multiplex ad mortem. The very first step in this evil way was a step to hell; but the journey's end, if men stop not, or step not back in time, is undoubted destruction. Some flatter themselves, as Micah. Jdg 17:13 They flee to "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord": and think to take sanctuary and save themselves there from all danger, as the Jews fable that Og, king of Bashan, escaped in the flood by riding astride upon the ark without; wherein it falls out oft, as it did with the riflers of Semiramis's tomb, who, where they expected to find the richest treasure, met with a deadly poison; or as it doth with him that, lying asleep upon a steep rock, and dreaming of great matters befallen him, starts suddenly for joy, and so breaks his neck at the bottom. As he that makes a bridge of his own shadow cannot but fall into the water, so neither can he escape the pit of hell who lays his own presumption in place of God's promise, who casts himself upon the unknown mercies of God, &c.