Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
Ver. 5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment] i.e. Causa cadent et damnabuntur, at the great assizes they shall be cast and condemned. Vix steteris (Terent.). Revelation 6:17, "For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" 1 Peter 4:18. Surely nowhere, but in hell, their own place, Acts 1:25 : not before God, for he is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12:29, and they chaff or stubble, fully dried, see Isaiah 33:14; not before Christ, for he shall come in flaming fire, rendering vengeance, &c., 2 Thessalonians 1:7; not in heaven, for it is an undefiled inheritance, neither may any dirty dog trample on that golden pavement, Revelation 22:15; not any longer on earth, defiled by their iniquities, and, therefore, to be purged by the fire of the last day; for the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up, 2 Peter 3:10. R. David Kimchi by judgment here understandeth the day of the wicked man's death; and indeed his death's day is his doom's day, when he must take a fearful farewell, and breathe out his soul and hope together with the breath of the same dying groan, Job 27:8; Job 11:20. Hinc illae lachrymae, hence that lothing to depart, though some set a good face upon it when to die, as Sir Thomas Moore, who died for the pope's supremacy with a light jest in his mouth. Vespasian likewise died with a jest, and Augustus in a compliment. This was but the hypocrisy of mirth; for death is the king of terror to a natural man. See Hebrews 2:15 1 Samuel 15:32; 1 Samuel 28:20. Saul, at the message of death, swooned quite away, and fell all along, Quantus quantus erat, as Peter Martyr phraseth it; yea, good Hezekiah wept when sentenced to death, and the approach of it was to him Mar mar, bitter bitterness, Isaiah 38:3; Isaiah 38:17. He must have his faith at his fingers' ends, as one saith, that will die actively. But all men have not faith, 2 Thessalonians 3:2, and those few that have are not always assured that their hearts shall live for ever, as Psalms 22:26, and that death, the devil's sergeant, to drag wicked men to hell, shall be to them the Lord's gentle usher, to conduct them to heaven, as Mr Brightman expresseth it.
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous] They shall never set foot within heaven's threshold, within that general assembly, that sacred panegyris a, ample amphitheatre, the congregation house of crowned saints and glorious angels. Tertullian saith of Pompey's theatre (which was the greatest ornament of old Rome) that it was Arx omnium turpitudinum, a receptacle of all kind of ribaldry and roguery. Not so heaven: "There shall ill nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie," Revelation 21:27. The Irish air will sooner brook a toad, or a snake, than heaven a sinner. Mali in area nobiscum esse possunt, in horreo non possunt, Chaff may be with God's good grain on the floor, but in the garner it shall not (Augustin). For Christ "will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire," Matthew 3:12 .
a Gr. Antiq. A general assembly; esp. a festal assembly in honour of a god.