His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Ver. 4. His breath goeth forth] It is but in his nostrils at best; every moment ready to puff out; cease from him, therefore, Isa. ii. Man, say the Rabbis, is but a bladder full of air, which can stand on no ground; but, pricked with a pin, it shriveleth to nothing. Man, saith a Father, is nothing else but soul and soil, breath and body; a puff of wind the one, a pile of dust the other, no solidity in either (Naz.).
He returneth to his earth] Of which he was made, and to which he is condemned, Genesis 3:19, and upon which he hath too much set his affections, being totus terreus, entirely of earth; and so the sooner forfeiteth all. It was therefore good counsel that one once gave to a great man, who had showed him his stately house and pleasant gardens: You had need make sure of heaven, my lord, or else, when you die, you will be a very great loser. But this few princes think of; which made the Spanish friar say, There were but few princes in hell; for what reason? there were but few in all.
In that day his thoughts perish] His golden thoughts, his shining white thoughts, irritae diffluunt, come to just nothing. Princes may haply have in their heads whole commonwealths, and the affairs of many kingdoms; as Alexander had, and Tamerlane, who died of an ague in the midst of his great preparations for the conquest of the Greek empire. Or, his thoughts (ad alios benefaciendos, as Aben Ezra expoundeth it) of doing thee and others good; these fall to the ground with him. Great men's words are like dead men's shoes, saith one; he may go barefoot that waiteth for them. Wherefore