But God [is] the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.
Ver. 7. But God is the judge] He sitteth at the stern, and ordereth all human affairs according to the good pleasure of his will.
He putteth down one, and setteth up another] As was seen in Saul and David, in the four great monarchies, in Bajazet and Tamerlane, besides many others. Virtue exalteth the meanest, when villany tumbleth down the mightiest. Agathocles, the son of a potter, became king of Sicily. Valentinian, the son of a rope maker, became emperor of Rome. Justinus was first a swine herder, then a herdsman, then a carpenter, a soldier, and after all, an emperor. If Alexander, to show his greatness, advanced Abdolominus from a poor gardener to be king in Sidon, what cannot the Lord do? Tamerlane having overcome Bajazet, asked him whether ever he had given God thanks for making him so great an emperor? who confessed ingenuously he never thought of it. To whom Tamerlane replied, that it was no wonder so ungrateful a man should be made a spectacle of misery. For you, said he, being blind of one eye, and I lame of a leg, was there any worth in us why God should set us over two great empires of Turks and Tartars, to command many more worthy than ourselves?