They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; They shall perish - Permanently fixed as they seem to be, a time shall come when they shall be dissolved, and afterward new heavens and a new earth be formed, in which righteousness alone shall dwell. See 2 Peter 3:10-13.
Shall wax old as doth a garment - As a garment by long using becomes unfit to be longer used, so shall all visible things; they shall wear old, and wear out; and hence the necessity of their being renewed. It is remarkable that our word world is a contraction of wear old; a term by which our ancestors expressed the sentiment contained in this verse. That the word was thus compounded, and that it had this sense in our language, may be proved from the most competent and indisputable witnesses. It was formerly written weorold, and wereld. This etymology is finely alluded to by our excellent poet, Spencer, when describing the primitive age of innocence, succeeded by the age of depravity: -
"The lion there did with the lambe consort,
And eke the dove sat by the faulcon's side;
Ne each of other feared fraude or tort,
But did in safe security abide,
Withouten perill of the stronger pride:
But when the World woxe old, it woxe warre old,
Whereof it hight, and having shortly tride
The trains of wit, in wickednesse woxe bold,
And dared of all sinnes, the secrets to unfold."
Even the heathen poets are full of such allusions. See Horace, Carm. lib. iii., od. 6; Virgil, Aen. viii., ver. 324.
Thou remainest - Instead of διαμένεις, some good MSS. read διαμενεῖς, the first, without the circumflex, being the present tense of the indicative mood; the latter, with the circumflex, being the future - thou shalt remain. The difference between these two readings is of little importance.