Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/4_600.lzh/4_627.TXT

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what arise from it; and a silver cord, from the colour
of it {r}, this being white even after death; and for
the excellency of it: and this may be said to be
loosened when there is a solution of the nerves, or
marrow; upon. which a paralysis, or palsy, follows,
and is often the immediate forerunner of death. Or
the golden bowl be broken; the. Targum renders it the
top of the head; arid the Midrash interprets it the
skull, and very rightly; or rather the inward mem-
branc of the skull, which contains the brain, called the
pia mater, or menlax, is intended, said to be a bowl,
· from the form of it; a golden one, because of the pre-
cioushess of it, and the excellent liquor of life it con-
.rains, as also because of its colour; now when this runs
back, as the word {s} signifies, dries, shrinks up, and
breaks, it puts a stop to all animal motion, and hence
death. Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain ; not
the gall at the liver, as the Targum, which the ancients
took to be the fountain of blood; but by the fountain
is meant the heart, the fountain of life, which has two
cavities, one on the right side, the other on the left,
from whence come the veins and arteries, which carry
the blood through tlxe whole body; and here particu-
larly it signifies the right ventricle of the heart, the
spring and original of the veins, which are the pitcher
that receives the blood and transmits it to the several
parts of the body; but when thee are broke to shi-
vers, as the word {t} signifies, or cease from doing their
office, the blood stagnates in them, and death follows.
Or the wheel broken at the cistern; which is the left
ventricle of the heart, which by its diastole receives
tlxe blood brought to it through the lungs, as a cistern
receives water into it; where staying awhile.in its
systole, it passes it into the great artery annexed to it;
which is the wheel or instrument of rotation, which,
together with all the instruments of pulsation, cause
the circulation of the blood, found out in the last age
by our countryman Dr. Harvey; but it seems by this
it was well known by Solomon; now, whenever this
wheel is broken, the pulse stops, the blood ceases to
circulate, and death follows. For this interpretation
of the several preceding passages, as I owe much to the
Jewish writers, so to Rambachius and Patrick on these
passages, and to Witsius's Miscellanies, and especially
to our countryman Dr. Smith, in his Portrait of Old
Age, a book worthy to be read on this subject; and
there are various observations in the Talmud {u} agree-
able hereunto.
Vet. 7. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it
was, &c.] The body, which is made of dust, and
is no other in its present state than dust .refined and
enfivened; and when the above thugs take place, men-
rioned in the preceding verse, or at death, it returns to
its original earth; it -becomes immediately a clod of
earth, a lifeless lump of clay, and is then buried in the
earth, where it rots, corrupts, and turns into it; which
shews the frailty of man, and may serve to humble his
pride, as well as proves that death is not an annihila-
tion even of the body ;. see Gen. iii. 19. Job i. 2l. And
the spirit shall return unto God who gave it; from whom
it is, by whom it is created, who puts it into the bodies
of men, as a depositurn they are intrusted with, and
are accountable for, and should be concerned for the
safety and salvation of it; this was originally breathed
into man at his first creation, and is now formed within
him by the Lord; hence he is called the God of the
spirits of all flesh; see Gen. ii. 4. Zech. xii. 1. Numb.
xvi. 22. Now at death the soul, or spirit of man, re-
turns to God; which if understood of the souls of men
in general, it means that at death they return to
God the Judge of all, who passes sentence on them,
and orders those that are good to the mansions of
bliss and happiness, and those that are evil to hell and
destruction. So the Targum adds," that it may stand
"in judgment betbre the Lord ;" or if only of the
souls of good men, the sense is, that they then return
to God, not only as their Creator, but as their cove-
nant God and Father, to enjoy' his presence evermore;
and to Christ their Redeemer, to be for ever with him,
than which nothing is better and xnore desirable; this
shews that the soul is immortal, and dies not with the
body, nor sleeps in the grave with it, but is immediately
with God. Agreeably to all this Aristotle {w} says, the
mind, or soul, alone enters \~yurayen\~, from without, (fi'om
heaven, from God there,) and only is divine; and to
the same purpose are the words of Phocylides {x}, "the
"body we have of the earth, and we all being resolved
"into it become dust, but the air or heaven receives
"the spirit." . And still more agreeably to the senti-
meat of the wise man here, another tiesthen water
observes, that the ancients were of opinion that souls
are given of God, and are again returned unto him
after death.
Ver. 8. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, &c.]
The wise man, or preacher, set out in the beginning
of the book with this doctrine, or proposition, which
he undertook to prove; and now having proved it by
an induction of particulars, inslanced in the wisdom,
wealth, honours, pleasures, and profit of men, and
shewn the vanity of them, and that the happiness of
men lies not in these things, but in the linowledge
and fear of God; he repeats it, and most strongly as-
serts it, as an undoubted truth beyond all dispute and
contradiction, that all things under the sun are not
only vain, but vanity itself, extremely vain, vain in the
superlative degree. All is vanity; all things in the
world are vain; all creatures are subject to vanity;
man in every state, and in his best estate, is altogether
vanity: this the wise man might with great confidence
affirm, after lxe had shewn that not only childhood and
youth are vanity, but even old age; the infimities,
sorrows, and distresses of which he had just exposed,
and observed that all issue in death, the last end of
man, when his body returns to the earth, and his soul
to God the giver of it.
Ver. 9. And moreover, &c.] Or besides {z} what has
been said; or as to what remains {a}; or but what is better,
or more excellent {b}, is to hear the conclusion of the whole


{r} Vid. Waser. de Num. Heb. l. 1. c. 13.
{s} \^Urt\^ recurrat, V. L. excurrit, Junius & Tremellius.
{t} \^rbvt\^.
{u} T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 151. 2. & 152. 1.
{w} De Generat. Animal. l. 2. c. 3.
{x} \~swma gar ek gaihv\~, &c. Poem. Admon. v. 10s, 103. So Lucretius,
l. 2. cedit item retro de terra, &c.
{y} Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 10.
{z} \^rtyw\^ praeterea, Tigurine version, Vatablus, Schmidt.
{a} Quod reliquum est, Piscator, Gejerus, Amama.
{b} Quamobrem potius, Junius & Tremellius; and this is a matter of
excellency, Broughton.