20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
They are destroyed from morning to evening - Margin, "beaten in pieces." This is nearer to the Hebrew. The phrase "from morning to evening" means between the morning and the evening; that is, they live scarcely a single day; see the notes at Isaiah 38:12. The idea is, not the continuance of the work of destruction from morning to evening; but that man's life is excecdingly short, so short that he scarce seems to live from morning to night. What a beautiful expression, and how true! How little qualified is such a being to sit in judgment on the doings of the Most High!
They perish forever - Without being restored to life. They pass away, and nothing is ever seen of them again!
Without any regarding it - Without its being noticed. How strikingly true is this! What a narrow circle is affected by the death of a man, and how soon does even that circle cease to be affected! A few relatives and friends feel it and weep over the loss; but the mass of men are unconcerned. It is like taking a grain of sand from the sea-shore, or a drop of water from the ocean. There is indeed one less, but the place is soon supplied, and the ocean rolls on its tumultuous billows as though none had been taken away. So with human life. The affairs of people will roll on; the world will be as busy, and active, and thoughtless as though we had not been; and soon, O how painfully soon to human pride, will our names be forgotten! The circle of friends will cease to weep, and then cease to remember us. The last memorial that we lived, will be gone. The house that we built, the bed on which we slept, the counting-room that we occupied, the monuments that we raised, the books that we made, the stone that we directed to be placed over our graves, will all be gone; and the last memento that we ever lived, will have faded away! How vain is man! How vain is pride! How foolish is ambition! How important the announcement that there is another world, where we may live on forever!
They are destroyed from morning to evening - In almost every moment of time some human being comes into the world, and some one departs from it. Thus are they "destroyed from morning to evening."
They perish for ever - יאבדו yobedu; peribunt, they pass by; they go out of sight; they moulder with the dust, and are soon forgotten. Who regards the past generation now among the dead? Isaiah has a similar thought, Isaiah 57:1 : "The righteous perisheth, and No Man Layeth It to Heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come." Some think that Isaiah borrowed from Job; this will appear possible when it has been proved, which has never yet been done, that the writer of this book flourished before Isaiah. If, however, he borrowed the above thought, it must be allowed that it has been wondrously improved by coming through his hands.
They are destroyed from (o) morning to evening: they perish for ever (p) without any regarding [it].
(o) They see death continually before their eyes and daily approaching them.
(p) No man for all this considers it.
They are destroyed from morning to evening,.... That is, those that dwell in houses of clay, before described; the meaning is, that they are always exposed to death, and liable to it every day they live; not only such who are persecuted for the sake of religion, but all men in common, for of such are both the text and context; who have always the seeds of mortality and death in them, that is continually working in them; and every day, even from morning to evening, are innumerable instances of the power of death over men; and not only some there are, whose sun rises in the morning and sets at evening, who are like grass in the morning, gay, and green, and by evening cut down and withered, live but a day, and some not that, but even it is true of all men, comparatively speaking, they begin to die the day they begin to live; so that the wise man takes no notice of any intermediate time between a time to be born and a time to die, Ecclesiastes 3:2; so frail and short is the life of man; his days are but as an hand's breadth, Psalm 39:5,
they perish for ever: which is not to be understood of the second or eternal death which some die; for this is not the case of all; those that believe in Christ shall not perish for ever, but have everlasting life; but this respects not only the long continuance of men under the power of death until the resurrection, which is not contradicted by thus expression; but it signifies that the dead never return to this mortal life again, at least the instances are very rare; their families, friends, and houses, that knew them, know them no more; they return no more to their worldly business or enjoyments, see Job 7:9,
without any regarding it; their death; neither they themselves nor others, expecting it so soon, and using no means to prevent it, and which, if made use of, would not have availed, their appointed time being come; or "without putting" (k), either without putting light into them, as Sephorno, which can only be true of some; or with out putting the hand, either their own or another's, to destroy them, being done by the hand of God, by a distemper of his sending, or by one providence or another; or without putting the heart to it, which comes to the sense of our version; though death is so frequent every day, yet it is not taken notice of; men do not lay it to heart, so as to consider of their latter end, and repent of their sins, and reform from them, that they may not be their ruin; and this is and would be the case of all men, were it not for the grace of God.
(k) "propter non ponentem", Montanus; "sub. manum", Codurcus; "cor", R. Levi, Jarchi, Mercerus, Piscator, Michaelis.
from morning to evening--unceasingly; or, better, between the morning and evening of one short day (so Exodus 18:14; Isaiah 38:12).
They are destroyed--better, "they would be destroyed," if God withdrew His loving protection. Therefore man must not think to be holy before God, but to draw holiness and all things else from God (Job 4:17).
Destroyed - All the day long, there is not a moment wherein man is not sinking towards death and corruption. Perish - In reference to this present worldly life, which when once lost is never recovered. Regarding - Hebrews. without putting the heart to it, this is so common a thing for all men, though never so high and great, to perish in this manner, that no man heeds it, but passes it by as a general accident not worthy of observation.
*More commentary available at chapter level.