Psalms 146:4

Psa 146:4 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