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Isa_2:22 Cease ye from man, whose breath [is] in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
Ver. 22. Cease ye from man.] Man or means, human helps and creature comforts; think not that these can secure you from an angry God, or moat you up against his fire. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his dust, in that very day his golden thoughts perish. {Psa_146:3-4} {See Trapp on "Psa_146:3"} {See Trapp on "Psa_146:4"}
Whose breath is in his nostrils.] Every moment ready to puff out, as the Emperor Jovinian’s did; a good emperor, but he reigned only seven months, being stifled, as it is thought, with the smell of his bedchamber newly white-limed, wherein he had commanded a great fire to be made on a cold night. {a} Hence Jerome; - Jovinian, who succeeded Julian the apostate in the empire, whenas yet he had scarce tasted of the goodness of it, faetore prunarum suffocatus interiit, {b} died suffocated with the stench of hot burning coals, declaring to all men what a poor thing man is in his greatest power. The Cardinal of Lorrain was lighted to his lodging and to his long home both at once by a poisoned torch; Pope Adrian IV was choked by a fly getting into his windpipe, A.D. 1159. {c}
For wherein is he to be esteemed?] All his power without God is but weakness, all his wisdom folly, all his plenty poverty. What is man, saith a father, but soul and soil? {d} Breath and body; a puff of wind the one, a pile of dust the other - no solidity in either. Abstinete ergo vos ab ipso homine - nam quanti est? What reckoning is to be made of him?
{a} Eutrop. Oros.
{b} In Epitap. Nepotian.
{c} Bevius, De Vit. Pen.
{d} Nïõò êáé ÷ïõò . - Greg. Naz.