"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." (Ps 37:25 KJV)
Matthew Poole has good comments on this verse:
"This assertion seems to be contradicted by many experiences; nor can it be denied, that both good men and their children have sometimes been reduced to great want.
Quest. How then is this true?
Answ.
1. Some render the last clause thus, nor (did I ever see)
his seed, ( to wit, forsaken, as was now said,) though
begging bread. So the sense is, I have seen him brought to beggary, yet even then God did not forsake him. But this sense agrees not with the context nor scope, which is to show the plenty and prosperity where with God blesseth him.
2. This is to be understood of the seed of the righteous treading in their fathers’ steps, from which if they degenerate, they lose all their privileges, as many places of Scripture witness.
3. Some few exceptions do not destroy the truth of a general proposition.
4. These temporal promises were more express and particular to the Jews in the times of the Old Testament, than to Christians in the New, and therefore were more literally fulfilled.
5. He speaks not of any kind of wanting, or desiring, or receiving relief from others, for so David himself did, 1Sa 21:3; 25:8; but of the customary practice and trade of begging, which was threatened as a curse to the disobedient, Deu 28; Psa 109:10.
6. Not begging, to wit, in vain; or so as to be forsaken, as was now expressed, and may very well be here understood; or so as to be sustained or relieved by others.
7. David speaks only of his own experience, which if since that time it be contradicted by other men’s experiences, it is no more than what happens in all the concernments of human life."
Matthew Poole has good comments on this verse:
"This assertion seems to be contradicted by many experiences; nor can it be denied, that both good men and their children have sometimes been reduced to great want.
Quest. How then is this true?
Answ.
1. Some render the last clause thus, nor (did I ever see)
his seed, ( to wit, forsaken, as was now said,) though
begging bread. So the sense is, I have seen him brought to beggary, yet even then God did not forsake him. But this sense agrees not with the context nor scope, which is to show the plenty and prosperity where with God blesseth him.
2. This is to be understood of the seed of the righteous treading in their fathers’ steps, from which if they degenerate, they lose all their privileges, as many places of Scripture witness.
3. Some few exceptions do not destroy the truth of a general proposition.
4. These temporal promises were more express and particular to the Jews in the times of the Old Testament, than to Christians in the New, and therefore were more literally fulfilled.
5. He speaks not of any kind of wanting, or desiring, or receiving relief from others, for so David himself did, 1Sa 21:3; 25:8; but of the customary practice and trade of begging, which was threatened as a curse to the disobedient, Deu 28; Psa 109:10.
6. Not begging, to wit, in vain; or so as to be forsaken, as was now expressed, and may very well be here understood; or so as to be sustained or relieved by others.
7. David speaks only of his own experience, which if since that time it be contradicted by other men’s experiences, it is no more than what happens in all the concernments of human life."
