“Benefacit animæ suæ vir misericors ; qui autem crudelis est, etiam propinquos abjicit.”
“The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.”
“A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.”
“The merciful man does good to his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.”
“The merciful man doeth good to his own soul; But he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.”
Kindred. Hebrew, “flesh,” Genesis xxix. 14. The miser is cruel even to himself.
So backward we are to works of charity, and so ready to think that giving undoes us, that we need to have it very much pressed upon us how much it is for our own advantage to do good to others, as before, v. 17. 1. We shall have the comfort of it in our own bosoms: The liberal soul, the soul of blessing, that prays for the afflicted and provides for them, that scatters blessings with gracious lips and generous hands, that soul shall be made fat with true pleasure and enriched with more grace. 2. We shall have the recompence of it both from God and man: He that waters others with the streams of his bounty shall be also watered himself; God will certainly return it in the dews, in the plentiful showers, of his blessing, which he will pour out, till there be not room enough to receive it, Mal 3 10. Men that have any sense of gratitude will return it if there be occasion; the merciful shall find mercy and the kind be kindly dealt with. 3. We shall be enabled still to do yet more good: He that waters, even he shall be as rain (so some read it); he shall be recruited as the clouds are which return after the rain, and shall be further useful and acceptable, as the rain to the new-mown grass. He that teaches shall learn (so the Chaldee reads it); he that uses his knowledge in teaching others shall himself be taught of God; to him that has, and uses what he has, more shall be given.