“Abscondit piger manum suam sub ascella, nec ad os suum applicat eam.”
“A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.”
“The slacker buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth.”
“The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.”
“The sluggard burieth his hand in the dish, And will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.”
Way? Jeremias x. 23. Independently of God, who can do any good? (Calmet)
It is an instance of the vanity of the world that we are liable to the greatest grief in those things wherein we promise ourselves the greatest comfort. It is as it proves. What greater temporal comfort can a man have than a good wife and good children? Yet, 1. A foolish son is a great affliction, and may make a man wish a thousand times he had been written childless. A son that will apply himself to no study or business, that will take no advice, that lives a lewd, loose, rakish life, and spends what he has extravagantly, games it away and wastes it in the excess of riot, or that is proud, foppish, and conceited, such a one is the grief of his father, because he is the disgrace, and is likely to be the ruin, of his family. He hates all his labour, when he sees to whom he must leave the fruit of it. 2. A cross peevish wife is as great an affliction: Her contentions are continual; every day, and every hour in the day, she finds some occasion to make herself and those about her uneasy. Those that are accustomed to chide never want something or other to chide at; but it is a continual dropping, that is, a continual vexation, as it is to have a house so much out of repair that it rains in and a man cannot lie dry in it. That man has an uncomfortable life, and has need of a great deal of wisdom and grace to enable him to bear his affliction and do his duty, who has a sot for his son and a scold for his wife.