[Though] these three men [were] in it
Above named, Noah, Daniel, and Job; as they were not, two of them
not being in the land of the living, and the other in Babylon;
but if all three had been in a land so threatened, and used all
the interest they had with God, by fervent prayer and
supplication, to have called in the wild beasts, and chained them
up, and to preserve the people from being destroyed by them, it
would have been all in vain; the Lord was determined upon the
destruction of them, and by means of these, as one of his sore
judgments: [as] I live, saith the Lord God;
or by my life; for it is an oath with which God swears by
himself, who has life in himself, and is the author and giver of
life to others, and can take it away when, and in what manner, he
pleases; and this oath is used, to show the unalterableness of
the judgment threatened, it being decreed and sworn to: God's
word or decree, and his oath, are two immutable things, in which
he cannot lie, and from which he never departs: they shall
deliver neither sons nor daughters;
meaning not adult persons, but little ones, infant sons and
daughters; such as had not been guilty of the actual sins and
transgressions their parents were charged with; even these they
should not deliver by their prayers and supplications from being
destroyed by noisome beasts, God punishing the iniquities of the
fathers upon the children; and much less should they deliver
those that were adult, and had committed the same idolatries and
other sins their parents had; no, not even their own sons and
daughters; for no exception is made but of themselves, as
follows: they only shall be delivered:
as Noah with his family was in the ark, when amidst wild beasts;
and Daniel in the lions den; and Job, with whom the beasts of the
field were at peace, ( Job 5:23 ) ; but the
land shall be desolate;
see ( Ezekiel
12:20 ) .