A friend loveth at all times
A true, hearty, faithful friend, loves in times of adversity as
well as in times of prosperity: there are many that are friends
to persons, while they are in affluent circumstances; but when
there is a change in their condition, and they are stripped of
all riches and substance; than their friends forsake them, and
stand at a distance from them; as was the case of Job, ( Job 19:14 ) ; it is a
very rare thing to find a friend that is a constant lover, such
an one as here described; and a brother is born for
adversity;
for a time of adversity, as Jarchi: he is born into the world for
this purpose; to sympathize with his brother in distress, to
relieve him, comfort and support him; and if he does not do this,
when it is in his power to do it, he does not answer the end of
his being born into the world. The Jewish writers understand this
as showing the difference between a friend and a brother: a
cordial friend loves at all times, prosperous and adverse; but a
"brother [loves when] adversity [is] born" F19, or
is, so Aben Ezra; he loves when he is forced to it; when the
distress of his brother, who is his flesh and bone, as Gersom
observes, obliges him to it: but this may be understood of the
same person who is the friend; he is a brother, and acts the part
of one in a time of adversity, for which he is born and brought
into the world; it being so ordered by divine Providence, that a
man should have a friend born against the time he stands in need
of him F20. To no one person can all this be
applied with so much truth and exactness as to our Lord Jesus
Christ; he is a "friend", not of angels only, but of men; more
especially of his church and people; of sinful men, of publicans
and sinners; as appears by his calling them to repentance, by his
receiving them, and by his coming into the world to save them: he
"loves" them, and loves them constantly; he loved them before
time; so early were they on his heart and in his book of life; so
early was he the surety of them, and the covenant of grace made
with him; and their persons and grace put into his hands, which
he took the care of: he loved them in time, and before time began
with them; thus they were preserved in him, when they fell in
Adam; were redeemed by his precious blood, when as yet they were
not in being, at least many of them: he loves them as soon as
time begins with them, as soon as born; though impure by their
first birth, transgressors from the womb, enemies and enmity
itself unto him; he waits to be gracious to them, and sends his
Gospel and his Spirit to find them out and call them: and he
continues to love them after conversion; in times of backsliding;
in times of desertion; in times of temptation, and in times of
affliction: he loves them indeed to the end of time, and to all
eternity; nor is there a moment of time to be fixed upon, in
which he does not love them. And he is a "brother" to his people;
through his incarnation, he is a partaker of the same flesh and
blood with them; and through their adoption, they having one and
the same Father; nor is he ashamed to own the relation; and he
has all the freedom, affection, compassion, and condescension, of
a brother in him: and now he is a brother "born"; see ( Isaiah 9:6 ) ; born of a
woman, a virgin, at Bethlehem, in the fulness of time, for and on
the behalf of his people; even "for adversity"; to bear and
endure adversity himself, which he did, by coming into a state of
meanness and poverty; through the reproaches and persecutions of
men, the temptations of Satan, the ill usage of his own
disciples, the desertion of his father, the strokes of justice,
and the sufferings of death; also for the adversity of his
people, to sympathize with them, bear them up under it, and
deliver them out of it. The ancient Jews had a notion that this
Scripture has some respect to the Messiah; for, to show that the
Messiah, being God, would by his incarnation become a brother to
men, they cite this passage of Scripture as a testimony of it
F21.