V. 19b. _Till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return._ With respect to wicked men they endure an infinite number of calamities with the hope of enjoying a little morsel of pleasure. What perils by land and by sea does the merchant experience with the hope of gain? For what a small hire does the soldier sell his life. The harlot in the brothel is compelled to endure a thousand-fold greater evils than any wife in the honest home. Hence the Germans call them by a striking proverb, "the devil's martyrs;" because they of their own accord cast themselves into the greatest calamities, which they might never have experienced, if they had been willing to live a godly life. And again, what a host of evils do men, given to wine and to gluttony, bring upon themselves by their excesses, from all of which they might have lived free had they eaten and drunk more moderately. Wherefore, well may men be lost in considering what remedy can possibly be found for the human race. Since they are so hardened by Satan that they not only do not feel their evils, but studiously follow after them and pursue them with all eagerness. For if they really did feel the evils of their ways would they not forsake them? But the fact is that such insensibility benumbs the minds of men, so that you may see them glorying in their very evils themselves. As, therefore, such wicked perverseness is found in the greatest part of mankind, that for the sake of a light and foolish pleasure they will involve themselves in sure calamities, it is wonderful that the godly do not consider these things for their good, and say within themselves, Although I must live in the midst of all these various evils, yet they must all soon end and be recompensed by another and a better life. And this is the consolation which this sacred sentence is intended to afford. For it gives a promise that all these calamities shall have an end, and that, too, by the bruising and crushing of the "serpent's head," _Till_, says Moses, _thou return unto the ground_, ELHAADAMA. For this original word signifies the ground or earth in general. But the Hebrew word APHAR signifies, properly, recently dug or ploughed earth, or a lump of newly turned up earth. Our translation renders this original word by "dust;" that it may signify loosened or crumbled earth. For Adam was made a living man out of a clod or lump of the earth. When therefore the bonds of this clod shall be loosened, it shall return, the Lord says, to its former mould or dust.