The righteous' days are _great_ and _noble,_ and the wicked's days are _mean_ and _small._ And this is the meaning of the Proverb. "Made little," literally, "shortened" (E.V.). We thought at first that this was decisive against our sense, and against our rendering of all the verses expounded in chap. iii. (verses 2-16). Our thought of this was increased by Job xvi. 1, and by all the expositions. But when we turned to Psalm cii. 23, our own sense was wonderfully confirmed. That verse reads, "He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days:" where "_shortened_" must have a sense coincident with continued living. And what that sense is, such passages as these: "Is my hand shortened?" (Isa. l. 2), "The soul of the people was (lit.) _shortened,_" "The days of his youth hast Thou shortened" (Num. xxi. 4; Psa. lxxxix. 45), and nearly all the other instances strikingly confirm. The meaning is, Wisdom makes our days grander and grander, and Impenitence makes them weaker, and always of less account.--_Miller._ _MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 28. HOPES REALISED AND DISAPPOINTED. +I. The righteous man's present possession--"Hope."+ We saw in treating verse 24 that the righteous man possesses God-begotten desires, and that he has good ground for believing that these desires will be granted, therefore he _expects_ their fulfilment, and desire and expectation constitute his hope. Hope is a fortune in itself. It gives a present gladness, and therefore a present power. It is in itself a tower of strength. Nothing upholds us so surely in present difficulties as the hope of a brighter future. If in the hour of darkness a man can say to his soul, "Why art thou cast down, and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God" (Psalm xlii. 5), he holds in possession a sheet-anchor which will prevent him from making shipwreck upon the rocks of despair and infidelity. The hope of the righteous is a present salvation. "We are saved by hope" (Rom. viii. 24). It is "an anchor of the soul" (Heb. vi. 19).