19. The next point after the prophet had set
forth the man’s perfect happiness was for him to declare what
punishment remained for the ungodly. Thus there ensues:
The ungodly are not so, but are like the dust which the wind driveth
away from the face of the earth. The ungodly have no possible
hope of having the image of the happy tree applied to them; the only
lot that awaits them is one of wandering and winnowing, crushing,
dispersion and unrest; shaken out of the solid framework of their
bodily condition, they must be swept away to punishment in dust, a
plaything of the wind. They shall not be dissolved into nothing,
for punishment must find in them some stuff to work on, but ground into
particles, imponderable, unsubstantial, dry, they shall be tossed to
and fro, and make sport for the punishment that gives them never
rest. Their punishment is recorded by the same Prophet in another
place where he says: I will beat them small as the dust before
the wind, like the mire of the streets I will destroy them Ps. xvii.
(xviii.) 42..