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They shall never see light - Rise again they shall; but they shall never see the light of glory, for there is prepared for them the blackness of darkness for ever.

He shall go to the generation of his fathers - To be gathered to one‘s own people, or to his fathers, is a common expression in the Old Testament in speaking of death. See Genesis 25:8, Genesis 25:17; Genesis 35:29; Genesis 49:29, Genesis 49:33, Numbers 20:24, Numbers 20:26; Numbers 27:13; Numbers 31:2; Deuteronomy 32:50; Judges 2:10. It means that they were united again with those who had gone before them, in the regions of the dead. Death had indeed separated them, but by death they were again united.

They shall never see light - He and the “generation” to which he has gone to be united, would no more see the light of this world; no more walk among the living: Job 33:30. Compare the notes at Isaiah 38:11; notes at Psalm 27:13. The meaning is, that the rich sinner will die as others have done before him, leaving all his earthly possessions, and will no more be permitted to revisit the world where his forsaken possessions are, and will not even be permitted to “look” on what before had been to him such a source of self-confidence, self-gratulation, and pride.

Believers should not fear death. The distinction of men's outward conditions, how great soever in life, makes none at death; but the difference of men's spiritual states, though in this life it may seem of small account, yet at and after death is very great. The soul is often put for the life. The God of life, who was its Creator at first, can and will be its Redeemer at last. It includes the salvation of the soul from eternal ruin. Believers will be under strong temptation to envy the prosperity of sinners. Men will praise thee, and cry thee up, as having done well for thyself in raising an estate and family. But what will it avail to be approved of men, if God condemn us? Those that are rich in the graces and comforts of the Spirit, have something of which death cannot strip them, nay, which death will improve; but as for worldly possessions, as we brought nothing into the world, so it is certain that we shall carry nothing out; we must leave all to others. The sum of the whole matter is, that it can profit a man nothing to gain the whole world, to become possessed of all its wealth and all its power, if he lose his own soul, and is cast away for want of that holy and heavenly wisdom which distinguishes man from the brutes, in his life and at his death. And are there men who can prefer the lot of the rich sinner to that of poor Lazarus, in life and death, and to eternity? Assuredly there are. What need then we have of the teaching of the Holy Ghost; when, with all our boasted powers, we are prone to such folly in the most important of all concerns!