“So far is covetousness from happiness that there is probably no more miserable man to be found in any spiritual region than is the victim of this vice. 1. He is desolate, friendless; hated by those whom he has injured; unloved, disregarded, or even despised, by those who watch his course. 2. He is destitute. Often, very often, avarice blinds the judgment, and the false move is made that ends in overthrow and ruin; always, covetousness shuts out those true treasures which make the heart rich and the life wealthy—those possessions which death cannot touch, which immortality secures forever.”
Rev. W. Clarkson on “the Ruin of the Rich in Isaiah 5” taken from The Pulpit Commentary: Isaiah Vol. I., ed. H. D. M. Spence-Jones (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2004) 93.