Ye that put far away - Probably “with aversion.” They bade that day as it were, be gone. The Hebrew idiom expresses, how they would put it off, if they could; as far as in them lay, they “assigned a distance to it, , although they could not remove the day itself. The “evil day” is that same “day of the Lord,” which the scoffers or misbelievers professed to long for Amos 5:18. The thought that the Lord has a Day, in which to judge man, frets or frightens the irreligious, and they use different ways to get rid of it. The strong harden themselves against it, distort the belief in it, or disbelieve it. The weak and voluptuous shut their eyes to it, like the bird in the fable, as if what they dread would cease to be there, because they cease to see it.
And cause the seat - (literally, the session, sitting) of violence to come near They dismissed the thought of the Day of account, in order that they might sin with less fear. They put from them the judgment of God, that they might exercise violence over His creatures. People do not put away the thought of God, except to invite His Enemy into their souls. But therewith, they “brought near” another “seat of violence,” not their own, but upon them. They brought near what they wished to put away, the day, in which, through the violence of the Assyrians, God would avenge their own.
Rib.: “Let them consider this, who put no bound to their sins. For the more they obey their own will, the more they hasten to destruction; and while they think they draw near to pleasures, they draw near to everlasting woes.”