For three things the earth is disquieted— We have here an answer to another enigmatical question, What things are most intolerable? Which he tells us are, 1. A slave who bears rule; 2. A fool over-fed; 3. A vicious wife in a family; 4. A servant-maid become mistress of the house. This is very clear, and but too well confirmed by experience. A slave, or a man of an obscure condition, and of a mean servile soul, who domineers over others, is a subject of vexation and pain to them. If it be difficult to endure a master, even of illustrious birth, what must we think of a man who is lifted from servitude to a throne? he must have many degrees of excellence above another, not to be looked upon with jealousy and pain; and, unless endued with great grace, will be more cruel, and more insolent than another:
——————Regnabit sanguine multo Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exilio.
He will not be sparing of blood who, from a state of slavery, ascends to a throne.
A slave high-fed, and too much at his ease, very often despises his master. Solomon has informed us before, (chap. Proverbs 29:21.) that he who brings up his servant too delicately from his childhood, will soon see him insolent and disobedient. The same prince has frequently painted the inconveniences and disagreements of an ill-suited marriage, and the company of a quarrelsome, and not beloved wife. It is as a house which continually disgusts, and is open to every wind. Though the law allowed of repudiating this kind of wives, it rarely happened that this liberty was made use of, on account of other considerations of decorum, family, and the difficulties which were expressly urged in the courts of justice against the execution of the law. Lastly, a servant who has taken the place of her dead or repudiated mistress, commonly becomes insupportable to the whole house, and particularly to her husband's other wives; for we must suppose polygamy in Palestine among the Jews. The jealousy of wives against wives is as it were an unquenchable fire. Witness the case of Hagar, the servant of Sarah, Genesis 16:5.