Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Ver. 8. Your adversary the devil] Satan envies our condition that we should enjoy that paradise that he left, the comforts he once had. Hence he disturbs us, and is restless out of his infinite hatred of God and goodness; as the scorpion still puts forth his sting, and as the leopard bears such a natural hatred against men, that if he see but a man's picture, he flies upon it, and tears it. Hannibal, whether he conquered, or was conquered, never rested. Satan is over overcome, and yet he walks up and down seeking to devour: he commits the sin against the Holy Ghost every day, and shall lie lowest in hell; every soul that he drew thither by his temptation shall lie upon him, and press him down as a millstone under the insupportable wrath of God. The word αντιδικος, here rendered an adversary, properly signifies an adversary at law. Against whom we have an advocate, Jesus Christ, the just one, 1 John 2:2, who appears for us, Hebrews 9:24, to non-suit all accusations, and to plead our cause. The devil, the accuser, often makes that to be treason in the saints that is but petty larceny. In prosperity he makes us lay our hearts too near it; in adversity, to lay it too near our hearts. He is ever assaulting us, and is therefore called οο πειραζων, the tempter, in the present tense; not lazy at his business, but ever in motion for some mischief to us. Si per anticam eiecias, per posticam denuo solet irrepere, If you throw him out at the street door, he will creep in again at the backdoor. Watch him therefore. Non enim unquam dormitat vigil ille Synagogae suae Episcopus, as Amama calleth him. Ut teipsum serves non experglscere? (Horat.)
Whom he may devour] Gr. καταπιη, whom he may drink up at one draught.