Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed [that is] full of sheaves.
Ver. 13. Behold I am pressed under you, &c.] A country comparison (such as this prophet is full of), plain, but pithy; to show how God is pressed and oppressed with people's sins, wearied as it were, Isaiah 43:24, and his patience even worn out; so that he can forbear them no longer, Isaiah 42:14, but like a travailing woman, that bites in her pain as long as she is able, at length cries out: so here, God hath much ado to forbear killing men in their sins; as he was ready to have a blow at Moses, when he met him in the inn, and could hardly hold his hands; he even groans under the pressure as a cart seems to do under an extraordinary load laid on it, till it creak and crack again; he seems to screech out to sinners, as Jeremiah 44:4, "Oh, do not this abominable thing!" And (when he cannot be heard) to sigh out, "Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity," &c., Isaiah 1:4, as Fasciculus temporum, A.D. 884, bitterly bewailing the iniquities of those times, cries out, Heu heu, Domino Deus, &c. That ninth age is much complained of by many writers. God hath as much, nay, more, cause to complain of ours, considering his pains with us, and patience towards us, to so little purpose and profit. See Trapp on " Mal 1:1 " Many interpreters make these words not a complaint, but a communication; rendering it thus, I will press or straiten your place as a cart full of sheaves presseth, &c.; either the ground whereon it goeth, or the corn which it thresheth out of the husk, Isaiah 28:27,28; or as the creature that lieth under the wheels of it is crushed in pieces. It was a memorable saying of Mr Bradford, martyr, He that will not tremble in threatening shall be crushed in pieces in feeling. These perverse Israelites would not be warned by any threatening, therefore they were pressed to some purpose in that sore famine and strait siege of Samaria. Obsidione vos premam, Press hard your seige, saith the Chaldee here; I will so beleaguer your city that there shall be no escaping. Look how a laden cart, onustum sibi, so laden that another sheaf can hardly be laid on, so gets stuck in narrow places, that it can neither go forward nor backward; so will I bring you into those distresses, that you shall not know how to avoid or abide them, στενοχωρουμενοι. confer Psalms 4:2 Proverbs 4:12 2Co 4:8 I will distress my distressers, and press with such piercing afflictions as shall make you sigh and screech out another while, Oh it is an evil thing and a bitter to forsake the Lord, &c., Jeremiah 2:19. Oh, he is worse than mad that would buy the sweetest sin at so dear a rate.