And among the sons of the priests there were found that had taken strange wives: [namely], of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren; Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah.
Ver. 18. And among the sons of the priests, &c.] What a shame was this, and a stain to their cloth! These men's white ephods covered foul sins; whereas they should have been careful to have kept all clean; as that Eleazar was of whom it is told, that he would not do anything that might seem to be sinful, because he would not spot his white head.
Of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak] This good high priest had sons none of the best. White halcyons hatch black young ones. Caligula fuit optimi viri Germanici filius. Caligula will be the son of the best man, Germanicus. Eli's sons were sons of Belial. Samuel's were little better; and yet it is not likely that he was faulty in that indulgence for which his own mouth had denounced God's judgments against Eli. When Caesar Borgia, duke of Valence, invited his nobility to a feast, and after dinner cut off their heads, Pope Alexander (who was his father) hearing of it, smiled and said, his son had served them a Spanish trick. When Petro Alingi Farnesis had committed an unspeakable violence on the person of Cosmus Cherius, bishop of Fanum, and then poisoned him, he received no other chastisement of his father, Pope Paul III, than Haec vitia me non commonstratore didicit, he never learned these faults of his father. Good Jeshua had better bred his children than thus to break out into an open violation of that law, which they could not but know, and should have observed. But God will show, that grace is by gift, not inheritance; and men will show that though nurture may somewhat amend nature, yet it is grace alone that can keep us within the bounds of obedience.