And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.
Ver. 40. When thou shalt have the dominion.] Cum planxeris, saith Junius; when thou hast for some time undergone hard, troublesome, and lamentable servitude, the grief whereof thou dost greatly groan under; as in David's time, 2Sa 8:14 who "cast his shoe over them". Psa 60:8 The Sodomites, those worst of men, were the first that we find in Scripture brought in bondage to others. Gen 14:4 When the Danes and other foreigners domineered in this kingdom, was it not a lamentable time? were not men's dearest lives sold as cheap as sparrows were among the Jews, five for two farthings? Did we but live a while in Turkey, Persia, yea, or but in France, saith one, a dram of that liberty we yet enjoy, would be as precious as a drop of cold water would have been to the rich man in hell, when he was so grievously tormented with those flames. Take we heed, lest for the abuse of this sweet mercy, God send in the Midianites to thresh out our grain, the Assyrians to drink up our milk, to make a spoil of our cattle, Jer 49:32 and to cause us to eat the bread of our souls in the peril of our lives, as our fathers did in Queen Mary's days.