And now, [though] thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house, [yet] wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?
Ver. 30. Why hast thou stolen my gods?] Goodly gods that could not save themselves from the thief! See Jeremiah 10:5; Jeremiah 10:11; Jeremiah 10:15. But Jacob, a just man, is here made a thief of. The best must look to be blasted; "as deceivers, and yet true". 2Co 6:8 Wicked men's "throats are open sepulchres," Psa 5:9 wherein the good names of God's innocent ones too oft lie buried: their breath, as fire, shall devour them, saith the prophet. Isa 33:11 Joseph suffered as a dishonest person; Elisha, as a troubler of the state; Jeremiah, as a traitor; Luther, as the trumpet of rebellion. a Nay, in one of his Epistles to Spalatinus, Prorsus Satan est Lutherus, saith he; sed Christus vivit et regnat, Amen. He adds his Amen to it; so little was he moved at it. He had learned, and so must we, to pass through "good and evil report," with Paul. 2Co 6:8 Epiphanius saith, somewhere, that the Jews give out that St Paul turned Christian for spite, because he could not obtain the high priest's daughter in marriage. We are made "the filth of the world, the sweepings of all things," περιψηματα ; 1Co 4:13 saith St Paul of himself and his companions; who yet were the very "glory of Jesus Christ". 2Co 8:23 Phagius reports the story of an Egyptian who said, The Christians were a company of most filthy lecherous people. And for the keeping of the Sabbath, he saith, they had a disease upon them, and were therefore fain to rest the seventh day.
a Tuba rebellionis.