They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
Ver. 15. They take up all of them with the angle] No less than all will serve their turns or satisfy their ambition; as we read of Alexander, who wept that there was but one world for him to conquer; Julius Caesar, who would be aut Caesar, aut nullus; either Caesar or nothing, this Nebuchadnezzar in the text, fitly compared to a greedy fisherman, who could wish to enclose and catch all the fishes in the river. Covetousness is boundless; and ambition rideth without reins. The curse of unsatisfiableness, the disease of a spiritual dropsy, is upon all carnal hearts; so that though one man should engross a monopoly of all the wealth in the world, and heap up his hoards and his honours to the stars, yet would his heart be as hungry after more as if he had nothing.
Therefore they rejoice and are glad] This is worse than all the rest, that they please and applaud themselves in their wickedness, that they hug and stroke themselves on the head, as Doeg did, Psalms 52:2, and those Sodomites, Isaiah 3:9. This shows that men are arrived at that dead and dedolent disposition spoken of Ephesians 4:19, and are even straddling over hell's mouth, which gapeth for them.