For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.
Ver. 10. For they shall eat and not have enough] Only they shall be filled with their own ways, Proverbs 14:14, but that is but to feed upon the wind with Ephraim, Hosea 12:1, which breedeth nothing but troublesome belching, or a dog-like appetite (as they call it), that cannot be satisfied (Bουλιμια, appetitus caninus desire of a dog). These greedy dogs, the priests, that did eat up the sins of God's people, and thought to have fullly gorged themselves therewith, they met with that sore plague of unsatisfiableness for the present (a man may as soon fill a chest with wind as soul with wealth (Non plus satiatur cor auro quam corpus aura, Aug.); see Ecc 5:10) See Trapp on " Ecc 5:10 " and for the future they coveted an evil covetousness to themselves, for they got God's curse along with their illgotten goods which will bring them to a morsel of bread they have not only sucked in the air, but pestilential air, that not only not fills them, but kills them too. See Trapp on " Hag 1:6 "
They shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase] The Chaldee renders it, They shall take wives, but shall not beget sons. Sol et homo generant hominem, saith the philosopher; but unless God, the first agent, concur, that cannot be neither. Lo, "Children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward," saith David to his son Solomon, who found it true by experience, Psalms 127:3, for by all his wives and concubines (no less than a thousand) he had but one son that we read of and he was none of the wisest; nothing like Edward VI, whom alone Henry VIII left (with his two sisters) to succeed him; though he had so many wives and concubines. Wantonness is a sin commonly punished with warn of posterity: especially when it is accompanied with obstinace in evil courses, as in Ahab who, to cross God's threat of rooting out him and his posterity, took many wives; and so bestirred him, that he begat of them seventy sons, but with evil success; for they were all cut off in one day, 2 Kings 10:7. Wicked men must not think to carry it against God; and to have their wills al disputo di Dio, as that profane pope said; and as that graceless Ahaziah, who sent a third captain, after that the former two had been consumed by fire; as if he would despitefully spit in the face of heaven, and wrestle a fall with the Almighty. Let no man expect to prosper in unlawful practices, to increase by whoredom, as these profane priests sought to do, that they might be full of children (anyhow): and leave the rest of their substance to their babes, Psalms 17:14. But fertility is not from the means (right or wrong), but from the author (many a poor man hath a house full of children by one wife; while Solomon hath but one son by many houses full of wives), and Job could tell that whoredom is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all his increase, Job 31:12 .
Because they have left off to take heed to the Lord] God is not bound to render a reason for his proceedings, yet doth it oft, as here, that he may be justified, and every mouth stopped. Their apostasy is here shown to be the cause of their calamity. There was a time when they took some heed to God and his ways: they kept close to him, and observed his commandments to do them (as the word here importeth), but now they had left off to be wise, and to do good, Psa 36:3 until their iniquity was found to be hateful, and themselves altogether filthy, Psalms 53:3, wicked doers against the covenant, Daniel 11:30; Daniel 11:32. Apostates cannot choose unto themselves a worse condition, 2 Peter 2:20; 2 Peter 2:22 Matthew 12:43; Matthew 12:45, let them look to it. Hath ever any waxed fierce against God and prospered? Job 9:4; even of late my people are risen up against me as an enemy, Micah 2:8, but what will they do in the end thereof?