And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, though I [have been] a rebuker of them all.
Ver. 2. And the revolters are profound to make slaughter] They lay their nets and snares deep, and lie down upon the ground, that they may take the silly birds that dread no danger. He "croucheth and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall into his strong paws," Psalms 10:10. He studies the devil's depths, Revelation 2:24; poisonous and pestilent policies, Machiavellian mysteries of mischief. His head is a forge and fountain of wicked wiles: he hath store and strength of strange traps and trains, frauds and fetches, to draw in and deceive the silly simple. That these seducers were deeply revolted, Isaiah 31:6, they had deeply corrupted themselves, Hosea 9:9, they sinned not common sins; as Korah and his accomplices died not a common death. They made great slaughter of men's souls, and of their bodies too, that refused to yield to them. Craft and cruelty seldom sundered in seducers: as some write of the asp that he never wanders alone, without his companion with him; and as those birds of prey and desolation, Isaiah 34:16, it is said that none of them lack their mate. The devil lendeth them his seven heads to plot, and his ten horns to push and gore, &c.
Though I have been a rebuker to them all] Heb. a correction (מוסר). Understand it either to be the prophet, that he had dealt plainly with them, and done his utmost to reclaim them, yet they refused to be reformed, hated to be healed; We would have cured Babylon, but she would not be cured: or else of God, that he had both by words and scribes rebuked their superstitions, but nothing had wrought upon them. They "were tormented with the wrath of God, but repented not to give him the glory," Revelation 16:9. Corripimur, might they say, sed non corrigimur; plectimur, sed non flectimur. See how God complains of this stubbornness, Jeremiah 6:28,30, and learn to tremble at his rebukes, to profit by his chastisements, lest a worse thing befall us. "The just Lord is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame," Zephaniah 3:5. There are those who take the words passively, and render them thus, Ego vero illis omnibus castigationi sum, I have been rebuked or corrected by them all. See the like, Lamentations 3:13, and in the Psalms often: I am a reproach to mine enemies: Thou makest us a reproach to all that are round about us, &c. So the prophet here may seem to complain, as Jeremiah did after him, that he was "born a man of contentions, that all the people cursed him," that he was a common byword and but mark: that they sharpened their tongues against him and flew in his face. To preach, saith Luther, is nothing else but to derive the rage of the whole world upon a man's self, totius orbis furorem in se derivare. Wisdom (that should be justified of her children, εδικαιωθη) is again judged of her children, as some read those words of our Saviour, Matthew 11:19, iudicatur vel sententia pronunciatur. But I like the active sense better.