Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments [are as] the light [that] goeth forth.
Ver. 5. Therefore have I hewed them by my prophets] Therefore? wherefore? because there is so little stability and solidity in them; because they are so off and on, so light and false-hearted; therefore I have spared for no pains (though all to small purpose), but have sharply rebuked them that they might be sound in the faith, Rev 2:16 yea, I have fought against them with the sword of my mouth, and slain them by powerful convictions of conscience; so that they are self-condemned, and the judgments are written as it were with a beam of the sun, they are so clear to themselves and others. This is the coherence, and the reason of the illative particle "therefore." It is the sad complaint of a late reverend writer, when we have spent all our wind on our people their hearts will be still apt to be carried away with every wind of doctrine. They are won, saith another, with an apple, and lost with a nut; no man knows where to find them in one mind for a month's time; such a generation of moon calves never appeared in the world before. Our giddy hearers (saith a third), after all our pains taken with them, have no mould but what the next teacher casteth them into; being blown, like glasses, into this or that shape at the pleasure of his breath.
I have hewed them by the prophets] Who are here compared to masons or stone hewers, 2 Kings 12:12 1 Chronicles 22:2 Job 19:24 Isaiah 51:1; to carpenters, 1Ki 5:15 Pro 9:1 Isaiah 5:2; to day labourers, who dig pits and cisterns, Deuteronomy 6:11; Deu 8:9 2Ch 26:10 Neh 9:25 Jeremiah 2:13. A minister's life is no idle man's occupation; they meet with many rough stones, knotty pieces, hard quarries, tough work. Some are stones crumbling all to crattle as soon as we begin to hammer them, and as timber falling to splinters when we fall to the hewing of them; and other such sons of Belial there are that a man cannot speak to them, 1 Samuel 25:17; they are "thorns that cannot be taken with hands, but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and with the staff of a spear." These shall be thrust away as thorns, and utterly burnt with fire, 2 Samuel 23:6,7. And for the better sort, those lively stones, 1 Peter 2:5, and smoother pieces that are to be set into God's building, being made by his grace more malleable and tractable, there must be a great deal of pains taken with them, that they may be as the polished corners of the temple; they must be humbled and hammered, Jeremiah 23:29, pared and planed here in the mount; for there may neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron be heard in the heavenly house, for which they are fitting, 1 Kings 6:7. And herein we are "labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building," 1 Corinthians 3:9. In which laborious kind of life, "I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may be saved," saith Paul, 2 Timothy 2:10. And I dare be bold to say, saith Luther, that faithful ministers do labour and sweat more in a day than husbandmen do in a month. And for mine own part, saith he, si mihi esset integram vocationem deserere, if it were lawful for me to leave my calling, I could with less pains and more pleasure dig and do day work than labour as I now do in the work of the ministry. Pareus thinks that the next words,
I have killed them with the words of my mouth] are spoken by God of the prophets: q.d. I have set them so heavy a task and put them so hard to it, that it hath been the death of them; such crabbed and rugged spirits they have met with, such stubborn and tough timber, that had long lain soaking in the waters of wickedness; these tools of mine are even worn out with working. But though this be a pious interpretation, and not altogether improbable, because of the change of person here, viz. them for you; yet because such a change is ordinary in Scripture and emphatic also, namely, when God seemeth deeply displeased with any one, and therefore leaveth talking to him, and turns himself suddenly to another, see Hosea 4:14 ; Hosea 5:8 ; Hos 5:4 I conceive it may very well be so in this place. Occidi istos, I have slain these refractories and rebels with the words of my mouth (sic enim contemptim loquimur), I have beaten so hard upon their consciences, that they have had no joy of their lives. I have marked them out for destruction, by threatening it, as Jeremiah 18:7,8, and Hosea 1:10. Elisha hath his sword as well as Jehu and Hazael, 1 Kings 19:17; and when Elisha unsheatheth and brandisheth his sword, it is a fair warning that the sword of Jehu and Hazael are at hand. See Ezekiel 11:13, "And it came to pass that when I prophesied Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, died." So did Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:5; Acts 5:10. So do many despisers today, though it appear not by them. A man may have his bane about him, though he fall not down dead in the place. If any man harm Christ's two witnesses, fire (though not felt) "proceedeth out of their mouths, and devoureth their enemies," Revelation 11:5 .
And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth] i.e. I have clearly denounced them, and will as openly execute them in the sight of this sun. "The righteous shall see it and shall say, Lo, this is the man," &c., Psalms 52:6,7; Psalms 119:137. Thou, by thine hypocrisy and external services, as Hosea 6:6, hast cast a mist before men's eyes, that they cannot think thee to be so near a judgment: but I will dispel that mist, and make my works a comment upon my word; and having sent unto thee a powerful ministry, but to no purpose, I will make thee, who wouldst not hear the word, "to hear the rod, and who hath appointed it," Micah 7:9 .