They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: [there is] none among them that calleth unto me.
Ver. 7. They are all hot as an oven] That none might post it off to others, all are accused of this mad desire to do mischief; as all the Sodomites, full and whole, young and old, came clattering about Lot's house, Genesis 19:4. (Dedit haec contagio labem, Et dabit in plures. Juven. Sat. 2.)
And have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen, &c.] sc. being slain with the sword of those that succeeded them in the throne, as may be read, 2 Kings 15:8,9, &c., and as it was in the Roman state, where all or most of the Caesars, till Constantine, died unnatural deaths. Neither was it much better here in England during the difference between the two houses of York and Lancaster; wherein were slain fourscore princes of royal blood, and twice as many natives of England as were lost in the two conquests of France. This is the fruit of sin: Proverbs 28:2, "For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof"; either many at once (as once here in the heptarchy), or many ejecting and succeeding one another, to the great calamity and utter undoing of the people by their new lords, new laws.
There is none among them that calleth unto me] Though in so great a confusion, and under so heavy calamities: a strange stupor, that there should be none to set to his shoulder to shore up the falling state. None there were (to speak of) in a considerable number of praying people to stand in the gap, and to divert the Divine displeasure. Their sins cried loud for vengeance, their blood guiltiness especially. But had there been but a few voices more of praying saints, their prayers had haply out cried them. A few birds of song are shriller than many crocitating birds of prey; stir up yourselves, therefore, ye that are God's remembrancers, to take hold of him, and give him no rest. Lie night and day at the gate of his grace, knocking thereat by the hand of faith, and praying for the peace of our Jerusalem. If England's fears were greater, thy prayers might preserve it, Jeremiah 5:1; as, if our hopes were greater, thy sin and security aright undo it, Ecclesiastes 9:18 .