Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, [and] we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
Ver. 9. Except the Lord.] Jehovah, the Essentiator et Induperator, the Maker and Monarch of the universe.
Had left unto us a very small remnant.] Which he reserved for royal use; pulling them as "a brand out of the fire," Zec 3:2 or as "two legs or a piece of an ear taken by the shepherd out of the mouth of a lion." Amo 3:12 The apostle, after the Septuagint, rendereth it "a seed," Rom 9:29 in allusion to store seed kept by the husbandman; and there hence inferreth that the elect Jews shall by faith in Christ be freed from the tyranny of Satan and terror of hell. And this is here alleged for an allay to those foregoing dreadful declarations of bygone and direful menaces of future desolations; so loath is the Sun of righteousness to set in a cloud; surely in the midst of judgment he remembereth mercy -
“ Quamvis cecidere trecenti,
Non omnes Fabios abstulit una dies. ” - Ovid.
We should have been as Sodom.] Those five cities of the plain are thrown forth for an example. Jdg 1:7 Lot was no sooner taken out of Sodom but Sodom was taken out of the world and turned into a sea of salt. Deu 29:23 So Meroz, Jdg 5:23 some city likely near the place where that battle was fought, hath the very name and memorial of it utterly extinct.