They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.
Ver. 35. They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity] Here Elipbaz for a close, by an elegant and usual metaphor taken from child bearing, showeth that all such as conceive with guile or wrong to others, by that time they have reckoned their months aright, though they grow never so big, shall bring forth nothing but wind and vanity. Like as a woman that thinks she hath conceived and is deceived, pleaseth herself with the thoughts of a child, but brings forth nothing but wind, water, or some dead mass. Brentius exemplifieth this by the Papists, devising tot modos et formas confitendi et missandi, so many ways and forms of confessing and massing. Poor souls, when stung by the friars' sermons, or otherwise troubled in mind, run to those practices for help, but all in vain; for though stilled for a while, yet conscience recoileth upon them, and, making them miserable, leaveth them desperate, as Popery is a doctrine of desperation. Meanwhile, till they are confuted by the event, wicked men please themselves not a little in their sinful conceptions; they have a kind of a sensus veneris (which Scaliger will have to be the sixth sense, besides those five commonly counted of), a sensual delight in their sinful projects, In male agendo voluptatem quaesierunt (Merlin). As one, speaking of the Council of Trent, saith, That it was carried on by the pope with such infinite guile and craft, as that themselves will even smile in the triumphs of their own wits, when they hear it but mentioned, as at a master stratagem (Spec. Europ.). These heathens (so they are called, Rev 6:2) consider not, that while they thus tumultuate they do but imagine a vain thing, Psalms 2:1, and that the child's name is vanity, as here.
And their belly prepareth deceit] Not their head, but their belly, prepareth (accurately and strongly prepareth, so the word signifieth) deceit, self deceit (so some sense it), or rather to deceive and undo others whom they cannot overcome by might, to overcome by sleight. And in these guileful projects they delight and take a contemplative kind of pleasure, as the voluptuous person doth in his lust, Psalms 52:1,2 .