Job 20:14 [Yet] his meat in his bowels is turned, [it is] the gall of asps within him.
Ver. 14. Yet his meat in his bowels is turned] Sour sauce be hath at length to his sweet meats, viz. gripes and throbs of conscience, terrors and tortures inexpressible; a greedy vulture feeding upon his entrails (as the poets feigned of Prometheus), those furies or hell hags (so much mentioned by them), as haunting evildoers. In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare, Proverbs 29:6. There is a cord to strangle his joys with, to mar his mirth. Did not Joseph's brethren experiment with this? and Ahab, in his house of ivory? and Belshazzar, amidst his sensualities?
Principium dulce est, sed finis amoris amarus:
Laeta venire Venus, tristis abire solet.
The sinner's cup of honey ends in the dregs of gall, even the gall of asps. Volupia and Angerona went yoked together among the Romans. If men would forecast the sad issues of sin, they would only strive to be innocent.
It is the gall of asps within him ] Gall of any sort is bitter, but that of asps is most poisonous and mortal. Pliny saith, that the poison of asps is nothing else but their gall. An asp is a kind of serpent, not known in these parts of the world. Aelian writeth, that the biting of an asp is incurable; and others say, that it killeth without remedy within four hours' time. Unto this kind of poison is sin fitly compared; for when an asp stingeth a man, it doth first tickle him so as it maketh him laugh, then it casteth him into a sleep, till the poison gradually gets to the heart, after which it paineth him more than ever before it delighted him. So doth wickedness. It is a bitter sweet, γλυκυπικρον . Bernard compareth it to the itch, which first yieldeth pleasure, and afterwards smart. Austin saith, many devour that on earth which they must digest in hell, where they shall have punishment without pity, misery without mercy, sorrow without succour, mischief without measure, torments without end, and past imagination. When therefore thou art making a covenant with sin, say to thy soul, as Boaz said to his kinsman, Ruth 4:5 , What time thou buyest it, thou must have Ruth with it. So if thou wilt have the sweet of sin, thou must have the curse with it; and let thy soul answer, as he there doth, No, I may not do it, I shall mar and spoil a better inheritance.