He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.
Ver. 15. He hath swallowed down riches] As wild beasts do their prey, as the greater fishes do the lesser, greedily, easily, suddenly, irrecoverably, as the fire swalloweth up the fuel, as the lean kine devoured the fat, and as the Pamphagus glutton doth his tidbits, his sweet morsels. This word, hath swallowed, showeth his infinite and insatiable desire of getting and gathering riches; and that by continual gaping after more, he loseth the pleasure of what he hath already, like as a dog at his master's table swalloweth the whole meat he casteth him without any pleasure, gaping still for the next morsel. He knoweth no other language but that of the horse leech's daughter, Give, give; or that of greedy Esau, returning from the field, as hungry as a hunter, Genesis 25:30, Feed me, I pray thee, or let me swallow at once (like as camels are fed by casting gobbets into their mouth) that red, red, &c. Gold is no better than red earth, and cannot terminate man's appetite, Ecclesiastes 5:10 .
And he shall vomit them up again] Either by remorse and restitution in the mean time, or by despair and impenitent horror hereafter; he shall vomit them up, and together with them his vital blood and spirits; he shall bring up his very heart withal, as Judas did, together with those thirty pieces of silver, Matthew 27:4, all his bowels gushing out, Acts 1:18. He thought to have digested his ill gotten goods, as the ostrich doth iron; but, pelican-like, he is forced to cast them up again, קאת Pelicanus a vomitu. (See Plin. l. 10, c. 30.) The large fish that swallowed Jonah found him hard meat, and, for his own ease, was forced to regurgitate. Think the same of this wretched mammonist. The Septuagint interpret the text when they thus render it, Wealth unjustly gathered shall be vomited up again, and an angel shall hale it out of his mouth. (Graeci eleganter tropo explicato.) An evil angel, say their interpreters; but the Hebrew verity referreth it to God, as an act of divine justice.
God shall cast them out of his belly] As by a writ of ejectment, or rather, as by a violent purgation, that shall work both ways. Jeremiah 51:44, "I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth what he hath swallowed up"; viz. the wealth of the nations round about him. This God will rake out of his belly, so that a piece of his heart shall go with it. In the last destruction of Jerusalem some of the Jews had swallowed their gold, that the Roman soldiers might not have it; this was found out, and thereupon thousands of them were killed and ripped up for the gold that might be found in their stomachs and bowels. In like sort shall God deal with those covetous wretches, that have devoured the riches of iniquity; that have sucked in pestilential air, as Hosea 8:7. See Trapp on " Hos 8:7 "