Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, [and] went not out of the door?
Ver. 34. Did I fear a great multitude] Or, Though I should have terrified a great multitude, yet the most contemptible of the families frayed me (or humbled me), so that I held my peace, and went not out of doors; q.d. I could by my greatness have borne out my misdemeanors, and who dared have once questioned me, or quacked before me? But this I did not, I dared not; as being reined in by the reverential fear of God; yea, rather, if any one, though but of the meanest rank, had come to me, and admonished me friendly of my faults, or else, more sharply reproved me, I took it well aworth from him, not once opening my mouth to contend with him for my sins, not at all stirring out of doors to do him hurt. Let us fight with our faults, and not with our friends that tell us of them, said that German emperor. And when a poor hermit came to our Richard I, A.D. 1195, and preaching to him the words of eternal life, bade him be mindful of the subversion of Sodom, and abstain from things unlawful; otherwise (said he) the deserved vengeance of God will come upon thee; the king laid these things to heart, and became more devout and charitable to the poor.
That I kept silence, and went not out of the door] I replied, not in defence of what evil I had done; I cried not, as they used to do in courts of justice, Non feci, Not guilty; but Me, me, ego qui feci, I am verily guilty, and for this cause I went not out of doors, but kept me at home as much as I might, through shame and grief for what I had done amiss. I held my tongue, and hid my head. This was right; and this seems to me to be the right interpretation of the text among those many others that are brought by expositors.