If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? or [if] thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him?
Ver. 6. If thou sinnest, what dost thou against him?] What more than show thy teeth? or shoot at a rock, where the arrow rebounds upon thee? In the sack of Constantinople the image of the crucifix was taken down by the Turks, and a Turk's cap put upon the head thereof, and so set up, and shot at with their arrows; and afterwards, in great derision, carried about in the camp, as it were in procession, with drums playing before it, railing and spitting at it, and calling it the God of the Christians. But what was all this to Christ? He that sitteth in the heavens (extra iactum) laughed at them, the Lord had them in derision, Psalms 2:4. Do wicked sinners, when they work hardest against God, as the word here signifieth, and take greatest pains to go to hell; do they, I say, provoke the Lord to anger? Etsi naviter peccas. "Do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?" Jeremiah 7:19. And, nay we not well say to such, as Ulysses's companions said to him, when he would needs provoke Polydamas,
Sχετλιε τιπτ εθελεις ερεθιζεμεν αγριον ανδρα (Hom. Odys.).
God can easily get him a name in the utter overthrow of a rabble of rebels conspiring against him, as at the flood, tower of Babel, Sodom, Egypt, Moab, &c., who were trodden down under him, as straw is trodden down for the dunghill, Isaiah 25:10. And in the next verse, "The Lord shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim" (that is, with greatest facility; for violent strokes rather sink than support a swimmer): "and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands. And the fortress of the high fort of their walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust," Isaiah 25:11,12 .