Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness [is] great.
Ver. 13. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.] It even hangs for mowing, as we say: the enemies are ready ripe for ruin; down with them, therefore, that they may not shed in the field and seed again; let this valley of decision be unto them a valley of excision; let it be as a winepress to those bunches and branches of the grapes lopped off the vine. Lacus iste locus caedis, see Rev 14:18-19 Matthew 13:39. There is a stint set to men's sins, Genesis 15:16 Zechariah 5:8; Zec 5:11 Matthew 23:32. See Trapp on " Mat 23:22 " What more beautiful to behold than a field for harvest, than a vineyard before the vintage? and yet how sudden an alteration, when workmen once take in hand!
For the wickedness is great] Here is that plainly that before was expressed parabolically. The Scripture often expounds itself in the same text; and is everywhere its own best interpreter.