But Adonibezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.
Ver. 6. But Adonibezek fled.] Excusing his flight, perhaps, as afterwards Demosthenes did. Vir fugiens denuo pugnabit; He that now fleeth, may fight another time.
And caught him.] Fugere quidem hic tyrannus potuit, sed non effugere; fly he might, but not escape, because divine vengeance pursued him for his cruelty. And the like befell Manasseh, Zedekiah, Muleasses (discovered by his perfumes), and many others.
And cut off his thumbs and his great toes.] So Tamerlane shackled Bajazet the great Turk whom he had taken in battle, and shut him up in an iron cage made like a grate, that he might be seen and derided of all men. He used him also on festival days as a footstool to tread upon when he mounted to horse, and at other times scornfully fed him like a dog with crumbs fallen from his table. All which Tamerlane did, not so much for hatred to the man, as to manifest the just judgment of God against the arrogant folly of the proud, saith the historian. a
a Turk. Hist., 220.
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Ver. 6. Kept not their first estate] Their original integrity or principality. Of this sin of the angels, the cause was the will of the angels, good in itself (but mutable and free), not by working either, but by not working, saith a divine.
But left their own habitation] Being driven thence and hurried into hell.
He hath reserved in everlasting chains, &c.] There are two sorts of chains, saith Mr Leigh. First, those which torment the devil, God's wrath, and his own conscience. Secondly, those which restrain him, his own finiteness, and God's providence.