Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.
Ver. 4. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished] Or, thrust out of house and home, and reduced to extreme indigence; yet we will return, and build the desolate places. We will do it all, despite di Deo (as that profane pope said), if it be but to cross God's prediction, and to withstand his power and providence. Thus these earthen pots will be dashing themselves against the rocks, against those mountains of brass (so God's immutable decrees are called, Zec 6:1). Thus Lamech will have the odds of God seventy to seven (so Junius interprets it), Genesis 4:24. Thus, when God had threatened to root out Ahab and his posterity, he would try that; and to prevent it, took more wives, and so followed the work of generation, that he left seventy sons behind him, 2 Kings 10:1. Thus Pharaoh (that sturdy rebel) holds out against God to the utmost, and sends away his servant Moses, threatening death to him, even then when he was compassed on all hands with that palpable darkness. Thus the Philistine princes (while sore plagued) gather themselves together again against the humbling Israelites at Mizpeh; and so run to meet their bane, 1 Samuel 7:10. Thus the proud Ephraimites, Isaiah 9:10. The bricks indeed, say they, are fallen down, but we will build it again with hewn stones. The wild fig trees are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Thus the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, Luke 7:30, yea, would needs be found fighters against God, as Gamaliel truly told them, Acts 5:39. Thus those primitive persecutors would needs attempt to root our Christian religion; the Jews, by the leave and help of Julian, to despite the Christians, would rebuild their city and temple, but were hindered from heaven. Otho, the Emperor, would make the city of Rome his imperial seat (which was long before pointed and painted out for the nest of antichrist), but could not effect it. The Jesuits would fain heal the beast's wounded head, and re-establish their kingdom of idolatry, but this they must never look for. Christ shall reign, and all his foes shall be his footstool: the Romish Edomites shall come to ruin.
Thus saith the Lord, They shall build, but I will throw down] Ruit alto a culmine Roma, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen"; her downfall is sure, sore, and sudden; Versa eris in cineres quasi nunquam Roma fuisses, said Sibylla of old. And there was something surely in that which we have read, that when the wars began in Germany, A. D. 1610, a great brass image of the apostle Peter (that had Tu es Petrus, &c., fairly imbossed upon it) standing in St Peter's church at Rome, there was a great and massive stone fell down upon it, and so shattered it to pieces, that not a letter of all that sentence (whereon Rome founds her claim) was left whole so as to be read; saving that one piece of that sentence, Aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, I will build my Church, which was left fair and entire. Surely when Popish mountains and monasteries shall be desolated and demolished, when the Pope (who was wont to say that he could never want money as long as he was able to hold a pen in his hand) shall be miserably impoverished, and his Euphrates of revenues dried up, Revelation 16:12, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be set above all the mountains, and the Lord Christ alone shall reign in glory; he shall "overturn, overturn, overturn," all anti-christian power and policy, Ezekiel 21:27, he will utterly destroy those crows' nests (as Henry VIII called the religious houses that he pulled down), ne iterum ad cohabitandum convolent, lest those unclean birds should build again (Sanderus).
They shall build, but I will destroy] It is the Lord, then, that both plants and pulls up kingdoms, nations, and peoples; that makes and destroys states, public or private, at his pleasure: they are all in his hand and done by him, and fall not out by any fortune, or fatal revolution and vicissitude, Dan 2:21 Luke 1:52 .
And they shall call them, The border of wickedness] Chiefly for their insulting over the people of God in their affliction, Obadiah 1:10. That wicked one, the Pope, is grossly guilty of this Edomitish inhumanity. What feasting and sending of gifts was there when the two witnesses were slain! What joy and jollity when the Waldenses (those ancient Protestants) were worsted in battle! What processions and bonfires at Rome upon the news of the Parisian massacre! Thuanus tells us, that the Pope caused it to be painted in his palace; and that the Cardinal of Lorrain gave him that brought the first tidings of it to Rome thirty thousand crowns for a reward. I do the rather parallel the Edomites and Romists, because the Rabbis usually by Edom understand Rome, and the Thargum renders "O daughter of Edom," Lamentations 4:21, thus: Romi Reshignah, O wicked Rome, which is answerable to this in the text, The border of wickedness, that is, the land of wickedness, haply called the border, or limit, as the non ultra of impiety, of unparalleled impiety: or else because men shall only come to the bounds and borders; and standing there aloof off, as abhorring to go farther, shall as it were point and say, Ah, wicked, Ah, wicked place, Terra de diables, as the Spaniards call one country in America, or the mouth of hell, as another place is named. Philip of Macedonia assembled all the infamous and wicked persons into a certain city of Thracia, and then called it Poneropolis. Italy is at this day little better: a second Sodom. M. Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's tutor, was but seven days in Venice, but he saw more wickedness there than he had seen in seven years in London. As for Rome (that Radix omnium malorum), that once faithful city is now become a harlot; yea, the great harlot, Revelation 17:5, yea, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, Revelation 17:5, tota est iam Roma lupanar (Petrarch), it is turned into a great brothel house, the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, Revelation 18:2. Bethel is become Bethaven; the house of God, the border of wickedness; Har-hamishcah is become Har-hamaschith, the mount of unction, the mount of corruption, 2 Kings 23:13 "What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?" Micah 1:5 .
And, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation] The people of God's wrath, Isaiah 10:6, and of his curse (so Idumea is called), Isaiah 34:5. And such a people was Amalek, with whom God (laid his hand upon his throne, and) swore that he would have perpetual war for their ill usage of his Israel, Exodus 17:16. He charged also his people never to forget them, Deuteronomy 25:19. Neither did they: Saul was sent to make an utter end of them, 1 Samuel 15:1,3. And wherein he failed in doing it, God stirred up the Simeonites in Hezekiah's days to smite the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, 1 Chronicles 4:42,43. The like judgment whereunto is befallen the Edomites long since: their very name is extinct, no memory of them being in posterity. The destiny of Doeg, their countryman, is come upon them, Psalms 52:5, God hath beaten them down for ever: he hath taken them away, and plucked them out of their dwellingplace, and rooted them out of the land of the living. Selah. It is ill angering the Ancient of days. His wrath lasts longer than the coals of juniper, Psalms 120:4; his judgments are severe and durable, as we use to say of winter; they never rot in the sky, but shall fall; if late, yet surely, yet seasonably. He that saith, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," repayeth often times when we have forgiven, when we have forgotten; and calls to reckoning after our discharges, as he did Nabal. It is dangerous offending any favourite of him who can have (as here) indignation for ever; whose wrath and revenge is (as that of the Athenians is said to be) αειμνηστος, everlasting, whose destructions are perpetual.