Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, [even] the dung of your solemn feasts; and [one] shall take you away with it.
Ver. 3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed] And so mar your hopes of a harvest; I will bring famine upon you, that sore judgment, worse than that of the sword, Lamentations 4:9, which yet is the slaughter house of mankind, and the very hell of this present world. By this scourge God will tame his prodigals, and starve their bodies; who, by the contempt of his ordinances, starve their own souls, Haggai 1:4. Either by immoderate drought God can cause a famine, Joel 1:10, or by immoderate moisture, Joel 1:17 "The seed rotting under the clods," &c., to revenge the quarrel of his covenant. Israel was plagued with famine for breaking their faith with the Gibeonites, 2 Samuel 21:1. What may they expect that keep not in touch with God? David knew that the natural cause of that famine was drought; but he inquired (though it were long first) after the supernatural. As Jacob inquired who stood on the top of the ladder and sent the angels to and fro? Genesis 28:13; so must we, in case of public calamities, ascend to the top of them, and see who sends them, and what is the cause of them, that we may cast the traitor's head over the wall, and he may return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him. For till then we may look that he should cut off our provision and victuals, as wise princes use to do from their rebels whom they have gotten up into a walled town.
And spread dung upon your faces] Cast contempt upon you, and cover you with confusion; make you to stink above ground, so that men shall shun and abhor your company. This is another fruit of sin, and piece of the curse; and many wicked men are more afraid of it than of the sin that causeth it; as Chaereas, in Terence, not ashamed to deflour a virgin, was yet ashamed to be seen in a eunuch's clothes, the sign of that sin. True it is, that the best may have dung cast into their faces, as St Paul and his precious companions had, 1 Corinthians 4:13 "We are," saith he, "the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things" (περιψημα). The latter word signifieth the dung cart, that goes through the city, into which every one brings and casts his filth; to note that every fool had some filth to cast upon those worthies of whom the world was not worthy. And truly, all public persons that are faithful to their trust had need carry a spare handkerchief to wipe off dirt and drivel; which yet many times will hardly stick, as dirt will not upon marble, though it will upon a mud wall. "The wise shall inherit glory: when shame shall be the promotion of fools," Proverbs 3:35. A fair promotion; but good enough for them, unless they were better. If "the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, be at any time esteemed as earthen pitchers," as Lamentations 4:2, or trodden in the dirt by the fat bulls of Bashan, God will in due time make all his, that have lain sullied and slurred among the pots, to become as "the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with pure gold," Psalms 68:13. In the meanwhile, they have the commendation of a good conscience, which is better than the world's applause. But profane and profligate persons, with their spiritual nastiness and superfluity of naughtiness, stink worse than these cities of the plain in the nostrils of God and all good men, while they live (according to that, "The name of the wicked shall rot," and again, "He that perverteth his ways shall be known," Proverbs 10:7; Pro 10:9). And when they die they shall be carried through the dung gate of death, to the town ditch of utter destruction. At which time that in Job shall be verified of them, "Though his excellence mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet be shall perish for ever like his own dung; they which have seen him" (in his flourish) "shall say, Where is he?" Job 20:6,7. Let those dehonestamenta Cleri disgraceful clergy look to this; all idle and evil ministers, who, as unsavoury salt, are fit for no place but the dunghill, even to be buried in a dunghill, as Bishop Bonner was, and meanwhile to be trodden underfoot, which is a thing not only calamitous, but extremely ignominious, Matthew 5:13 .
Even the dung of your solemn feasts] i.e. For the iniquity of your most solemn services, which you have slubbered over, and made to stink, I will make you also abject and abominable; as the dung of sacrifices, offered in great number on festival days, was carried into some bycorner, and set out of sight. And here it is remarkable that God calleth the solemn feasts their solemn feasts, as if they had been none of his; he would not own them. So Jeremiah 7:21, in scorn he calls their sacrifices flesh, ordinary flesh, such as was bought and sold in the meat markets. And Hosea 9:4, he calleth the same sacrifices "their bread for their soul," or for their natural sustenance, and saith, "it shall not come into his house." And yet he speaks there of that meat offering, Leviticus 2:5, appointed by God himself for a spiritual use, which is nevertheless called the bread for their life, or livelihood; because God esteemed it none other than common meat. In a like sense it was, that after the people of Israel had set up the golden calf, God would own them no longer, but fathers them upon Moses: Behold thy people, saith he to Moses, whom thou broughtest out of Egypt, &c., Exodus 32:7. David, also, when he had sinned in numbering the people, was counted and called but plain David "Go and say to David," &c., 2Sa 24:12 whereas before that, when he purposed to build the Lord a temple, &c., then it was, "Go tell my servant David," &c., 2 Samuel 7:5. The saints themselves, when they sin against God, are in a sort suspended from the covenant. Therefore it is usual with them, when they seek the Lord for any special mercy, to begin with humbling themselves, and taking pains with their own hearts, as David, Daniel, Ezra.