And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in [his] wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
Ver. 5. And I will come near to you to judgment] q.d. You conceit me a great way off, and put far from you the thoughts of my coming, having been so bold as to ask, "Where is the God of judgment?" &c. "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me." Not, as you desired, to avenge you of your enemies, but, as justice requireth, to be avenged of you for your impieties which I have here billed up against yon. And that ye may not think to escape, know that as I am a Judge at hand, so a present witness, testis festinantissimus, a most swift witness, to evict and punish you, for your most secret sins. So, then, however the Lord spare long, yet he will be at length both a hasty witness and a severe Judge against those that abuse his patience; he will not always stand them for a sinning stock, but pay them home for the new and the old, Jeremiah 6:6 Micah 1:3. God owned a revenge to the house of Eli; and yet, at length, by the dilation of Doeg, takes occasion to pay it. It is a vain hope that is raised from the delay of judgment; no time can be any prejudice to the Ancient of days. If his word sleep, it shall not die; but after long intermissions, breaks forth into those effects which men had forgotten to look for, and ceased to fear. The sleeping of vengeance causeth the overflow of sin, Ecclesiastes 8:11, and the overflow of sin causeth the awakening of vengeance, Psalms 50:21, so that sometimes he strikes before he gives any further warning; as Absalom, intending to kill Amnon, spake neither good nor evil to him. Subito tollitur qui diu toleratur. He was suddenly destroyed who was tolerated for a long time. Till the fiery serpents, God had ever consulted with Moses, and threatened before he punished. Now he strikes and says nothing. The anger is so much more by how much less notified. Still revenges are ever most dangerous and deadly, when God is not heard before he is felt (as in hewing of wood the blow is not heard till the axe be seen to have struck); or if he be heard to say, as Nehemiah 1:9, what do ye imagine against the Lord? he will make an utter end affliction shall not arise up the second time; it is a sign he is implacably bent, and means to have but one blow. The wicked's happiness will take its end surely and swiftly. The end is come is come, is come, saith Ezekiel, Ezekiel 7:2. The Lord is come near to you to judgment, and he will be a speedy witness. Judge and witness both; which in men's courts cannot be; but God, being infinitely both wise and holy, may be and will be both witness and judge against the workers of iniquity; and when they are (as Adonijah's guests were, 1Ki 1:41) at the height of their joys and hopes, he confounds all their devices, and lays them open to the scorn of the world, to the anguish of their own guilty hearts and the dint of his own unsupportable displeasure which is such as none can avert or avoid.
“ Ad poenam tardus Deus est, ad praemia velox,
Sed pensare solet vi graviore moram.
Poena venit gravior, quo mage sera venit. ”
Against the sorcerers ] Or diviners, wizards, necromancers, &c. See the various sorts forbidden, and to be punished, Deuteronomy 18:10 . By God's law such might not be suffered to live Exodus 22:18 , yet did this evil prevail in Israel 2Ch 33:6 Jeremiah 27:9 ; and here, it was done by unlawful means, as Saul said to the witch, "Divine unto me by the familiar spirit," 1 Samuel 28:8 ; and it was a thing hateful to God even as high rebellion, 1 Samuel 15:23 , since the ground of this familiarity is a diabolical contract overt or covert, explicit or implicit. It is fitly called the black art, for there is no true light in them that use it, Isaiah 8:19,20 , they depart from God and his testimony, ib., and so tempt the devil to tempt them. This was Saul's sin, for which the Lord killed him, 1 Chronicles 10:13 , and hath threatened to cut off all from among his people that do inquire of such, Leviticus 20:6 . Thou hast been partaker with the adulterer, Psalms 50:18 ; so are such with sorcerers. Surely the wounds of God are better than the salves of Satan; as Ahaziah found it. And they which in case of loss or sickness, &c., make hell their refuge, shall smoke and smart for it in the end. Satan seeks to them in his temptations, they in their consultations seek to him; and now that they have mutually found each other, if ever they part it is a miracle; he is an unspeakably proud spirit, and yet will stoop to the meanest man or woman to be at their command (the witch of Endor is twice in one verse, 1 Samuel 28:7 , called the mistress of the spirit, because in covenant with him), whereby he may cheat them and their clients of salvation. Every one that consults with him worships him, though he bow not, as Saul did; neither doth that old manslayer desire any other reverence than to be sought unto.
And against the adulterers ] Sept. The adulteresses. Adultrinum, quasi ad alterum, aut alterius torum, going up to another man's bed, as Reuben did, and was severely sentenced for it, Genesis 49:4. It was to be punished with death, even by the law of nature; because the society and purity of posterity could not otherwise continue among men. Nebuchadnezzar roasted in the fire Zedekiah and Ahab, two false prophets of Judah, because they committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, Jeremiah 29:22,23. The Egyptians used to cut off the nose of the adulteress; the prophet alludes to this Ezekiel 23:25. The Athenians, Lacedaemonians, and Romans were very severe against this sin, as Plutarch recordeth in his Parallel Lives. The old French and Saxons also, as Tacitus tells us. By God's law they were to be stoned to death; and the high priest's daughter was to be burned for this fault, Leviticus 21:9, a peculiar punishment, and not to be paralleled in the whole law. If men fail to fall upon such (it is a heinous crime, saith holy Job, and an iniquity to be punished by the judges, Job 31:11), God himself will do it, Hebrews 13:4, and did it effectually, 1 Corinthians 10:8, and on the filthy Sodomites, Genesis 19:24,28, and on Charles II, King of Navarre, who was much addicted to this sin, which so wasted his spirits that in his old age he fell into a lethargy (Venus ab antiquis, λυσιμελης, dicta. See Pro 5:8). To comfort his benumbed joints he was bound and sewn up in a sheet steeped in boiling aqua vitae. water of life (alcohol). The surgeon having made an end of sewing him, and wanting a knife to cut off his thread, took a wax candle that stood lighted by him; but the flame, running down by the thread, caught hold on the sheet, which, according to the nature of the aqua vitae, burned with that vehemence, that the miserable king ended his days in the fire. But say the adulterer be neither stoned nor burned, yet God usually stoneth such with a stony heart, Hosea 4:11, which is a most fearful judgment; and when they die burneth them with the hottest fire in hell, Proverbs 2:18; the whore's guests go down to the dead; Heb. el Rephaim, to the giants; to that part of hell where those damned monsters are. See 2Pe 2:4; 2 Peter 2:10, and mark the word chiefly.
And against false swearers] A sin of a high nature, condemned by the height of nature, and punished by the heathens. Periurii poena divina exitium; humana, dedecus; this was one of the laws of the twelve tables in Rome. God punisheth perjury with destruction; men, with disgrace. Tissaphernes, the Persian general, being overcome by Agesilaus, King of Spartans, craved three months' truce, and had it; they both sware to be quiet on both sides. Tissaphernes soon broke his oath; but Agesilaus religiously kept it, saying, that gods and men would favour him for his fidelity, but curse and execrate the other for his perjury. God showed Zechariah a flying roll, long and large, ten yards long, and five broad, full of curses against the false swearer, with commission to rest upon his house, which he holds his castle, and where he thinks himself most secure, Zechariah 5:3,4. Michael Paleologus, Emperor of Constantinople, made the Greek Church acknowledge the Pope's supremacy, and did many other things contrary to his oath; and, therefore, lieth obscurely buried, shrouded in the sheet of defamation, saith the historian. So doth Rodulphus, Duke of Sueveland, who, by the Pope's instigation, broke his oath of allegiance to Henry the emperor, and by the cutting off of his faithless right hand lost his life. So doth Sigismund, the emperor, for his false dealing with John Huss: Ladislaus, King of Hungary, for his perjurious setting upon Amurath, the Great Turk, at the battle of Varna, where he was deservedly defeated. What a blur was that to the old Romans, if true, that Mirchanes, the Persian general, should say of them, Romanis promittere promptum est, &c.: The Romans will promise anything, and swear to it, but perform nothing that makes against their profit. There were at Rome such as could lend an oath at need; and would not stick to swear that their friend or foe was at Rome and at Interamna both at once. How slippery the Papists are, and how bloody, both in their positions and dispositions, is well known to all. But God is the avenger of all such; because they call him to witness a falsehood; and dare him to his face to execute his vengeance, see Zechariah 8:17 .
And against those that oppress, &c.] Either by denying, diminishing, or delaying their wages. The Vulgate rendereth it, Who calumniate, or make cavils to detain wages, which is the poor hireling's livelihood, whereupon he setteth his heart, Deuteronomy 24:15, and maintaineth his life; which is, therefore, called the life of his hands, because upheld by the labour of his hands, Isaiah 57:10. He gets it, and eats it; and is in his house like a snail in his shell; crush that, and you kill him. This is a crying cruelty, James 5:4, and hath a woe against it, Jer 22:13 James 2:13. Laban is taxed for it, Genesis 31:7; and for those that are guilty, if they mend not, and make restitution, Master Latimer tells them they shall cough in hell.
The widow] A calamitous name: she is called in Hebrew, from her dumbness, Almanan; because death, having cut off her head, she hath lost her tongue, and hath none to speak for her. A vine whose root is uncovered thrives not; so a widow, the covering of whose eyes is taken away, joys not. God, therefore, pleads for such as his clients, and takes special care for them; the deacons were anciently ordained specially for their sakes, Acts 6:1 1 Timothy 5:3; and Pharisees doomed to a deeper damnation for devouring widows' houses, Matthew 23:14; and magistrates charged to plead for the widow, Isaiah 1:17, as judge Job did, Job 31:16; and all sorts to make much of her, and communicate to her, Deuteronomy 24:19,21 .
And the fatherless] We are orphans and fatherless, saith the Church, Lamentations 5:3. And we are all orphans, said Queen Elizabeth (in her speech to the children of Christ's Hospital); let me have your prayers, and you shall have my protection. That hospital was founded by her brother, King Edward VI, for the relief of fatherless children, after the example of the ancient Church, which had her orphano trophi, orphan breeders. With God the fatherless findeth mercy, Hosea 14:3, and all his vice-gods are commanded the like, Psalms 82:1,4, unless they will consult shame and misery to their own houses, and, Joab-like, leave the leprosy to their little ones for a legacy. Better leave them a wallet to beg from door to door than a cursed hoard of orphans' goods.
And that turn aside the stranger] The right of strangers is so holy (saith Master Fox) that there was never nation so barbarous that would violate the same. When Stephen Gardiner had in his power the renowned Peter Martyr, then teaching at Oxford, he would not keep him to punish him; but when he should go his way, gave him wherewith to bear his charges.
And fear not me] This is set last, as the source of all the former evils. See the like, Rom 3:18 Psalms 14:1, where atheism and irreligion is made the root of all the sin in the world. God's holy fear is to the soul as the banks are to the sea or the bridle to the horse; it was so to Isaac, who reigned in the reverent fear of God, when he saw that he had done unwilling justice, dared not reverse Jacob's blessing, though prompted to it by natural affection and Esau's howlings, Genesis 27:33. It was so to Job, Joseph, Nehemiah, Daniel, &c., who could easily have borne out their oppressions by their greatness. And indeed whereas other men have other bits and restraints, great men, if they fear not God, have nothing else to fear; but dare obtrude and justify to the world the most malapert misdemeanours, because it is facinus maioris abollae (Juvenal), the fact of a great one, who do many times as easily break through the lattice of the laws as the bigger flies do through a spider web, as Anacharsis was wont to say of his Scythians. Hence Jethro would have his justice of peace to be a man fearing God, Exodus 18:21; and this qualification he fitly placeth in the midst of the other graces requisite to him, as the heart in the body, for conveying life to all the parts, or as a dram of musk perfuming the whole box of ointment, Exodus 18:21. Nothing makes a man so good a patriot as the true fear of God's blessed name, and a zealous forwardness for his glory, goodness, and good causes. This, this alone is it that can truly beautify and adorn all other personal sufficiencies, and indeed sanctify and bless all public employments and services of state. Whereas, on the contrary, sublata pietate, fides tollitur, take away piety, and fidelity is gone; as we see in the unjust judge, Luke 18:2, in Abraham's judgment of the Philistines, Genesis 20:11, and in Constantinus Chlorus's experiment of his counsellors and courtiers; whence that famous maxim of his, recorded by Eusebius, He cannot be faithful to me that is unfaithful to God; religion being the ground of all true fidelity and loyalty to king and country. Hence that close connection, "Fear God. Honour the king"; and that again of Solomon, "My son, fear thou the Lord and the king; and meddle not with them that are given to change," Proverbs 24:21 .