And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
Ver. 39. Reviled him, wagging their heads] God took notice of Cain's frowns,Genesis 4:6, Miriam's mutterings, Numbers 12:2, these men's noddings, Rabshakeh's lofty looks, Isaiah 37:23, Laban's lourings (scowling), Genesis 31:2, and sets them upon record. He is jealous for Jerusalem with a great jealousy,Zechariah 1:14; (and jealousy is very wakeful, hardly shall the sly paramour avoid the husband's eye), if he see any indignity offered to his beloved spouse, he will arise and play Phineas' part, as that martyr said. The virgin daughter of Zion, though she be but a virgin, hath a champion that will not see nor suffer her to be abused, Isaiah 37:22. See how he revileth her revilers, Isaiah 57:3,4 "But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. Against whom do ye sport yourselves against whom make yea wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood?" Yea, he giveth encouragement to his spouse, in a holy scorn to despise and deride her deriders, shaking her head at them, as they do at her, and saying, "Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?" &c. q.d. Dost thou know what thou hast done? &c. At Brightwell in Berkshire, one Lener said that he saw that evil favoured knave Latimer, when he was burned at Oxford; and that he had teeth like a horse. But the Lord suffered not this scorn and contempt of his servant to go unpunished. For that very day, and about the same hour that Lener spake those words, his son wickedly hanged himself.