Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.
Ver. 11. Now also many nations are gathered, &c.] That is, they shall lie once gathered, when the Babylonians, who are lords of the world, shall muster many nations against thee. Would any man take the Church's picture, saith Luther? then let him paint a silly poor maid, sitting in a wood or wilderness, compassed about with hungry lions, wolves, boars, and bears, and with all manner of cruel and hurtful beasts and in the midst of a great many furious men assaulting her every moment and minute, for this is her condition in the world.
That say, Let her be defiled] sc. with blood and slaughter. Or, let her be condemned as a hypocrite, let her be stoned as an adulteress; so the Trent translation. Thus they pretend, as Rabshakeh did, that they were sent by God against a hypocritical nation, that had broken their faith with God and men. The like craft and cruelty was used in the Parisian massacre, and gunpowder plot; God and man, said they (in that blind letter, that brought all to light), have agreed to punish the wickedness of this age. Those that would kill a dog give out that he was mad first, saith the French proverb. Whom no man looketh after, Jeremiah 30:17 .
And let our eyes look upon Zion] Let us feed our eyes with such a delightful spectacle; and say, as that cruel Charles IX of France did, when he saw the streets strewed with the bodies of the massacred Protestants, and the rivers dyed with their blood, O pulchrum spectaculum! O brave sight! or as the Queen mother of Scotland, when she beheld the dead carcases of her Lutheran subjects, said, that she never saw a goodlier piece of arras a in all her days. See the accomplishment of this prophecy in the Lamentations, Psalms 137:1,9, and in the Book of Nehemiah.
a A rich tapestry fabric, in which figures and scenes are woven in colours. ŒD