He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face: keep the munition, watch the way, make [thy] loins strong, fortify [thy] power mightily.
Ver. 1. He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face] Nebuchadnessar the elder, that maul a of the whole earth, Jeremiah 50:23, that brake, and dispersed the nations, as a maul or great hammer doth the hardest stones. See how like a right Pyrgopolynices he vaunteth of his valour and victories, Isaiah 10:8,12. So Demetrius was surnamed Poliorcetes, the destroyer of cities; Attilas called himself Orbis flagellum, the scourge of the world. Julius Caesar was Fulmen belli, the thunderbolt of war; he had taken in his time a thousand towns, conquered three hundred nations, took prisoner one million of men, and slain as many. These were dissipatores indeed, and dashers in pieces, rods of God's wrath; and this they took to be a main piece of their silly glory. How much more honour was it to Augustine to be styled Haereticorum malleus, the hammer of heretics! and to Mr Hildersam, to be Schismaticorum malleus, the maul of schismatics! and lastly, to Luther, that he could thus say of himself:
“ Pestis eram virus, moriens ero mors tua papa! ”
“I living, stopped Rome's breath, and dead, will
be Rome's death!”
Is come up before thy face] Nineveh lay high, and those that went thither were said to go up, Hosea 8:9. Nebuchadnezzar is said here to be come up, to it long before he did (which set forth God's omniscience: "Known to him are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts 15:18 Psalms 139:2; and present to him are all things, both past and future), and to come up before Nineveh's face; who thought none dared have been so bold as to look her in the face. But though she had been a terror, yet now she is a scorn; as was likewise Ephraim, when he offended in Baal, Hosea 13:1. See Trapp on " Hos 13:1 "
Keep the munition, watch the way, &c.] Ironice omma, q.d. Do all this if you think it will do any good. But it is all to no purpose; you are an undone people, your enemies are above fear and you below hope: you have hitherto delighted in war, you shall now have enough of it; you have troubled the world with your arms and armies, now you shall meet with your match, a people terrible from the beginning. Up, therefore, and do your utmost; neglect nothing that may serve for your necessary defence; but it will not be: for "except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain," Psalms 127:1 .
a trans. and fig. after L. malleus. (Often, like hammer, scourge, applied to a person as the irresistible foe or the terrible oppressor of some person, class, or institution.) Obs. ŒD