Woe to the bloody city! it [is] all full of lies [and] robbery; the prey departeth not;
Ver. 1. Woe to the bloody city] Nineveh, that delighteth in war, which one well calleth the slaughter house of mankind and hell of this present world, Isaiah 9:5 : the Greek word πολεβμος, war, signifieth much blood (πολυ αιμα). besides that, many murders were committed in her, and connived at, if not countenanced, by a pretence of justice. Such a sanguinary city is Rome; not only drunk with the blood of saints, but also of her own children. Brazutus, set on by Hildebrand, was the death of six popes successively within the time of thirteen years. Pope John XXII (who sat A.D. 1316) flayed a bishop, who had some way offended him, and afterwards burned him. Pope Paul III poisoned two cardinals Fulgosus and Contarenus, a bishop also, and Johannes Baptists Vergerus, because he suspected them of Lutheranism. The Italians generally, as they blaspheme oftener than they swear, so they murder more than they revile or slander. Such another city of bloods is Paris, in France; witness that barbarous massacre, wherein they poisoned the Queen of Navarre, murdered the most part of the peerless nobility of France, with their wives and children, with a great sort of the common people, 100,000 in one year, in various parts of the realm, besides 6000 gentlemen, slain there in private quarrels, within the time of ten years, as it appears by the king's pardons. Now if the blood of one Abel had so many tongues as drops Genesis 4:10 , "the voice of thy brother's blood's crieth unto me," what shall we think will be the woe of such bloody cities and states? Luther rendereth this text, Woe to the murderous state! Austin interpreteth it of all heinous offences wherewith Nineveh was polluted. But surely if other sins have a woe hanging at their heels, according to that of Job 10:15, "If I be wicked, woe unto me," bloody men shall have a woe with a witness, as those that walk in the way of Cain, Judges 1:11 : see Eze 24:6 Habakkuk 3:12, and remember that it was the ruin of that great city Nineveh.
It is all full of lies] Oλη ψευδης, so the Seventy render it (universa mendacium), she is wholly made up of fraud and falsehood, mendaciorum loquacissima; no truth in her private contracts, no trust in her public transactions and capitulations with other nations; be they never so strongly concluded or never so solemnly confirmed, yet had they no longer force with them than stood with their own profit. This was fides Ninevetica, as it was afterwards Punica, and is now Turcica; which will at length prove their downfal; as it befell Nineveh and Carthage.
And robbery] Or ravage (laceratio); such as lions exercise, Psalms 7:2. Liars are commonly thieves; fraudulence is no better than robbery. If I have beguiled any man, saith Zaccheus, I restore him fourfold, Luke 19:8, as having wronged him no less than if I had robbed him. Hence they go here coupled. Violence is seldom sundered from cunning contrivance; in those especially that hunt after monarchy, as Nimrod, Julius Caesar, Lysander (whose counsel and practice was to eke out the lion's hide with the fox's skin, if need were, pellem vulpinam leoninae assuere), Jeroboam, Jehu, Herod, that fox, Julian, Caesar Borgia, whom Machiavel propounds for a pattern to princes; telling them that justice itself should not be sought after, but only the appearance; because the credit is a help, the use a cumber. That great elixir, called reason of state (though falsely so called, unless it be seasoned with justice and truth), hath so transmutative a faculty as to make copper seem gold, right wrong, and wrong right; yea, when all pleas fail, it will stand for good while there are forces to support it.
The prey departeth not] They fetch in booty continually, they spoil and prey upon others without end or measure. Once they seemed to repent of their luxury and cruelty at the preaching of Jonah; but now they are as bad again, or worse than ever. They tear in pieces (our English seems to be made of the Hebrew here), and greedily feed upon those murdering morsels of sin which they must digest in hell, without better repentance than they were ever yet acquainted with.