And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.
Ver. 6. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee] As they do chamber pots and worse upon harlots that are carted. I have read of a heathen people that put the adulterers' and adulteresses' heads into the paunch of a beast, where all the filth lieth, and so stifled them to death.
And make thee vile] Conspurcabo, deturpabo te, I will bespattle thee and make thee stink above ground, as loathsome carrion doth: so the word signifieth. It was long since complained of by one of her own sons, that the stench of the Church of Rome was gone up to heaven. And by another, that of gold she was become silver, of silver iron, of iron earth, superesse ut in stercus abiret, and now there remained no more, but that she should be looked upon as dung. Accordingly it followeth:
And I will set thee as a gazingstock] The Septuagint render it, for an example (εις παραδειγμα), others, a lookingglass, but Calvin (after R. Salomon and Aben Ezra), ponam te quasi stercus, I will set thee as dung, which men gladly look beside. Luther rendereth it Ponam te in terriculamentum, I will make thee a bugbear. All this was done to Nineveh, that great city, and all was done by God, not by fate or fortune, or any necessity of nature, that states and kingdoms must have their times and their turns, their rise and their ruin, as politicians dote.