Now [that] which was prepared [for me] daily [was] one ox [and] six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine: yet for all this required not I the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people.
Ver. 18. Now that which was prepared for me daily] A very great table he kept, at his own charge all, yet nothing so great as Solomon, 1 Kings 4:22,23, or as once Cardinal Wolsey here; who, besides all strangers that came, had four hundred of family, whereof one was an earl, nine barons, very many knights and esquires. But then he had more yearly revenue than all the bishops and deans in the land had, take them all together.
And once in ten days] Then he kept an extraordinary table, inviting guests, for whom he had store of the best wines. The Turkish bashaws feast foreign ambassadors with rice, and mutton, and fair water out of the river: wine is a forbidden ware with them; Mahomet, their prophet, having told them that in every grape there dwelt a devil.
Yet for all this I required not] This he did, and this he here recordeth; not for a name (as Crates, the philosopher, did, when he cast his goods into the sea merely to be talked of,) and is, therefore, worthily called by Jerome (Epist. ad Julian), gloriae animal, popularis aurae vile mancipium, a base slave to vain glory, but for better and higher ends. See Nehemiah 5:16 .