For the day of the LORD [is] near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.
Ver. 15. For the day of the Lord is near, &c.] "The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming," Psalms 37:12,13, the particular day of his sore punishment, a type and pledge of the general judgment, that great day of the Lord, as it is called, Revelation 6:17; Revelation 16:14, because the great God will on that day do great works, and determine great matters, Judges 1:19. But as some men's sins go before to judgment (as it were, by a special sessions preceding and anteverting the great Assizes), so should Edom and his neighbouring nations taste also of Nebuchadnezzar's cup and whip, Jeremiah 25:17, and this day is said to be near upon them, though it came not of above a hundred years after; so is the coming of Christ to judgment near, though we presume not to set the time, as some have done, deceiving and being deceived.
As thou hast done, it shall be done to thee] God loves to retaliate, and to oppose frowardness to frowardness, Psalms 18:26, contrariety to contrariety, Leviticus 26:18; Leviticus 26:21, severity to cruelty, as he did to Adonibezek, Agag, Zebah, and Zalmunna, Judges 8:19, and Edom here, and Ezekiel 35:1,15. And the heathens held this but meet, as appeareth by their fables and stories of Phineus (Ovid).
“ Quid fodis immeritis natis sua lumina, Phineu?
- Poena reversura est in caput ipsa tuum. ”
So of Diomedes, King of Thrace, cast by Hercules to be devoured by his own dogs, which he had so often fed with man's flesh. The like might be said of Perillus and his brazen bull, whereof himself had the lucky omen. Iustum est, ait Rhadamanthus, quod quis iniuste aliis intulit idem subeat et patiatur (Arist. Ethic.). Herein they said no other thing than what God had in the old law decreed, Leviticus 24:19, and Christ in the new hath confirmed, Matthew 7:2, for a terror to evildoers, who shall have like for like returned unto them, and be filled with their own ways, Proverbs 14:14. See Lamentations 4:21. The Rabbis conceive all this to be spoken of the Romans (whom they call Edomites); sure we are God will be even with that Romish antichrist, and render him his own in kind, when he once takes him in hand, as Revelation 13:10; Revelation 18:6 .