Bread of deceit [is] sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
Ver. 17. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man.] Sin's murdering morsels will deceive those that devour them. There is a deceitfulness in all sin, Heb 3:13 a lie in all vanity. Jer 2:8 The stolen waters of adultery are sweet, Pro 9:17 but bitterness in the end: such sweet meat hath sour sauce. Commodities craftily or cruelly compassed, yield a great deal of content for present. But when the unconscionable cormorant hath "swallowed down such riches, he shall vomit them up again; God shall cast them out of his belly." Joh 20:15 Either by remorse and restitution in the meantime, or with despair and impenitent horror hereafter.
His mouth shall be filled with gravel.] Pane lapidoso, as Seneca hath it - with grit and gravel, to the torment of the teeth; that is, terror of the conscience, and torture of the whole man. Such a bitter-sweet was Adam's apple, Esau's mess, the Israelites' quails, Jonathan's honey, the Amalekites' cates after the sack of Ziklag, 1Sa 30:16 Adonijah's dainties, 1Ki 1:9 which ended in horror; ever after the meal is ended, comes the reckoning. Men must not think to dine with the devil, and then to sup with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven: to feed upon the poison of asps, and yet that the viper's tongue shall not slay them. Job 20:16 When the asp stings a man, it doth first tickle him, so as it makes him laugh, till the poison by little and little gets to the heart, and then it pains him more than ever it delighted him. So doth sin. At Alvolana in Portugal, three miles from Lisbon, many of our English soldiers under the Earl of Essex perished, by eating of honey, purposely left in the houses and spiced with poison, as it was thought. a And how the treacherous Greeks destroyed many of the western Christians, French and English, marching toward the Holy Land, by selling them meal mingled with lime, is well known out of the Turkish history.
a Speed in Queen Elizabeth.