I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Ver. 14. I was almost in all evil.] Abraham Ben Ezra reads it in the future tense, Brevi ero in omni malo, I shall shortly be in all evil; and so his repentance here appears to be poenitentia sera, Iscariotica, such as was that of Judas and of those popelings, Rev 18:19 a desperate repentance, and not "toward God," Act 20:24 not a repentance for sin, as it is offensivum Dei, et aversivum a Deo, an offence against God, and a turning away from him. Such a repentance in this man had been, as the Romans said of Pompey, a Eχθρου πατρος φιλτατον τεχνον, a fair and happy daughter of an ugly and odious mother - of his sin I mean, the sight whereof had sent him to Christ.
In the midst of the congregation.] That is, Openly, and before all men. And this he brings as an aggravation of his misery, that there were so many eye witnesses thereof. No unclean person can have any assurance that his sin shall always be kept secret, no, not in this life. The Lord hath oft brought such - sometimes by terror of conscience, sometimes by frenzy - to that pass, that themselves have been the blazers and proclaimers of their own secret filtifiness. Yea, observe this, saith one, b in them that are the most cunning in this sin, that, though nobody peradventure can convince them evidently of the fact, yet everybody, through the just judgment of God, condemns them we for it. As the Lord seeth their secret villanies, even so ofttimes he testifieth agaiust them, accordins to that which he threateneth, "I will be a swift witness against the adulterers." Mal 3:5
a Plut. in Pomp. Vita.
b Hildersh. on John iv.