The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
Ver. 8. The wicked walk on every side] In circuitu, saith the Vulgate; the circular motion is most subtle, the devil walketh the rounds to do mischief; but better render it circumquaque, on every side, to show their numbers and their insolence. All places are full of them, such dust heaps are found in every corner; when as the godly are as the salt of the earth, sprinkled here and there, as salt useth to be, to keep the rest from putrefying.
When the vilest men are exalted] Heb. Vilities, the abstract for the concrete, quisquiliae, ουτιδανοι. Oft empty vessels swim aloft, rotten posts are gilt with adulterate gold, the worst weeds spring up bravest. Chaff will get to the top of the fan when good grain, as it lieth at the bottom of the heap, so it falls low at the feet of the farmer. The reason why wicked men walk on every side, are so brisk, so busy, and who but they? is given in to be this, because losels and rioters were exalted. See Proverbs 28:12; Proverbs 28:18; Proverbs 29:2. As rheums and catarrhs fall from the head to the lungs, and cause a consumption of the whole body; so it is in the body politic. As a fish putrefies first in the head, and then in all the parts; so here. Some render the text thus, When they (that is, the wicked) are exalted, it is a shame for the sons of men, that other men, who better deserve preferment, are not only slighted, but vilely handled by such worthless ambitionists; who yet the higher they climb, as apes, the more they discover their deformities.