Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
Ver. 42. Then did I beat them as small as the dust] When God once withdraws his protection and help from a people it is an easy matter to tread them down and beat them in pieces. Lay hold upon him, therefore, as the Church did, and hang on. Say, as Jeremiah 14:21, Do not abhor us for thy name's sake; for as Bodin said well of obtaining, so for retaining, religion and civil rights, Non disputationibus, sed rogationibus agendum, prayer is most prevalent. If once our shadow depart, &c., woe be unto them when I depart from them.
I did cast them out, &c.] Evacuabam eos, I dealt by them as men do by the sweepings of the house, or noisome excrements. God sometimes dungeth his vineyard with the dead bodies of his enemies.