He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Ver. 4. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at them] Videt, ridet. He seeth and smileth, he looketh and laugheth, at these giants. He sitteth in heaven, far above their reach; neither doth he much trouble himself about the matter. No more should we; but trust in him, and know that there is a council in heaven that will dash the mould of all contrary counsels upon earth; as the stone cut out of the mountain did the four great monarchies, Daniel 2:34. See an instance hereof in latter times. Luther, that heroic reformer, was excommunicated by the pope, proscribed by the emperor, hated and cursed all Christendom over almost, yet he prospered, and the work of Christ went on in his hands. And when the Elector of Saxony, his only patron, was much afraid what would become of him, and of the business of religion, Luther out of his Patmos (as he called it), where he lay hid, writeth him a rousing letter, wherein is read this among many other brave passages: Sciat celsitudo tua et nihil dubitet longe aliter in coelo quam Noribergae de hoc negotio conclusum est, Let your Highness rest well assured of this, that things are far otherwise carried and concluded in heaven, than they are at the Imperial Diet held at Norinberg. After this, in the year of grace 1526, there conspired against the gospel, and the professors thereof, the emperor and his prisoner in Spain, the French king, the princes also and bishops in Germany, stirred up by the pope. The French king was set at liberty, upon the condition that he join with the emperor to root out Lutheranism, that is, true religion. This was the agreement, but God broke it; for the French king was no sooner home but he made a league with the pope and the Venetians against the emperor. The pope excuseth his falling off from Caesar by a petulant and malapert epistle. Caesar, by another letter, lay open to the world the pope's perfidy, exhorting him to peace, and concluding that they had more need to unite their forces for the extirpation of Lutheran heresy. By this means the Church had a happy halcyon, while these great ones were out, and at it.
The Lord shall have them in derision] Adonai, that is, the sustainer and upholder of all. Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, Revelation 19:16. Lords and lowlies are all his vassals and underlings, as Constantine, Theodosius, and Valentine, those great emperors, called themselves. This name or style Christ hath written on his vesture, that all may see it, and on his thigh, where hangs his sword, to show his absolute dominion, his unlimited empire, got and held out of the hands of his enemies, with his mind, and with his bow, Genesis 48:22. And when he is said to deride them, this is no more than to laugh at them, as the following effects show.