Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
Ver. 8. Therefore shall her plagues] Security ushereth in destruction, God shall shoot at such with an arrow suddenly, and fetch them off, as he did the rich fool, Luk 12:16-21
Come in one day] To confute their fond conceit of an eternal empire. See the like, Isaiah 48:9. When the war began in Germany, A. D. 1619, it was reported, that a great brass image of the Apostle Peter (that had Tu es Petrus, &c., Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church, engraven about it) standing in St Peter's church at Rome, there was a great and massive stone fell down upon it, and so shattered it to pieces, that not a letter of that sentence was left legible, save these words, Aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, I will build my Church. This was ominous to that tottering title of Rome, and might have taught the popelings, that God is about to build his Church upon the ruins of their worm eaten title. The Lord thereby seemed to say the same unto them, that once he did to Israel by Ezekiel, "An end is come, the end is come, it watcheth for this, behold it is come," Ezekiel 7:6. Sed surdis fabulam. This hath been long and loud rung in their ears, but they will not be warned.
Death] That is, war, that deadly evil, called an evil, κατ αντονομασιαν, Isaiah 45:7; "I make peace, and create evil," that is, war: a woeful evil that hews its way through a wood of men, in a minute of time, from the mouth of a murderingpiece, and causeth thousands to exhale their breath without so much as "Lord, have mercy upon us." Hence the poet:
" Omega nostrorum mors est, Mars Alpha malorum. "
And mourning] πενθος. For the loss of dead friends.
And famine] The usual concomitant of war, in sieges especially. See Trapp on " Rev 6:5 "
For strong is the Lord] Full able to effect it, seem it to Babel's brats never so improbable or impossible.