And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.
Ver. 8. That the man was afraid.] Timor est constrictio cordis ex sensu mali instantis. Fear is a passion of the soul, shrinking in itself from some imminent evil. The Greeks call it δειμα, quasi ligamentum, a bond: quasi gelu astringit, saith Nazianzen, it binds up the heart as a frost doth the earth. Boaz might possibly fear that it was some evil spirit that had assumed a body, and got to bed to him. Alexander from Alexandria a telleth of such things that have happened. And another writeth of a gallant, who meeting with a beautiful dame, and having enjoyed his fleshly desires of her, found her in the morning to be the dead body of one that he had formerly sinned with, which had been acted by the devil all night, and left dead again in the morning.
And turned himself.] Or, Took hold on: sc., her clothes, or her headgear; whereby he perceived that it was a woman. But he was a mortified man, and an elder, πρεσβυτης, that is, one in whom the fire of lust was put out.
a Lib. ii. cap. 9; lib. iv. cap. 19.