The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers.
Ver. 2. The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers] Heb. He hath boiled against your fathers with foaming anger, with height of heat. There are degrees of anger, see Mat 5:22 Deuteronomy 29:28. The Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation. Surgit hic oratio: and the last of those three words is the same here used in the text; noting a higher degree than the two former, even such a fervour and fierceness of God's wrath as maketh him ready to kill and cut off, see 2 Kings 6:6 , and note the affinity of that word with this like as he had much ado to forbear killing of Moses, when he met him in the inn, Exodus 4:24, and as Nebuchadnezzar was not only angry, but very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon, Daniel 2:12. Now if the wrath of a king be as many messengers of death, Proverbs 16:14, what shall we think of the foaming and frothing wrath of God, which burns unto the lowest hell, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains, Deuteronomy 32:22. After which followeth, in the next verse, "I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them," Deuteronomy 32:23. He had done so upon the ancestors of these refractory Jews, who had been saepius puncti et repuncti, minime tamen ad resipiscentiam compuncti, often punished, but could never be reclaimed; so incorrigibly flagitious, so shamelessly, so prodigiously wicked were they, till there was no remedy. This their vile stubbornness made him sore displeased with them; and put thunderbolts into his hands to destroy them; for though fury be not in God, Isaiah 27:5, to speak properly, he is free from any such passions as we are subject to, yet if briars and thorns set against him in battle, if a rabble of rebels conspire to cast him out of his throne, saying, "We will not have this man to rule over us," &c., "I would go through them, I would burn them together," saith he, in the same breath. Abused mercy turneth into fury. Nothing so cold as lead, and yet nothing so scalding, if molten. Nothing more blunt than iron; and yet nothing so keen, if sharpened. The air is soft and tender; yet out of it are engendered thunder and lightnings. The sea is calm and smooth; but if tossed with tempests, it is rough above measure. The Lord, as he is Father of mercies, so he is God of recompences: and it is a fearful thing to fall into his punishing hands, Hebrews 10:31. If his wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, woe be to all those upon whom it lights, Psalms 2:12 : how much more when he is sore displeased with a people or person, as here! For "who knoweth the power of thine anger?" saith Moses; "even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath," Psalms 90:11; that is, let a man fear thee never so much, he is sure to feel thee much more, if once he fall into thy fingers. And this is here urged by the prophet as a motive to true repentance; since by their fathers' example they might see there was no way to escape the dint of the Divine displeasure but to submit to God's justice, and to implore his mercy: men must either turn or burn, "For even our God is a consuming fire," Hebrews 12:29 .