Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.
Ver. 9. Then said I, I will not feed you] Now the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, so that there was no remedy, as 2 Chronicles 36:16. Now his decree brought forth, Zephaniah 2:2. Now he grows implacable, inexorable, peremptory. Wherein nevertheless the Lord might very well break forth into that speech of the heathen emperor, when he was to pass sentence upon a malefactor, Non nisi coactus, I would not do this if I could do otherwise. Christ could not tell Jerusalem without tears that her day of grace was expired, that her destruction was determined. As a woman brings not forth without pain; as a bee stings not till provoked; so neither doth God proceed against a sinful people or person till there be an absolute necessity; lest his truth and justice should be questioned and slighted. See Ezekiel 12:22,25. Fury is not in God, till our sins put thunderbolts into his hands; and then, "who knoweth the power of his anger?" Psalms 90:11 "who can abide with everlasting burnings?" Isaiah 33:14. If he but cast a man off, as here, and relinquish the care of him, he is utterly undone. Saul found it so, and complains dolefully (but without pity) that God had forsaken him, and the Philistines were upon him, 1 Samuel 28:15; all miseries and mischief came rushing in to him, as by a sluice. Let us so carry matters that God may not abandon us; that he may not refuse to feed us, and take the charge of us as a shepherd. He yet offereth us this mercy, as Alexander did those he warred against, while the lamp burned.
That that dieth, let it die] viz. Of the murrain, or pestilence, for man being in honour, if God but blow upon him, abideth not, but is like the beasts that perish, pecoribus morticinis, saith Tremellius, the beasts that die of the murrain. Vatablus thinks pestilence, sword, and famine are here threatened under the names of death, of cutting off, and of devouring one another. All which befell the refractory Jews in the last siege; the history whereof will make any man's heart bleed within him that hath but the least spark of grace or good nature. It went hard with them, when the rest, that the pestilence and sword had left, fell to eating the flesh one of another; when the mother killed and boiled the dead body of her harmless suckling, and, eating the one half, reserved the other for another time. "Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this?" saith the prophet: "Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?" Lamentations 2:20. Oh the misery, or rather mock of man's life! And oh the venomous nature of sin, that moves God (who is not μισανθρωπος, a man hater, but delights in mercy) to deal so severely with his poor creature.