For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither [was there any] peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour.
Ver. 10. For before these days] sc. During those forty and four years, wherein they ceased from the work, minding only their own houses and managing their own affairs, their labour was unprofitable, their state unquiet through foreign foragers and homebred malcontents.
There was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast] Nulla emoluments laborum. Both man and beast did their parts, but to little purpose.
“ Ludit qui sterili semina mandat humo ”(Ovid).
They sowed much, and brought in little; they earned money, but put it into a bottomless bag, Haggai 1:6; See Trapp on " Heb 1:6 " the gains did not countervail the pains, the wages the work.
Neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in] Whether a man were within doors or without, he was in danger of the enemy (see the like 2Ch 15:5), he did eat the bread of his soul in the peril of his life, being wholly at the enemy's mercy, which is mere cruelty. "For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go away?" said Saul, 1 Samuel 24:19; I think not, till he have his pennyworth of him; as that monster of Milan, as the bloody Papists in the massacre of Paris, as the merciless Spaniards on the harmless Indians (50,000,000 of whom they have murdered in 42 years, as Acosta, the Jesuit, testifieth), as Ptolemy Lathurus, King of Egypt, on these poor Jews, 30,000 of whom he cruelly killed, and compelled the living to feed upon the flesh of the dead; and, lastly, as the Jews themselves, of whom Tacitus takes notice, and gives them this character, that there was misericordia in promptu apud suos, sed contra omnes alios hostile odium, that they were kind enough to their own, but cruel to all others, whom they look upon as idolaters, and therefore think they may safely kill, as they did the Cyprians and Cyrenians in Trajan's time to the number of 240,000; and as they still do Christians where they can without danger of being discovered; whom also they curse in their daily prayers with a Maledic Domine Nazaraeis; and by whom they are everywhere so contemned and hated, that they are exiled out of the world, cast out of many countries, and where they are suffered (as in Turkey) they are at every Easter in danger of death. For Biddulph telleth us that if they stir out of doors between Maundy Thursday at noon and Easter eve at night, the Christians among whom they dwell will stone them; because at that time they crucified our Saviour, derided and buffeted him.
For I set all men, every one against his neighbour] And I set, emisi or commisi, not permisi or dimisi, as the Vulgate hath it: I set on or sent out, not I let or suffered all men. God's holy hand hath a special stroke in the Church's afflictions, whosoever be the instrument. Herein his all disposing Providence is not only permissive, but active. "I make peace, and create evil," that is, war and contention, Isaiah 45:7; which is called evil by a specialty, as including all evils.
“ Omega nostrorum Mars est, Mars Alpha malorum. ”
But is there evil in a city, and I have not done it? Amos 3:6. He (for a punishment) sent an evil spirit of division and discord between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, Judges 9:23, not by instilling any evil motions into their minds, but in a way of just revenge for their treachery and cruelty to Gideon's family. This God doth, 1. By letting loose Satan upon them (that great coal kindler and mischief maker of the world) to raise jealousies, heart burnings, and discontents between them. 2. By giving them up to the lusts and corruptions of their own wicked hearts. 3. By giving occasions of enraging them more and more one against another. And here the wickedness of these factions and fallings out is wholly from their lusts that war in their members, James 4:1, and not at all of God, though his Providence do concur, like as the stench of the dunghill riseth not from the sun, though the sunshine upon it be the occasion of it.
Every one against his neighbour] A sad case, that common misery should not breed unity among them; that necessity had not made them lay down their private enmities; that being vexed so by the common adversary, they should yet vex and tear one another. Blows enough were not dealt by the Samaritans, Ammonites, and other malignants; but their own must add to the violence. Still Satan is thus busy, and Christians are thus malicious; that they must needs fall out by the way home, and give bloody noses, too, sometimes. St James, James 4:1; James 4:7, calls upon such to "resist the devil," that is, their unruly passions of rage and revenge, wherewith the devil empestereth and embroileth their spirits; and, like your cockmasters, sets one to kill another, that at night he may feed upon both.