I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people, and magnified [themselves] against their border.
Ver. 8. I have heard the reproach of Moab] How can he but hear who is all ear? who is both above us, and within us, in whom we subsist, Colossians 1:17. And what will he sooner be sensible of than the reproachings of his people? see Isaiah 37:28; Isaiah 57:3,4; "But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore." (See how he becalls them.) "Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood?" The Moabites and Ammonites were great jeerers of the Jews, and revilers of their religion. These reproaches, leniter volant, non leniter violant, cruel mockings the apostle calleth them, Hebrews 11:36. David felt them as a murdering weapon in his bones, Psalms 42:10. God will call such men to a heavy reckoning one day as deride the power of godliness and the professors thereof. Bede saith, that this was the great sin of the ancient Britons immediately before their destruction by the Saxons; and it is at this day both a presage and desert of our ruin, that as the Turks count all fools to be saints, so men with us account all saints to be fools.
And the revilings of the children of Ammon] How good they were at it we may see in those words of Sanballat and his companion Tobiah the Ammonite, Nehemiah 4:2,3, words as full of pride and scorn as profane wit or rancoured malice could make them; and they lay so heavy upon Nehemiah's spirit that he could not ease himself but by breathing heavenward: Nehemiah 2:4, "Hear, O our God; for we are despised; and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity," &c. Hear, saith Nehemiah: I have heard it, saith God. "Thou hast seen it," saith the Psalmist, "for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thine hand," Psalms 10:14 .
And magnified themselves] By speaking big and blustering words, bubbles of words, great swelling words, full of wind, 2 Peter 2:18, these shall find that such words are not wind, but will be required in fire, Judges 1:15. God is an utter enemy to boasting and threatening braggards.