28. The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness. This punishment is very often referred to by the Prophets, when God is said to smite the wicked with a spirit (243) of giddiness and madness, to make them drunk with astonishment. Now, whatever God declares respecting this blindness or fury of mind, has a wide application; for hence it arises that the wicked rush willfully into vile lusts, shudder at no crime, are hurried headlong to destruction, are utterly deprived of discretion, throw away the remedies which are in their hands; and although (244) the carnal sense is not greatly disturbed by this form of vengeance, still it is much more severe and awful than any bodily disease. The Poets imagined that wicked men were agitated and terrified by the furies, because experience taught them that it was not without a secret impulse from God that they became so senseless, when, their minds being affected, they were like beasts in the shape of men. Even heathens, then, perceived that when the wicked are given over to a reprobate mind, God thus manifests Himself as the just Avenger of their crimes. And so it is in all cases of “astonishment;” for it is plain that those who are thus stupified by their miseries, are prostrated by the hand of God.
(243) C gives no references here. It is probable that the passage, which he most had in his mind, was Isaiah 19:14, “The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit;” in V. , “Dominus miscuit in medio ejus spiritrum vertiginis, etc.” His own Commentary on these words is, “The expression is metaphorical, as if one were to mix wine in a cup, that the Lord thus intoxicates the wise men of this world so that they are stunned and amazed, and can neither think nor act aright.” Calvin Soc. edit., vol. 2, p. 64. He also might refer to Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15; Psalms 60:3, etc.
(244) “L’apprehension commune des hommes;” the ordinary apprehension of men. — Fr.