Ver. 1. Beside the covenant.] Which yet was also a covenant of grace, and the same with this in substance; only that at Horeb was made and delivered in a more legal manner, this in a more evangelical, as appears in the following chapter.
Ver. 2. Moses called.] At several times it is like, these things were delivered, and not at once.
Ver. 3. The signs and those great miracles.] None of all which wrought kindly upon them to effectual conversion, because God denied concourse and influence of his grace. Jeroboam had as great a miracle wrought before him in the drying up of his hand as St Paul at his conversion, yet was he not wrought upon, because the Spirit did not set it on.
Ver. 4. Yet the Lord hath not given you.] Nor is he bound to do, “but on whom he will he showeth mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth,” i.e., he softeneth not. Till when, a man stands in the midst of means, as a stake in the midst of streams, unmoveable: yea, the more God forbids a sin, the more he bids for it. (Romans 7:8) [See Trapp on “Mt 13:11”] [See Trapp on “Mt 13:13”] [See Trapp on “Mt 13:14”]
Ver. 5. Your clothes.] [See Trapp on “De 8:4”]
Ver. 6. Ye have not eaten bread,] viz., Ordinary, [see Deuteronomy 2:6] but manna; et benefieium postulat officium.
Ver. 9. That ye may prosper.] Piety is the right and ready way to prosperity. Sulla, surnamed Felix, accounted it not the least part of his happiness that Metellus, surnamed Pius, was his friend. Godliness is the best friend to happiness.
Ver. 10. Before the Lord.] Who seeth your inside also, and is intimo vestro vobis intimior.
Ver. 11. From the hewer of thy wood.] The meanest amongst you, such as afterwards were the Gibeonites, who also by faith became covenanters, and are called Nethinims in Ezra and Nehemiah. They were made drawers of water to the temple, as a kind of punishment: God made it a mercy; for the nearer they were to the Church, the nearer they came to God.
Ver. 16. How we have dwelt.] And how hard is it to pass through Ethiopia, how much more to dwell there, and not to be discoloured! Sin is catching, and by the senses, those five ports of the soul, that old serpent oft winds himself into the heart. Ye have seen their abominations; oh that you would say, Satis est vidisse, &c. Now therefore, lest there should be, &c., Deuteronomy 29:18.
Ver. 17. A root that beareth gall] An evil heart of unbelief, (Hebrews 3:12) a deceitful and deceived heart, (Jeremiah 17:9 Isaiah 44:20) that is ever either weaving spiders’ webs— i.e., loving vanity, seeking after leasing (Psalms 4:2) —or hatching cockatrice’ eggs, that is, acting mischief. (Isaiah 59:5) As in that first chaos were the seeds of all creatures; so in man’s heart, here therefore fitly called, a root of rottenness, of all sins. Holy Bradford would never look upon any one’s lewd life with one eye, but presently reflect upon himself with the other, and say, In this my vile heart remains that sin, which without God’s special grace I should have committed as well as he. πανσπερμια.
Ver. 19. When he heareth the words.] But feareth them no more than Behemoth doth the iron weapons, which are esteemed by him as straws. The presumptuous sinner, saith one, makes God a God of clouts, -one that, howsoever he speaks heavy words, will not do as he saith. Words are but wind, say they in Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 5:13) “God forbid,” say they in the Gospel. (Luke 20:16) These things are but spoken in terrorem, thinks the practical atheist; bugbear words, devised on purpose to frighten silly people, &c. Ahab, after he was threatened with utter rooting out, begat fifty sons, as it were to cross God, and to try it out with him. So Thrasonical Lamech brags, and goes on to outdare God himself; “If Cain be avenged,” &c. (Genesis 4:24) The old Italians were wont, in time of thunder, to shoot off their greatest ordinance, and to ring their greatest bells, to drown the noise of the heavens: like unto these are many frontless and flagitious persons. “But shall they escape by iniquity? In thine anger”—it is not more a prayer than a prophecy—“cast down the people, O God.” (Psalms 56:7) To add drunkenness to thirst.] To “add rebellion to sin.” (Job 34:37) “To drink iniquity like water.” (Job 34:7) His sin and his repentance run in a circle, as drunkenness and thirst do. He sins and cries God mercy, and says he will sin no more, and yet does it again the next day, till his heart be so hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, that at length he loseth all passive power of “recovering himself out of the snare of the devil, by whom he is taken alive at his pleasure.” (2 Timothy 2:26)
Ver. 20. The Lord will not spare him.] God cannot satisfy himself in threatening this heinous sin, as if the very naming of it had enraged his jealousy. Yea, when he threateneth it, he useth here no qualifications, as he doth in other cases, but is absolute in threatening, to show that he will be resolute in punishing. See the like in Isaiah 22:12-14 Eze 24:13. It is better, therefore, to have a sore than a seared conscience; as a burning fever is more hopeful than a lethargy.
Ver. 21. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil.] Shall single him out as an object of his wrath; as the huntsman severeth out from the rest a stag to hunt for that day.
Ver. 22. When they see the plagues.] A presumptuous offender is a traitor to the state; “and one sinner destroyeth much good.” (Ecclesiastes 9:18)
Ver. 23. And beareth not any grass.] As they say no ground doth where the great Turk hath once set his foot; such waste he makes, and such desolation he leaves behind him. Like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.] [See Trapp on “Ge 19:24”] [See Trapp on “Ge 19:25”] Admah and Zeboim.] Which two cities, bordering on Sodom and Gomorrah, were the worse, and fared the worse, for their neighbourhood, as Hamath did for Damascus. (Zechariah 9:2) God overthrew them, and repented not. (Jeremiah 20:16) And that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt.] In the fire that consumed Sodom there was, it seemeth, admixed salt, to make the land barren, and to pickle up the people; brimstone also to keep down with its weight the fire, which of itself was light, and tended upwards.
Ver. 26. And whom he had not given unto them.] Or, Who had not given to them any portion. For “Can the vanities of the Gentiles give rain? or can the heavens give showers?” (Jeremiah 14:22) As Saul said, “Can the son of Jesse give you vineyards and olive-yards?” &c. (1 Samuel 22:7) So may God say to apostates, Can the world do for you as I can?
Ver. 27. All the curses.] This was accomplished, as is by Daniel acknowledged. (Daniel 9:11, &c.)
Ver. 28. And cast them into another land.] Cast them with a violence, with a vengeance; -in the Hebrew the word cast hath an extraordinary large letter ל; -“sling them out as out of a sling.” (1 Samuel 25:29) [Hebrew Text Note]
Ver. 29. The secret things belong.] This is one of those sixteen places which in the Hebrew are marked with a special note of regard. Eorum quae scire nec datur, nec fas est, licita est ignorantia. Scientiae appetentia, insaniae species, saith Calvin, out of Augustine.