Ver. 2. Ye shall be holy.] Ritually and really. [See Trapp on “Le 11:44”] [See Trapp on “Mt 5:48”] [See Trapp on “1Pe 1:16”] [See Trapp on “1Jo 3:3”]
Ver. 3. Ye shall fear every man his mother.] The mother is set first, because usually most slighted. The days of mourning for my father are at hand, then will I slay my brother Jacob, said that profane profligate. (Genesis 27:41) As for his mother, he makes no reckoning of her, he cared not to grieve her. And keep my Sabbaths.] To the which the honouring of good governors, who are to see the Sabbath sanctified by all under their roof, doth very much conduce.
Ver. 4. Turn ye not unto idols.] Heb., Elilim; deunculi, deastri; Petty gods, dunghill deities; of all which we should say, as he did once, Contemno minutulos istos deos, modo Iovem (Iehovam) mihi propitium habeam, I care for the favour of no god, but of the great God of gods.
Ver. 5. At your own will.] Or, for your favourable acceptation, that God may graciously accept you.
Ver. 6. It shall be eaten the same day.] [See Trapp on “Le 7:15”] [See Trapp on “Le 7:17”] [See Trapp on “Le 7:18”] [See Trapp on “Le 7:19”]
Ver. 7. It is abominable.] A thing to be rejected (απιβλητον), saith Aquila, who is thought by some to be the same with Onkelos, the Chaldee paraphrast, who lived ninety years after Christ, and translated the Old Testament into Greek.
Ver. 8. Shall bear his iniquity.] See on Leviticus 17:16.
Ver. 9. And when ye reap.] See what provision the Lord maketh for his poor, commanding that the fuller cups of the richer sort may overflow into their empty dishes: besides that πτωχοδεκατη, as Jerome calls it, that poor man’s tithe appointed in Deuteronomy 14:28,29 15:11. James V of Scotland was, for his charity, called the poor man’s king; much more may God.
Ver. 10. I am the Lord.] The chief owner of all thou hast. Your God.] Whom thou oughtest to honour with thy substance. (Proverbs 3:9)
Ver. 11. Ye shall not steal] [See Trapp on “Eph 4:28”] [See Trapp on “Eph 4:25”] [See Trapp on “Ex 20:15”] [See Trapp on “Le 6:3”]
Ver. 12. Neither shalt thou profane the name.] By presuming rashly and lightly to blurt out this reverend name in an oath, or otherwise. The Grecians, as Suidas observes, when they would swear by Jupiter, out of the mere dread and reverence of his name forbear to mention him, breaking off their oath with a υα τον, as those that only dare to owe the rest to their thoughts. And Clinias the Pythagorean, out of this regard, would rather undergo a fine of three talents than swear.
Ver. 13. The wages of him that is hired.] This is a crying sin, (James 5:3) condemned by the very light of nature. Plato would have him double paid that is not paid in due time. De Legibus, lib. x.
Ver. 14. Thou shalt not curse the deaf.] So by analogy, the absent that cannot speak for themselves, or the dead. Of all fowl we most hate and detest the crows; and of all beasts the jackals, a kind of foxes in Barbary; because the one digs up the graves and devours the flesh, the other picks out the eyes of the dead. But shalt fear thy God.] Who both hears and sees all thy miscarriages, and will reckon with thee for all. Deo obscura clarent, muta respondent, silentium confitetur, saith an ancient. Night will convert itself into noon before God, and silence prove a speaking evidence.
Ver. 15. Thou shalt not respect.] Spare not the great for their might, nor the mean for their misery. Causes must be heard, and not persons.
Ver. 16. Up and down as a talebearer.] Heb., As a pedlar, that first fills his pack with reports and rumours, and then goes peddling up and down, dropping a tale here and another there, to the taking away of the good name, and sometimes of the life of another. Hence it follows here, “Neither shalt thou stand against the life of thy brother.” And agreeable hereunto is that of Ezekiel 22:9, “In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood.” Such a wretched pedlar was Doeg: and such is that backbiter spoken of in Psalms 15:3. The word there used doth in the Hebrew properly signify such a one as footeth and trotteth it up and down, prying, and spying, and carrying tales and rumours. (2 Samuel 19:21)
Ver. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother.] Most unkindnesses that fall out among friends grow upon mistakes and misunderstandings. Now, a friendly reasoning the case, or, if need be, a godly reproof, cures both the reprover and the reproved; whereas the neglect of this duty breeds dwelling suspicions; suspicions breed a very habit of misinterpretation; this breeds a loathness to come to the light, to show the reasons af our dislike; this loathness begets a very separation in heart, which at length turns to downright hatred in heart. All which might have been better prevented by a seasonable venting our minds in a reproof or admonition. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour.] Neither is this any argument of hatred, but an office of love. Friends, as bees, are killed with the honey of flattery, but quickened with the vinegar of reproof. The eagle, though she loveth her young ones dearly, yet she pricketh and beateth them out of the nest. And not suffer sin upon him.] But save him “with fear, pulling him out of the fire.” (Jude 1:23) Out of the fire of hell, as Jerome interprets it, which sin suffered will bring him unto. Others read it thus: Lest thou suffer for his sin; which, by not opposing, thou makest to become thine own. To withstand evil in thy brother, is the best way to do him good, and thyself too. Others render it thus: Thou shalt not lift up his sin over him, as an ensign, by babbling or blazing it abroad to his just grief and disgrace; but clap a plaster of reproof upon the sore, and then, as surgeons use to do, cover it with thy hand, that the world may be never the wiser. Ex igne gehennali. -Jer.