Ver. 1. Then I turned me, and lifted up mine eyes] i.e. I prepared me to the receiving of a new vision; nothing so comfortable as the former, but no less necessary; that the people, by sense of sin and fear of wrath, might be taken off their wicked practices, redeem their own sorrows, and be accounted worthy to escape all those things that should (otherwise) come to pass, as Zechariah 5:11, and to stand before the Son of man at that dreadful day, Luke 21:36. This seemeth to be the mind of the Holy Ghost, in these two visions here recorded; which while some interpreters attend not, in toto vaticinio neque coelum, neque terrain attingunt, saith Calvin, they are utterly out. And behold a flying roll] Or, volume, as Psalms 40:7, or scroll of paper, or parchment, usually rolled up, like the web upon the pin, uti convolvuntur nostrae Mappae Geographicae, as our maps are rolled up, saith a Lapide; and as in the public library at Oxford the book or roll of Esther (a Hebrew manuscript) is at this day to be seen; but here flying, Volans velocissimum ultionis incursum significat (Chrysost.). Not only becanse spread wide open, as Rabshakeh’s letter, 2 Kings 19:14, and as that book of the prophet Isaiah, Luke 4:17, but also as fleeting along swiftly, like a bird ready to seize on her prey. Nemo scelus gerit in pectore, qui non idem Nemesin in tergo. No man bears evil in his heart who does not show the same revenge on the outside. The heathens named Nemesis (their goddess of revenge, to take punishment of offenders) Αδραστεια, because no man can possibly escape her, οτι ουκ αν τις αυτην αποδρασαιτο. They tell us also that their Jupiter writeth down all the sins of all men in a book, or scroll, made of a goat’s pelt, which they call διφθερα; the very word whereby Aquila and Theodotion (two Greek translaters) do render the Hebrew of this text. (Daniel 7:18 Revelation 20:12) Symmachus turns it Κεφαλις, a chapter, or abstract of a larger book, full of sins and woes; and yet it is of an unheard of size, Zechariah 5:2, and of very sad contents, like that book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 2:9,10, lamentation, and mourning, and woe; or the first leaf of Bishop Babington’s book (which he turned over every morning), all black; to remind him of hell and God’s judgments due unto him for his sins.
Ver. 2. What seest thou?] q.d. Mark it well, and let thine eye affect thine heart; let these things be oculis commissa fidelibus. I see a flying book] [See Trapp on “Zec 5:1”] Some read it, A double book (according to the Chaldaic signification of the word), as containing double, that is, manifold, menaces and punishments of sin. But the Chaldee paraphrast, Septuagint, and others, render it flying; as hasting and hovering over the heads of wicked persons. The length thereof is twenty cubits, &c.] Ten yards long, and five broad. Neither let men say that words are but wind, as they did, Jeremiah 5:13. For, 1. Even wind, when gotten into the bowels of the earth, may cause an earthquake; as when into the bowels of the body a heartquake. 2. God threateneth those scoffers, Jeremiah 5:14, that he will make that word, which they termed wind, to become fire, and themselves fuel to feed it. And as fire grows quickly upon fuel fully dried, Nahum 1:10, and consumeth it in an instant, so God’s flying roll will lick up the evildoers, no otherwise than the fire from heaven after it had consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, licked up also the water that was in the trench, 1 Kings 18:38. The threatenings of God’s law (the same with this roll) are (as Erasmus saith of Ezekiel 3:18) fulmina non verba, lightbolts rather than words; or if words, yet they are (as one saith) verba non legenda sed vivenda, words not to be read only, but lived; at least, not to be read as men do the old stories of foreign wars, wherein they are nothing concerned (but as threatening themselves in every threat, cursing themselves in every curse, &c.), nor as they read the predictions of an almanack for wind and weather, which they think may come to pass, and it may be not; but be confident of this very thing, that God who hath denounced it will surely do it, and that he will execute the judgment written in this roll, Psalms 149:9, yea, every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord cause to descend upon the disobedient, until they be destroyed, Deuteronomy 28:61.
Ver. 3. This is the curse] Or oath, with execration and cursing. Cursing men are cursed men, and God hath sworn that swearers shall not enter into his rest. (Numbers 5:21. הלא, ut et αρα Graece, iuramentum et execrationem significat. Mercer) That goeth forth] Yea, flieth, Zechariah 5:2, more swiftly than an eagle, an arrow, a flash of lightning. Or, if not, yet “ Poena venit gravior, quo mage sera venit. ” Over the face of the whole earth] Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil; but of the Jew first (Ingentia beneficia flagitia, supplicia), who is therefore the worse, because he ought to have been better; and then of the Gentile also, Romans 2:9. Theodoret, Lyra, and Vatablus think that Judaea is hinted in the measure of the book (twenty cubits long, and ten broad) as being twice so long (and somewhat more) as it is broad: witness Jerome in his epistle to Dardanus (Epist. 129). But let the whole earth here be taken in its utmost latitude, since the Gentiles that sin without the law are yet liable to the punishments of the law. And some of them by the light of nature saw the evil of swearing; but all generally of stealing; but especially of perjury and sacrilege, here principally meant. Confer Malachi 3:8 Ne 13:10. For every one that stealeth shall be cut off] By stealing understand all sins against the second table; as by swearing, all against the first; and so the sense is the same with that of the apostle, “Every transgression and disobedience receiveth a just recompence of reward,” Hebrews 2:2. And “cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,” Galatians 3:10. Howbeit because these two sins were more frequently and more impudently committed in those days, therefore are they, by a speciality, instanced. The Jews, coming poor out of Babylon, held it no great sin to steal for supply of their necessities; and then to forswear themselves for the better hiding of their theft. “Give me not poverty,” said holy Agur, “lest, being poor, I steal, and” (as one sin draws on another) “I take the name of my God in vain,” Proverbs 30:9. [See Trapp on “Pr 30:9”] Hunger is an evil counsellor, necessity a hard weapon, a sore temptation, when it comes to this, Either I must steal or starve. But then to this must be opposed that of the law, Thou shalt in no case steal. Thou must rather die than do wickedly. Aut faciendum aut patiendum, Either obey the law or suffer the curse. As on this side according to it] i.e. According to the curse, described in the roll, the thief shall be cut off as well as the swearer; they shall speed alike. The tares shall be bound up in bundles, thieves with thieves, and swearers with swearers, and burnt in the fire, Matthew 13:30,40. According to the prediction shall be the execution. Whether on this side, that is, in Judaea (so some sense it), or on that side, in other parts of the world, such persons appear, they shall have their payment. And every one that sweareth] Not only falsely, as Zechariah 5:4, but lightly, vainly, causelessly, in jest and not in judgment; whether by God, or by creatures and qualities; Iudaeis et Pharisaeis vulgare vitium, saith Paraeus on James 5:12, a common fault among the Jews and Pharisees, Matthew 5:34,35 23:16,18. [See Trapp on “Mt 5:34”] [See Trapp on “Mt 5:35”] [See Trapp on “Mt 23:16”] [See Trapp on “Mt 23:18”] Among the Christians in Chrysostom’s time, as appears by his many sermons against it at Antioch; and in these days, if ever, because of oaths the land mourneth, God hath a controversy, Hosea 4:1,2. We have lived to see iniquity in the fulness of oaths and blasphemies unparallelled darted with hellish mouths against God and our Saviour so ordinarily and openly, that some of them are become very interjections of speech to the common people, and other some mere phrases of gallantry to the bravo. I knew a great swearer, saith a great divine (Mr Bolton), who, coming to his death bed, Satan so filled his heart with a madded and enraged greediness after that most gainless and pleasureless sin, that though himself swore as fast and as furiously as he could, yet, as though he had been already among the bannings and blasphemies of hell, he desperately desired the bystanders to help him with oaths, and to swear for him.