Ver. 1. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh] Jerusalem had her day, and knew it not, Luke 19:42 (Jerusalem was not Jerusalem, the vision of peace saw not the things that belonged to her peace); God therefore will have his day of vengeance, as she had of visitation. He hath his season, his harvest for judgment, Matthew 13:30; and when wickedness is ripe in the field he will allow it to grow no longer, lest it shed and spread, but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance. These Jews were by their own confession the children of them which had killed the prophets, Acts 2:23; and, by killing the Lord Christ with wicked hands, they had filled up the measure of their fathers, Matthew 23:31,32; what could therefore the Lord do less to a nation so incorrigibly flagitious than bring wrath upon them to the utmost, 1 Thessalonians 2:16 “than send forth his armies and destroy those murderers, and burn up their cities?” Matthew 22:7. When God did this execution here mentioned is hard to say: whether by Antiochus Epiphanes, or rather Epimanes, as some truly called him, for that, being exceedingly mad against the Jews, he “persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it,” Acts 26:11 Ga 1:13. Or by the Roman spoilers at that last devastation under the command of Titus. Or by Cosroes, the Persian, and Homer, the Arabian, who successively harassed and razed Jerusalem, rifling the houses, ravishing the women, killing whom they pleased, and making the rest pay dearly for the very heads they wore; which servitude lasted till Godfrey of Bullin set them at liberty, so the Gloss here senseth it. Or lastly, by Gog and Magog, that is, by the Great Turk (for Magog is the Scythian nation, from whom came the Turks, lords of Meshec and Tubal, that is, of Cappadocia and Iberia; where they first began to reign), as is before hinted, I take not upon me to determine. Most comentators understand it to be the last overthrow of the Romans. The Spirit might have an eye to the Anti-christian persecutions of the orthodox professors of the Romish Edomites. And thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee] Freely and fearlessly, none rising up to make them afraid, the vanquished shall be so disabled and dispirited. Thus the silly doves are glad to save themselves by flight, not fight; sometimes they sit in their dove cots, and see their nests destroyed, and young ones killed, not daring once to rescue or revenge.
Ver. 2. For I will gather all nations] The Romans, that styled and held themselves lords of all nations, and who had levied a mighty army out of all nations to fight against Jerusalem. See Joseph. B. J. III 1, 3. Or Gog and Magog, with all his armies and associates, Ezekiel 37:4-6, shall compass the beloved city, Revelation 20:8,9. See Zechariah 14:1. [See Trapp on “Zec 14:1”] Would any man take the Church’s picture? then let him, saith Luther, paint a silly poor maid sitting in a wood or wilderness, and compassed about with hungry lions, wolves, boars, and bears, &c., and in the midst of a great many furious men assaulting her every moment; let him give her, say I, that of Martial for her motto, “ In me omnis terraeque, aviumque, marisque rapina est. ” And the city shall be taken] Non tamen ad exitium, sed ad exercitium. Not yet for destruction but for a lesson. I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage (saith the Lord, Jeremiah 12:7). I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. At which times there is usually, as at Athens when taken by Sulla, ανελεης σφαγη, a bloody butchery. And the houses rifled] As at the sack of Constantinople by the Turks; where the soldiers are said to have divided money among themselves by whole hatfulls; and were therewith so enriched, that it is a proverb among them to this day, if any grow suddenly rich, to say, he hath been at the sacking of Constantinople. The Emperor had in vain many times with tears requested to have borrowed money of his covetous subjects, to have been employed in the defence of the city; but they would still swear that they had it not, as men grown poor for want of trade; which, in few days after, their enemies found in such abundance, that they wondered at their wealth, and derided their folly, that possessing so much, they would bestow so little in the defence of themselves and their country. And the women ravished] These are the common calamities of war; in the lawless violence whereof those three commandments, “Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal,” as they are ranked together in the law, so they are usually violated together; hence Isaiah 13:16 “Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.” The Irish rebels bound the husband to the bedpost while they abused his wife before his face. In the time of King Edward III the French soldiers at Winchelsea, in Sussex, took their lustful turns upon a beautiful woman in the Church, and at the time of divine service, until they had turned her out of the world, as a learned man phraseth it, Donec mulier fatigata spiritum exhalaret While a weary woman to breath out her life. (Walsing.). And half of the city shall go forth into captivity] An evil, an only evil, threatened Deuteronomy 28:15-68, and fulfilled to the utmost upon this nation, so shamelessly, so lawlessly wicked, as can hardly be peered or paralleled. I have noted before, that this their last captivity and dispersion is such, as that one of their own Rabbis concludeth from thence that their Messiah must needs be come, and they must needs suffer so much for killing him. They used to say that there is still an ounce of the golden calf in all their public calamities. There is another thing lieth more heavily upon them to this day, were they but sensible of it. Let us be sending up, and sighing out for them that of the Psalmist, “Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad,” Psalms 14:7. And the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city] A remnant shall be reserved, as it were for royal use; whether a third part, as Zechariah 13:8, or a half, as here, it is not much material; in numeris non est anxie laborendum, saith Calvin here; for the direct number it is neither here nor there, as we say. God shall reserve unto himself a set and select number. He who comforteth those that are cast down speaketh this to his, for encouragement. The Church may be shaken, not shivered; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed, 2 Corinthians 4:9.