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Hos_4:18 Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers [with] shame do love, Give ye.
Ver. 18. Their drink is sour] That is, they are past grace, and it is now past time a day to do them good: for thou seest how the matter mends with them, even as sour ale mends in summer: and how they even stink above ground, as Psa_14:2. Vina probantur odore, colore, sapore, &c., but their wine hath neither good colour, smell, nor savour or taste; it is dead and gone, and they are as trees twice dead and rotten, and therefore pulled up by the roots, such as the Latins call vappae, worthless fellows, that is, past the best, and now good for nothing: see Isa_1:22. What life or sweetness can be in apostates? yea, how sour and unsavoury to such are all fleshly comforts! They use to drink away their terrors, and drive away their melancholy dumps with merry company. But will that hold? what are such plasters better than the devil’s drugs, than his whistle, to call men off from better practices? There is a cup in the hands of the Lord, it is full of mixture, but extremly sour; and the very dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them up, Psa_75:8, though it be eternity to the bottom.
They have committed whoredom continually] Here they are taxed for whoredom, as before for drunkenness (so some carry it), and afterwards for covetousness. This is that chariotmen of shame, flagitiorum trigae, whereby the prophet persuadeth Judah to shake off Israel, as not fit to be conversed with. He had charged them before with fornication of both sorts; here he showeth how unwearied they were in their wickedness, and in addition how intense, for fornicando fornicati sunt, they have done wickedly as they could, they have eked out their idolatries and adulteries, and though wearied and even wasted with the multitude of their wickedness, yet they have not given over, but are unsatisfied, and would sin in perpetuity: as that filthy fornicator who said he would desire no other heaven but to live for ever on earth, and to be carried from one brothel house to another. "She hath wearied herself with lies, and yet her great scum went not forth out of her: therefore shall it be in the fire," Eze_24:12. Therefore shall graceless wretches be tormented for ever, because they would sin for ever; and therefore suffer all extremity, because they do wickedly with both hands earnestly, Mic_7:3; woefully wasting the marrow of their time, the flower of their age, the strength of their bodies, the vigour of their spirits, in the pursuit of their lusts, in the froth and filth whereof is bred that worm that never dieth; which is nothing else but the furious reflection of the soul upon its own once wilful folly, and now woeful misery.
Her rulers with shame do love, Give ye] Her shields (oh shameful!) do love, Give ye; where there is in the original an elegant alliteration that cannot be translated, àäáå äáå Dilexerunt Afferte, not Afferre, as the Vulgate corruptly readeth it. The Doric dialect, the horse leech’s language, Give, Give, they are perfectly skilled in: äùñïöáãéá , gift-greediness, is all their delight: like the ravens of Arabia, that fullgorged, have a tuneable sweet record, but empty, screech horribly. Plerique officiarii, saith one: Very many rulers do as Plutarch reporteth of Stratocles and Dromoclites, a couple of corrupt officers, qui sese mutuo ad messem auream invitare solebant, who were wont to invite one another to the golden harvest, thereby meaning the court, and the judgment seat (Plutarch in Politic.). These follow the administration of justice as a trade only, with an unquenchable and unconscionable desire for gain: which justifieth the common resemblance of the courts of justice to the bush, whereunto while the sheep do flee for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of his fleece. Now are these shields? are they not rather sharks? Are they protectors, and not rather pillagers, latrones publici, public robbers, as Cato called them? These shields of the earth belong to God, saith David, Psa_47:9, should they not then be like him "Now there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor accepting of persons, nor receiving of gifts," 2Ch_19:7, neither by, himself nor by his man Elisha, nor by his man’s man Gehazi, without distaste. By one period of speech, by one breath of the Lord, are they both forbidden: Deu_16:18-20, "Thou shalt not respect persons, nor receive a gift": For what reason: "A gift doth blind the eyes of the wise," yea, it transforms them into walking idols, that have eyes and see not, ears and hear not: only it leaveth them hands to handle, that the very touching whereof will infect and venom a man, as Pliny writes of the fish Torpedo. Let such, therefore, shake their hands from bribes, Isa_33:15, as Paul shook off the viper: and be so far from saying, Give ye, that he should rather say to those that offer it, "Thy money perish with thee." "He that hateth gifts shall live," Pro_15:27. Jethro’s justice of peace should be a man of courage, fearing God, hating covetousness, Exo_18:21; not bound to the peace (as one phraseth it) by a gift in a basket, nor struck dumb by the appearance of angels.