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Isa_57:4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, [and] draw out the tongue? [are] ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,
Ver. 4. Against whom do ye sport yourselves?] You that are the wits, the merry Greeks of the times, that, instead of "trembling at God’s word," and humbling before him, hold it a goodly thing to gibe and jeer at it, to mock and scoff at those that preach it. {2Ch_36:16 Isa_5:18-19; Isa_22:13; Isa_28:14; Isa_28:22} These were their game stocks, and the matter of their mad mirth. Neither is it any otherwise to this day; for the world ever was, and will be still, beside itself in point of salvation. {a} Not the sinful Sodomites only, but Lot’s sons-in-law, who should have learned better, laughed him to scorn for his good counsel. {Gen_19:14} Ridetur cum suo Iehova. Lot is counted but a lob, and bid to keep his breath to cool his broth. Erasmus is blamed for his dry scoffs at Capito and other reformers; but Parsons, the Jesuit, is able to put Rabshakeh, Thersites, and Lucian himself to school for railing, deriding, and scurrilous language.
Against whom make yea wide mouth, and draw out the tongue?] By such base gestures did they show their contempt of the prophets, as they thought; but indeed, and as it was construed, of God himself. See Exo_16:8 Num_16:11 Luk_10:16 1Th_4:8. Look how unskilful hunters, shooting at wild beasts, do sometimes kill a man; so profane persons, shooting at God’s ministers, hit him. If we be served in like sort as those of old were - if we be for "signs and for wonders in Israel," as Isaiah and his fellows were {Isa_8:18} - if in mockage they imitate our language, as they did good Jeremiah’s, crying at him, "The burden of the Lord, the burden of the Lord" {Jer_23:38} - if they blow their noses at us, as they did at our Saviour, { åìõêôçñéæïí , Luk_16:14} taunt and reproach us, as they did Paul, {Act_17:32} set us upon a stage {b} to be laughed and hooted at, as they did those worthies of whom the world was not worthy {Heb_10:33 1Co_4:9} - let us not strange or startle at the matter, as if some new thing had befallen us; but "rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for so persecuted they the prophets that were before us" {Mat_5:12 1Pe_4:14} {See Trapp on "1Pe_4:14"}
{a} Mundus antiquum obtinet ridendo verbum Dei.
{b} Yåáôñéæïìåíïé , in theatrum producti pro spectaculo.