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Put ye in the sickle; ye mighty ones, ye men of war, executioners of Divine vengeance, begin to reap, cut down sinners ripe for judgment. Let Tiglath-pileser and his soldiers cut down Syria and its king Rezin, 2 Kings xvi., for their violence against my people; let Cyaxares and his armies begin to cut down Assyria, with Nineveh and its king, for their sins are ripe to judgment; let Nebuchadnezzar put in the sickle and cut down Moab, Aremen, Mount Seir, Egypt, Tyre, Zidon, and the Philistines; after this let Cyrus reap down the ripened Babylonians, and Alexander with his mighty ones reap down Medes and Persians, and let divided Grecian captains cut down one another, till the Romans cut them down. And when this is done, God will have mighty ones still to cut down his enemies, persecutors of his church, when the harvest is fully ripe, and till the final and universal judgment, wherein all God’s enemies shall for ever be destroyed.
For the harvest is ripe; the sins of those several nations are fully ripe.
In another metaphor the prophet declares the cutting off the church’s enemies. The press is full: as the grapegatherer cuts off the bunches and brings them into the press till it be full, and then they are trod; so here the enemies of God’s people, ripe in sin and brought together to be punished, are to be trodden in the wine-press of God’s displeasure. The fats overflow; a mighty execution is made, and the blood of slaughtered men runs as wine pressed out in greater abundance than the fats can hold from the press; verified in the slaughter made at the overthrow of the kingdoms here intended. For their wickedness is great; the violence and all manner of sins of these kingdoms is grown exceeding great.