was to be had, and they might have made restitution, but would not. God reasons with those great men; (v. 15.) "What mean you, that ye beat my people in pieces? What cause have you for it? What good does it do you?" Or, "What hurt have they done you? Do you think you have power given you for such a purpose as this?" Note, There is nothing more unaccountable, and yet nothing which must more certainly be accounted for, than the injuries and abuses that are done to God's people by their persecutors and oppressors; "Ye grind the face of the poor; ye put them into as much pain and terror as if they were ground in a mill, and as certainly reduce them to dust by one act of oppression after another. Or, "Their faces are bruised and crushed with the blows you have given them; you have not only ruined their estates, but given them personal abuses." Our Lord Jesus was smitten on the face, Matt. xxvi. 67.
II. The management of this controversy; 1. God himself is the Prosecutor; (v. 13.) The Lord stands up to plead, or he sets himself to debate the matter, and he stands to judge the people, to judge for those that were oppressed and abused; and he will enter into judgment with the princes, v. 14. Note, The greatest men cannot exempt or secure themselves from the scrutiny and sentence of God's judgment, nor demur to the jurisdiction of the court of heaven. 2. The indictment is proved by the notorious evidence of the fact; "Look upon the oppressors, and the show of their countenance witnesses against them; (v. 9.) look upon the oppressed, and you see how their faces are battered and abused," v. 15. 3. The controversy is already begun, in the change of the ministry; to punish those that had abused their power to bad purposes, God sets those over them, that had not sense to use it to any good purpose; Children are their oppressors, and women rule over them, (v. 12.) men that have as weak judgments, and strong passions, as women and children: this was their sin, that their rulers were such, and it became a judgment upon them.
III. The distinction that shall be made between particular persons, in the prosecution of this controversy; (v. 10, 11.) Say to the righteous, It shall be well with thee. Wo to the wicked, it shall be ill with him. He had said, (v. 9.) they have rewarded evil to themselves; and to prove that, he here shows that God will render to every man according to his works. Had they been righteous, it had been well with them; but if it be ill with them, it is because they are wicked, and will be so. Thus God stated the matter to Cain, to convince him that he had no reason to be angry, Gen. iv. 7. Or it may be taken thus; God is threatening national judgments, which will ruin the public interests. Now, 1. Some good people might fear that they should be involved in that ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets comfort them against those fears; "Whatever becomes of the unrighteous nation, say ye to the righteous man, that ye shall not be lost in the crowd of sinners, the Judge of all the earth will not slay the righteous with the wicked; (Gen. xviii. 25.) no, assure him in God's name, that it shall be well with him. The property of the trouble shall be altered to him, and he shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger. He shall have divine supports and comforts, which shall abound as afflictions abound, and so it shall be well with him." When the whole stay of bread is taken away, yet in the day of famine they shall be satisfied, they shall eat the fruit of their doings; they shall have the testimony of their consciences for them, that they kept themselves pure from the common iniquity, and therefore the common calamity is not the same thing to them that it is to others; they brought no fuel to the flame, and therefore are not themselves fuel for it. 2. Some wicked people might hope that they should escape that ruin, and therefore God bids the prophets shake their vain hopes; "Wo to the wicked, it shall be ill with him; (v. 11.) to him the judgments shall have a sting, and there shall be wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery." There is a wo to wicked people, and though they may think to shelter themselves from public judgment, yet it shall be ill with them; it will grow worse and worse with them if they repent not, and the worst of all will be at last; for the reward of his hands shall be done to him, in the day when every man shall receive according to the things done in the body.
16. Moreover, the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walked with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking, and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: 17. Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. 18. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, 19. The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, 20. The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the earrings, 21. The rings, and nose-jewels, 22. The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins, 23. The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails. 24. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth! and burning instead of beauty. 25. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. 26. And her gates shall lament and mourn: and she, being desolate, shall sit upon the ground.
The prophet's business was to show all sorts of people what they had contributed to the national guilt, and what share they must expect in the national judgments that were coming; here he reproves and warns the daughters of Zion, tells the ladies of their faults; and Moses, in the law, having denounced God's wrath against the tender and delicate woman, (the prophets being a comment upon the law, Deut. xxviii. 56.) he here tells them how they should smart by the calamities that were coming upon them. Observe,
1. The sin charged upon the daughters of Zion, v. 16. The prophet expressly vouches God's authority for what he said, lest it should be thought it was unbecoming him to take notice of such things, and should be ill-resented by the ladies; The Lord saith it. Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, let them know that God takes notice of, and is much displeased with, the folly and vanity of proud women, and his law takes cognizance
