push the skies; and (v. 15.) upon the artificial fastnesses, every high tower, and every fenced wall. Understand these,
(1.) As representing the proud people themselves, that are like the cedars and the oaks, in their own apprehensions firmly rooted, and not to be stirred by any storm, and looking on all around them as shrubs; these are the high mountains and the lofty hills, that seem to fill the earth, that are gazed on by all, and think themselves immoveable, but lie most obnoxious to God's thunderstrokes; Feriuntque summos fulmina montes—The highest hills are most exposed to lightning. And before the power of God's wrath these mountains are scattered, and these hills bow and melt like wax, Hab. iii. 6. Ps. lxviii. 8. These vaunting men, who are as high towers in which the noisy bells are hung, on which the thundering murdering cannon are planted, these fenced walls, that fortify themselves with their native hardiness, and intrench themselves in their fastnesses, they shall be brought down.
(2.) As particularizing the things they are proud of, in which they trust, and of which they make their boasts. The day of the Lord shall be upon those very things which they put their confidence in as their strength and security; he will take from them all their armour wherein they trusted. Did the inhabitants of Lebanon glory in their cedars, and those of Bashan in their oaks, such as no country could equal? The day of the Lord should rend those cedars, those oaks, and the houses built of them. Did Jerusalem glory in the mountains that were round about it, as its impregnable fortifications, or in its walls and bulwarks? These should be levelled, and laid low in the day of the Lord.
Beside those things that were for their strength and safety, they were proud, [1.] Of their trade abroad; but the day of the Lord shall be upon all the ships of Tarshish, they shall be broken as Jehoshaphat's were, shall founder at sea, or be shipwrecked in the harbour. Zebulun was a haven of ships, but should now no more rejoice in his going out. When God is bringing ruin upon a people, he can sink all the branches of their revenue. [2.] Of their ornaments at home; but the day of the Lord shall be upon all pleasant pictures, the painting of their ships, (so some understand it,) or the curious pieces of painting they brought home in their ships from other countries, perhaps from Greece, which afterward was famous for painters. Upon every thing that is beautiful to behold, so some read it. Perhaps they were the pictures of their relations, and, for that reason, pleasant, or of their gods, which to the idolaters were delectable things; or they admired them for the fineness of their colours or strokes. There is no harm in making pictures, or in adorning our rooms with them, provided they transgress not either the second or the seventh commandment. But to place our pictures among our pleasant things, to be fond of them and proud of them, to spend that upon them that should be laid out in charity, and to set our hearts upon them, as it ill becomes those who have so many substantial things to take pleasure in, so it provokes God to strip us all of such vain ornaments.
III. To make idolaters ashamed of their idols, and of all the affection they have had for them, and the respect they have paid to them; (v. 18.) The idols he shall utterly abolish. When the Lord alone shall be exalted, (v. 17.) he will not only pour contempt upon proud men, who, like Pharaoh, exalt themselves against him, but much more upon all pretended deities, who are rivals with him for divine honours; they shall be abolished, utterly abolished; their friends shall desert them, their enemies shall destroy them, so that, one way or other, an utter riddance shall be made of them. See here, 1. The vanity of false gods; they cannot secure themselves, so far are they from being able to secure their worshippers. 2. The victory of the true God over them; for great is the truth, and will prevail. Dagon fell before the ark, and Baal before the Lord God of Elijah. The gods of the heathen shall be famished, (Zeph. ii. 11.) and by degrees shall perish, Jer. x. 11. The rightful Sovereign shall triumph over all pretenders.
And as God will abolish idols, so their worshippers shall abandon them; either from a gracious conviction of their vanity and falsehood, (as Ephraim, when he said, What have I to do any more with idols?) or from a late and sad experience of their inability to help them, and a woful despair of relief by them, v. 20. When men are themselves frightened by the judgments of God into the holes of the rocks and the caves of the earth, and find that they do thus in vain shift for their own safety, they shall cast their idols, which they had made their gods, and hoped to make their friends in the time of need, to the moles and to the bats, any whither out of sight, that, being freed from the incumbrance of them, they may go into the clefts of the rocks, for fear of the Lord, v. 21. Note, (1.) Those that will not be reasoned out of their sins, sooner or later shall he frightened out of them. (2.) God can make men sick of those idols that they have been most fond of; even the idols of silver, and the idols of gold, the most precious. Covetous men make silver and gold their idols, money their god; but the time may come when they may feel it as much their burthen as ever they made it their confidence, and may find themselves as much exposed by it as ever they hoped they should be guarded by it, when it tempts their enemy, sinks their ship, or retards their flight; there was a time when the mariners threw the wares, and even the wheat, into the sea; (Jonah i. 5. Acts xxvii. 38.) and the Syrians cast away their garments for haste, 2 Kings vii. 15. Or men may cast it away out of indignation at themselves for leaning upon such a broken reed. See Ezek. vii. 19. The idolaters here throw away their idols, because they are ashamed of them, and of their own folly in trusting to them; or because they are afraid of having them found in their possession when the judgments of God are abroad; as the thief throws away his stolen goods, when he is searched for or pursued. (3.) The darkest holes, where the moles and the bats lodge, are the fittest places for idols, that have eyes, and see not; and God can force men to cast their own idols there, (ch. xxx. 22.) when they are ashamed of the oaks which they have desired, ch. i. 29. Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el, Jer. xlviii. 13. (4.) It is possible that sin may be both loathed and left, and yet not truly repented of; loathed, because surfeited on; left, because there is no opportunity of committing it; yet not repented of out of any love to God, but only from a slavish fear of his wrath.
IV. To make those that have trusted in an arm of flesh, ashamed of their confidence; (v. 22.) "Cease ye from man. The providences of God concerning you shall speak this aloud to you, and therefore take warning beforehand, that you may prevent the uneasiness and shame of a disappointment; and consider," 1. How weak man is; His breath is in his nostrils, puffed out every moment, soon gone for good and all. Man is a dying creature, and may die quickly; our nostrils, in which our breath is, are of the outward parts of the body; what is there is like one standing at the door, ready to depart; nay, the doors of the nostrils are always open, the breath in them may slip away, ere we are aware, in a moment. Wherein is man then to be accounted of? Alas, no reckoning is to be made of him,
