Spurgeon PS1009
EXPOSITION.
The picture becomes blacker, for here is the cunning of the lion, and of the huntsman, as well as the stealthiness of the robber. Surely there are some men who come up to the very letter of this description. With watching, perversion, slander, whispering, and false swearing, they ruin the character of the righteous, and murder the innocent; or, with legal quibbles, mortgages, bonds, writs, and the like, they catch the poor, and draw them into a net. Chrysostom was peculiarly severe upon this last phase of cruelty, but assuredly not more so than was richly merited. Take care, brethren, for there are other traps besides these. Hungry lions are crouching in every den, and fowlers spread their nets in every field.
Quarles well pictures our danger in those memorable lines,– “The close pursuers’ busy hands do plant Snares in thy substance; snares attend thy want; Snares in thy credit; snares in thy disgrace; Snares in thy high estate; snares in thy base; Snares tuck thy bed; and snares surround thy board; Snares watch thy thoughts; and snares attack thy word; Snares in thy quiet; snares in thy commotion; Snares in thy diet; snares in thy devotion; Snares lurk in thy resolves; snares in thy doubt; Snares lie within thy heart, and snares without; Snares are above thy head, and snares beneath; Snares in thy sickness; snares are in thy death.”
O Lord! keep thy servants, and defend us from all our enemies!
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
Verse 9.–“_He doth catch the poor_.” The poor man is the beast they hunt, who must rise early, rest late, eat the bread of sorrow, sit with many a hungry meal, perhaps his children crying for food, while all the fruit of his pains is served into Nimrod’s table. Complain of this while you will, yet, as the orator said of Verres, _pecuniosus nescit damnari_. Indeed, a money-man may not be damnified, but he may be damned. For this is a crying sin, and the wakened ears of the Lord will hear it, neither shall his provoked hands forbear it. _Si tacuerint pauperes loquentur lapides_. If the poor should hold their peace, the very stones would speak. The fines, rackings, enclosures, oppressions, vexations, will cry to God for vengeance. “The stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.” #Hab 2:11|. You see the beasts they hunt. Not foxes, nor wolves, nor boars, bulls, nor tigers. It is a certain observation, no beast hunts its own kind to devour it. Now, if these should prosecute wolves, foxes, &c., they should then hunt their own kind; for they are these themselves, or rather worse than these, because here _homo homini lupus_. But though they are men they hunt, and by nature of the same kind, they are not so by quality, for they are lambs they persecute. In them there is blood, and flesh, and fleece to be had; and therefore on these do they gorge themselves. In them there is weak armour of defence against their cruelties; therefore over these they may domineer. I will speak it boldly: there is not a mighty Nimrod in this land that dares hunt his equal; but over his inferior lamb he insults like a young Nero. Let him be graced by high ones, and he must not be saluted under twelve score off. In the country he proves a termagant; his very scowl is a prodigy, and breeds an earthquake. He would be a Caesar, and tax all. It is well if he prove not a cannibal! Only Macro salutes Sejanus so long as he is in Tiberius’s favour; cast him from that pinnacle, and the dog is ready to devour him.–^Thomas Adams.
Verse 9.–“_He draweth him into his net_.” “They hunt with a net.” #Mic 7:2|. They have their politic gins to catch men; gaudy wares and dark shops (and would you have them love the light that live by darkness, as many shopkeepers?) draw and tole customers in, where the crafty leeches can soon feel their pulses; if they must buy, they shall pay for their necessity. And though they plead, We compel none to buy our ware, _caveat emptor_; yet with fine voluble phrases, damnable protestations, they will cast a mist of error before an eye of simple truth, and with cunning devices hunt them in. So some among us have feathered their nests, not by open violence, but politic circumvention. They have sought the golden fleece, not by Jason’s merit, but by Medea’s subtlety, by Medea’s sorcery. If I should intend to discover these hunters’ plots, and to deal punctually with them, I should afford you more matter than you would afford me time. But I limit myself, and answer all their plans with Augustine. Their tricks may hold _in jure fori_, but not _in jure poli_–in the common-pleas of earth, not before the king’s bench in heaven. ^Thomas Adams.
Verse 9.–Oppression turns princes into roaring lions, and judges into evening wolves. It is an unnatural sin, against the light of nature. No creatures do oppress them of their own kind. Look upon the birds of prey, as upon eagles, vultures, hawks, and you shall never find them preying upon their own kind. Look upon the beasts of the forest, as upon the lion, the tiger, the wolf, the bear, and you shall ever find them favourable to their own kind; and yet men unnaturally prey upon one another, like the fish in the sea, the great swallowing up the small.–^Thomas Brooks.
HINTS TO PREACHERS.
Verse 9.–The ferocity, craftiness, strength, and activity of Satan.
Verse 9 (last clause).–The Satanic fisherman, his art, diligence, success, etc.