Now will 1 gather them

Now will I gather them.

This gathering among Interpreters has reference either to the Nations whom they sought to, or to themselves. I will gather them; that is, That Nation; or, I will gather you. If to the Nation, then the scope is thus:

Notwithstanding you hire the Nations, yet I will gather them against you, they shall be strengthened against you with the same money that you hyre them withal, I will turn it against you, and now you have provided fair for your selves, have you not?

Many times when we think to provide best for our own peace, we make the greatest provision for our own ruin. God many times makes people work their own wo and ruin themselves, and there is no means that does more fully and directly tend to undo them than what they do themselves; and thus God over rules the counsels and thoughts of men.

What a vain thing is it to plot against God, when God can turn mens Arrows against themselves? No men are greater instruments of Gods wrath (many times) against us than we are our selves, yes, and than those are that we seek most to correspond withal; and it is just with God it should be so, that if we wil leave him, to seek correspondence with wicked men, it is just with God that of all men in the world those should be the men that should be made the Executioners of Gods wrath upon us.

But now, if it be to Israel, I will gather them among the Nations. Then the word here gathered is sometimes used for gathering dead corps in an Army when they are slain in Battel. You go and think to have the Nations, but you shall be as a company of dead corps in an Army, and lie in heaps there. But I find Calvin has a further Note upon it, and takes it as having reference to the former verse. This people are wild, and run up and down, this way and that way to shift for themselves, but I will gather them; that is, I will keep them in; so the words likewise may signifie, I will keep them in, I will gather-in their spirits, there shall be some work of prudence or other to keep them in, I will keep them from those waies wherein they would presently have ruined themselves.

People run many times headily on in evil waies that would certainly ruin them; but when Gods time for the execution of his wrath is not yet come, the Lord restrains them and keeps them in from such waies; though their hearts be set upon such waies of undoing themselves, yet they shall not go on in them, I will pity them who cannot pity themselves. But then it follows (in which the greatest difficulty of the verse is.)