Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

BY this verse the Prophet meant to press those with fear which were grown too secure, and were nothing moved with any threatening whatsoever. For although the captivity was an horrible thing, and the famine ⟨p. 56⟩also; yet was the stubbornness and blockishness of this people so great, that they laid not these fearful signs of God his anger nigh their hearts in good earnest, as they ought to have done. And therefore Isaiah threatens some thing yet more fearful; to wit, that hell had opened his throat to devour them all. I said erewhile, that this which is here said of the time present, ought partly to be referred to the time to come. The Prophet also speaks not rashly, as of things clear and manifest. And he would present the thing as it were before the sight of the people, to the end they might behold that with their eyes, which they could not be brought to believe. Moreover, as in comparing hell, or the grave to an insatiable beast; so by the soul, he means the belly, whereinto the meat descends. The sum is, that the grave is as a large and deep gulf, which by the commandment of God, opens her throat to devour men adjudged to death. You see then that this prosopopei, or feigning of persons, hath much greater vehemency in it, then if he had said, that all were judged to die.