Ohs. 8. As all oppression crieth to God, so especially the oppression of poor servants, and those that live by handy labour. It is twice repeated in the text, * Avhich have reaped your fields/ and then, again, ' the cry of them which have reaped.' And the reason is, because it is their life, and so an act of the greatest unmercifulness ; and besides, you disappoint them of the solace of their labours. See Deut. xxiv. 15, ' He hath set his heart upon it ; ' this is, that he reckoneth upon his wages at the end of the day. But you will say, How many ways may we oppress the poor labourer? I answer — (1.) When through greatness you challenge their labours without reward, as the gentry use the peasants of many countries : Jer. xxii. 13, ' Woe be to him that useth his neighbour without wages ; ' meaning Jehoiakim, who, in his pompous buildings used his subjects' labour without hire. (2.) When you give them not a proportionate hire, working upon their necessities, for then a great part of their labour is without reward ; and it is flat covetousness to ' exact all your labours,' Isa. Iviii. 3. when your reward is scanty and short. (3.) When by cunning ye defraud them of their reward, either through bad payment or crafty cavils. The Lord saith, Mai. iii. 5, ' I will be a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages.' So it is in the text, ' by fraud kept back.' God knoweth what is oppression, though veiled under crafty pretences. (4.) When you diminish or change their
^ ' Ostendit Douiinus quam invitns puniat, etiam gravissimos peccatores, dicensquod clamor Sodomorum adse ascenderit ; hoc est dicere, iiiisericordia quidem niea suadet ut parcam, sed tamen peccatorum clamor cogit iit puniam.' — i>ahian. clc Proind., lib. i.
410 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS. V. 4.
wages ; as it is said of Labaii that he changed Jacob's wages ten times, Gen. xxxi. 41. (5.) When you delay payment, God com- manded the Jews to do it before sunset: see Deut. xxiv. 14, 15 ; Lev. xix. 30. It is a maxim of the law, mimis solvit, qui minus tempore solvit — that not to pay it at the time is to pay the less, because of the advantage of improvement ; and in the text it is said, ' kept back by fraud ; ' though not wholly taken away, yet ' kept back ' entitled them to sin. The Lord, you know, rewardeth his servants ere they have done their work ; we have much of our wages afore- hand, (fee.
Ohs. 4. Though the poor should not cry, the very hire and money would cry, and require vengeance against oppressors. The apostle saitli, not only the reapers cry, but the hire crieth. So see Jol) xxxi. 38-40, ' If my land cry against me, and the furrows thereof likewise complain ; if I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life,' &c. God cannot want witnesses against cruelty ; the hire shall cry, the poor shall cry, the beam and the stone out of the wall shall cry, Hab. ii. ; the very affliction shall cry. It is said. Gen. xvi. 11, he heard Hagar's afflic- tion when Sarah had used her harshly and imperiously. So the church saith. Lam. ii. 18, ' The apple of mine eye shall not keep silence.' Their groans clamour, and their tears have a loud voice. Oh ! then, consider this, secret wrongs will be known to God. The children of God may not know who harmed them ; wicked men act at a distance, like a spider, when she hath weaved a net, goeth out of the way : but yet the Lord knoweth ; their very afflictions will cry against you when they know not against whom to cry.
06s. 5. From that, theLordo/Sabaoth; that is, the Lord of hosts, a name often used in the prophetical books, but most commonly in Isaiah and Zechariah ; it is not usual in the New Testament, God's titles being there fuller of sweetness and grace ; and the reason why it was so much used then was because the people of God were in great misery, needed much defence and protection, and were in danger to let fall their hopes out of fear of men. It was a name of God, so commonly known and used, that the Septuagint retained the Hebrew term by which it was expressed. And so, also, it is kept in the New Testament, KvpLo<i Xa^ad)6, as by Paul, Rom. ix. 27, and by James in this place ; not religiously, out of any mystery in the syllables, as Jerome supposeth, but because thisa])pellation of God was so familiar among the Jews, and so easily known to the nations that conversed with them. Now, the Lord is called the Lord of Sabaoth, or Lord of hosts, because all liis creatures are ranked in such an order that they are always ready to serve and accomplish his will. The note is, that the Lord is a Lord of hosts, commander-in-chief of all the creatures, angels, men, thunders, lightnings, storn)s, showers, lions, fevers, &c. ; they are all at his beck, waiting for his word : ' He can send light- nings, that they may go ; they say unto him, Here we are/ Jol) xxxviii. 35 ; that is. Lord, Whither shall we go? here we are, ready to fulfil thy word. It were easy to expatiate in so copious an argument ; but because it liatli been handled by others.i I shall but touch upon