They were as fed horses in the morning: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife.
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 5:8 Go To Jeremiah 5
Basil the Great
AD 379
Angels do not change. Not one of them is a child, or a young man, or an old man, but in whatever state they were created, in the beginning, in that state they remain. Their substance is preserved pure and inviolate for them. But we change in our body, as has been shown, and in our soul and in the inner person, always shifting our thoughts with the circumstances. In fact, we are one sort of person when we are cheerful and when all things in our life are moving forward with the current. But we are another sort in precarious times, when we stumble against something that is not according to our wishes. We are changed through anger, assuming a certain savage state. We are also changed through our lusts of carnal things, becoming like beasts through a life of pleasure. “They become amorous horses,” being madly in love with their neighbors’ wives. The deceitful person is compared with a fox, as Herod was. The shameless person is called a dog, like Nabel the Carmelian. Do you see the variety and diversity of our change? Then, admire him who has fittingly adapted this title to us. For this very reason, a certain one of the interpreters seems to me to have handed over beautifully and accurately the same thought through another title. He says, “For the lilies,” in place of, “For them that shall be changed.” He thought that it was appropriate to compare the transitory state of human nature with the early death of flowers. But since this word has been inflected in the future tense (It is said, “For them that shall be changed,” as if at some time later this change will be shown to us), let us consider whether there is suggested to us the doctrine of the resurrection, in which a change will be granted to us, but a change for something better and something spiritual.
