Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
Read Chapter 69
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
25. "Let the table of them be made in their own presence for a trap" (ver. 23). Like the trap which for Me they set, in giving Me such a draught, let such a trap be for them. Why then, "in their own presence"? "Let the table of them be made for a trap," would have been sufficient. They are such as know their iniquity, and in it most obstinately do persevere: in their own presence there is made a trap for them. These are they that, being too destructive, "go down into Hell alive." Lastly, of persecutors what hath been said? Except that the Lord were in us, perchance alive they had swallowed us up. What is alive? Consenting to them, and knowing that we ought not to consent to them. Therefore in their own presence there is made a trap, and they are not amended. Even though in their own presence there is a trap, let them not fall into it. Behold they know the trap, and thrust out foot, and bow their necks to be caught. How much better were it to turn away from the trap, to acknowledge sin,...
Desolate. Babylon gave place to Susa, and "was reduced to a solitude by the vicinity of Seleucia. "(Pliny, vi. 26.) (Isaias xlvii.)
But the fall of Jerusalem was more sudden and memorable, within 40 years after the death of Christ, Psalm lviii. 7. (Calmet)
The Jews, and particularly the traitor, lost their country, Acts i. 20. (Berthier)
He (the traitor) indeed hath possessed a field of the reward of iniquity. And burst asunder. (Haydock)
