Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
Then shall ye . . . discern—Then shall ye see the falseness of your calumny against God's government (Malachi 3:15), that the "proud" and wicked prosper. Do not judge before the time till My work is complete. It is in part to test your disposition to trust in God in spite of perplexing appearances, and in order to make your service less mercenary, that the present blended state is allowed; but at last all ("ye," both godly and ungodly) shall see the eternal difference there really is "between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not" (Psalms 58:11).
return—Ye shall turn to a better state of mind on this point.
He notices the complaint of the Jews that it is of no profit to serve Jehovah, for that the ungodly proud are happy; and declares He will soon bring the day when it shall be known that He puts an everlasting distinction between the godly and the ungodly.
words . . . stout—Hebrew, "hard"; so "the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Judges 1:15) [HENDERSON].
have we spoken—The Hebrew expresses at once their assiduity and habit of speaking against God [VATABLUS]. The niphal form of the verb implies that these things were said, not directly to God, but of God, to one another (Ezekiel 33:20) [MOORE].
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