Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Idolatry - Worshipping of idols; frequenting idol festivals; all the rites of Bacchus, Venus, Priapus, etc., which were common among the Gentiles.
Witchcraft - , from a drug or poison; because in all spells and enchantments, whether true or false, drugs were employed. As a drug, , might either be the means of removing an evil, or inflicting one, etymologists have derived it from , bringing ease, or , bringing pain. So spells and incantations were used sometimes for the restoration of the health; at others, for the destruction of an enemy. Sometimes, these were used to procure love; at other times, to produce hatred.
Hatred - · Aversions and antipathies, when opposed to brotherly love and kindness.
Variance - · Contentions, where the principle of hatred proceeds to open acts; hence contests, altercations, lawsuits, and disputes in general.
Emulations - · Envies or emulations; that is strife to excel at the expense of another; lowering others to set up one' s self; unholy zeal, fervently adopting a bad cause, or supporting a good one by cruel means. Inquisitions, pretending to support true religion by torturing and burning alive those who both profess and practice it.
Wrath - · Turbulent passions, disturbing the harmony of the mind, and producing domestic and civil broils and disquietudes.
Strife - · Disputations, janglings, logomachics, or strife about words.
Seditions - · Divisions into separate factions; parties, whether in the Church or state.
Heresies - ̔· Factions; parties in the Church separating from communion with each other, and setting up altar against altar. The word, which is harmless in itself, is here used in a bad sense. In stead of ̔ the Slavonic has , scandals, offenses or stumbling-blocks.
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