Proverbs 5:14

I was almost in all evil,.... Scarce a sin but he was guilty of; contempt of private and public instructions, the instructions of parents and ministers of the Gospel, and following lewd women,

I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. I was almost in all evil-in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

I was almost in all evil. Oh what a miserable man am I! There is scarce any misery, in respect of estate, or body, or soul, into which I am not already plunged. The words also are and may well be rendered thus, In a moment I am come into all evil. In how little a time, and for what short and momentary pleasures, am I now come into extreme and remediless misery! In the midst of the congregation and assembly: I, who designed and expected to enjoy my lusts with secrecy and impunity, am now made a public example and shameful spectacle to all men, and that in the congregation of Israel, where I was taught better things, and where such actions are most infamous and hateful.

Proverbs 5:14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.Ver. 14. I was almost in all evil.] Abraham Ben Ezra reads it in the future tense, Brevi ero in omni malo, I shall shortly be in all evil; and so his repentance here appears to be poenitentia sera, Iscariotica, such as was that of Judas and of those popelings, a desperate repentance, and not "toward God," not a repentance for sin, as it is offensivum Dei, et aversivum a Deo, an offence against God, and a turning away from him. Such a repentance in this man had been, as the Romans said of Pompey, Eχθρουπατροςφιλτατοντεχνον, a fair and happy daughter of an ugly and odious mother - of his sin I mean, the sight whereof had sent him to Christ. In the midst of the congregation.] That is, Openly, and before all men. And this he brings as an aggravation of his misery, that there were so many eye witnesses thereof. No unclean person can have any assurance that his sin shall always be kept secret, no, not in this life. The Lord hath oft brought such - sometimes by terror of conscience, sometimes by frenzy - to that pass, that themselves have been the blazers and proclaimers of their own secret filtifiness. Yea, observe this, saith one, in them that are the most cunning in this sin, that, though nobody peradventure can convince them evidently of the fact, yet everybody, through the just judgment of God, condemns them we for it. As the Lord seeth their secret villanies, even so ofttimes he testifieth agaiust them, accordins to that which he threateneth, "I will be a swift witness against the adulterers." Plut. in Pomp. Vita. Hildersh. on John iv.

(14) I was almost in all evil . . .—Rather, I had almost fallen into every sin: I was so infatuated that I might have committed any sin, and that openly before all. Or, I might have been visited with extremest punishment at the hands of the congregation, death by stoning (Leviticus 20:10, John 8:5). The offender’s eyes are now opened, and he shudders at the thought of the still greater troubles into which he might, in his infatuation, have fallen.

Verse 14. I was almost in all evil] This vice, like a whirlpool, sweeps all others into its vortex. In the midst of the congregation and assembly.] In the mydel of the Curche and of the Synagoge - Old MS. Bible. Such persons, however sacred the place, carry about with them eyes full of adultery, which cannot cease from sin.

14. I was almost in all evil] Ewald and other commentators take this to mean, I had a narrow escape from incurring the extreme penalty which the law of Moses prescribes for this sin (Leviticus 20:10): I almost, or well nigh, was convicted and stoned to death in public, “in the midst of the congregation and the assembly.” But the writer, if this were his meaning, has hardly chosen a happy phrase in which to convey it to us. It is better to understand the clause as added to lend aggravation to the sin, rather than to the punishment or danger. The words “congregation” and “assembly,” sometimes with the addition, “of Israel,” “of Jehovah,” “of God” (see for examples which abound in the Pentateuch, Exodus 16:3; Leviticus 4:15; Deuteronomy 31:30; Numbers 16:3; Numbers 27:17; Nehemiah 13:1), had come to be the common designation of Israel, as the people of Jehovah, the holy nation, separated from the abominations of the heathen. The Greek equivalents for these words (ἐνμέσῳἐκκλησίαςκαὶσυναγωγῆς LXX.) became naturally the titles of the Church under its Jewish and Christian aspects. To sin then “in the midst of the congregation and assembly” was to sin against light and knowledge, and to disgrace the body of which the sinner was a member. Somewhat similarly we hear it said, as an aggravation of crime or immorality, that it has been done “in a Christian country.”

The conscience-stricken sinner had been “almost” given up to every form of evil in the sight of the whole assembly of fellow-townsmen; “almost,” therefore, condemned to the death which that assembly

14. In all evil — The common interpretation is, The gratification of my lusts by degrees led me into nearly all kinds of wickedness; not merely in secret, but openly; in the assembly of God’s people