John Trapp Complete Commentary
Exodus 5:15
Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants?
Ver. 15. Came and cried unto Pharaoh.] They did not rail upon him to his face, as the Janizaries did a in an uproar upon Bajazet II, their prince, saying that they would by and by teach him, as a drunkard, a beast, and a rascal, to use his great place and calling with more sobriety and discretion. Neither did they go behind his back and call him, as Sanders did Queen Elizabeth, his natural sovereign, Lupam Anglicanam, the English wolf, or as Rhiston calleth her, leoenam, omnes Athalias, Macchas, Iezabeles, Herodiades, &c., superantem, a lioness worse than any Athalia, Maacha, Jezabel. A foul-mouthed Jesuit made this false anagram of her, Elizabeth, Jezabel. T is omitted; the presage of the gallows - whereon this anagrammatist was afterwards justly executed. Aretine, by a longer custom of libellous and contumelious speaking against princes, had got such a habit, that at last he came to diminish and disesteem God himself. b
a Turk. Hist., fol. 444.
b Rivetti Jesuita Vapulans, p. 263. Fuller's Holy State, fol. 317.