Proverbs 16:27

An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips [there is] as a burning fire.

Ver. 27. An ungodly man diggeth up evil,] i.e., He ransacketh and raketh out of the dust, out of the dunghill, such old evils as have long lain hid, to lay in the saints' dishes, and to upbraid them with. Thus the Manichees dealt by Augustine when they could not answer his arguments, they hit him in the teeth with his youthful follies; whereunto his reply was only this, Quae vos reprehenditis, ego damnavi: What you discommend in me, I have long since condemned. The malicious Papists did the like to reverend Beza, reprinting his wit-wanton poems (put forth in his youth), on purpose to despite him; and objecting to him his former miscarriage which he had sorely repented. This, when one of them did with great bitterness, all the answer he had, was, Hic homo invidet mihi gratiam Christi; This man envies me the grace of Jesus Christ. Neither dealt Aaron and Miriam much more gently with their brother Moses, Num 12:1 when they "spake against him because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married." Who was this Ethiopian woman but Zipporah? - for an Ethiopian and a Midianite are all one and the same. And when did he marry her? Many a year ago. Exo 2:21 But they were resolved to pick a hole in Moses's coat; and having nothing else to fasten on, they dig up this evil, and throw it as dirt in his face.

In his lips there is a burning fire.] The tongue, in its shape and colour, resembleth a flame of fire. "It is oft set on fire of hell, and itself setteth on fire the whole course of nature." Jam 3:6 "Their breath, as fire, shall devour you," Isa 33:10 as the fire of Etna devoured Empedocles, that would needs go too near it. "But what shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?" - false though thou speak the truth, if with a mind to do mischief: - "Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper," Psa 120:3-4 yea, that very fire of hell, from whence thou wast enkindled.