For jealousy is the rage of a man— The wise man carries on the contrast between the punishment of theft and adultery. "The theft (says he) may be ransomed by making restitution; but he that violates the marriage-bed raises such an inexorable spirit of revenge in the bosom of the injured, as nothing but the utmost rigour of the law, the death of the offender, will satisfy." Schultens observes, that no version can express the force of the Hebrew; The inflammation of jealousy is the setting a man on fire: as much as to say, that the jealousy with which a man is inflamed, renders him wholly on fire, and so heated with that fire as never to be appeased, but borne with inexpiable violence to the revenge of his defiled bed. Houbigant renders it, For the fury of the husband shall grow hot. The principal points of instruction to be learned from this chapter are these: care of our family, caution in engaging for others; diligence in some honest employment, hatred of idleness, as contrary to nature; not to contemn the meanest instructor, but to learn something even of the smallest creature: to give good heed to the admonition of our parents and instructors, when they teach the will of God; and above all things to fortify ourselves against sins of uncleanness.

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