(3) When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt.--Comp. the whole burden of Psalms 106, that sorrow and shame follow sin.

Verse 3. - When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt. The contempt here spoken of is not that with which the sinner is regarded, but that which he himself learns to feel for all that is pure and good and lovely (Psalm 31:18). As the LXX. interprets, "When the wicked cometh into the depth of evil, he despiseth," he turns a despiser. So the Vulgate. Going forward in evil, adding sin to sin, he end by casting all shame aside, deriding the Law Divine and human, and saying in his heart, "There is no God." St. Gregory, "As he who is plunged into a well is confined to the bottom of it; so would the mind fall in, and remain, as it were, at the bottom, if, after having once fallen, it were to confine itself within any measure of sin. But when it cannot be contented with the sin into which it has fallen, while it is daily plunging into worse offences, it finds, as it were, no bottom to the well into which it has fallen, on which to rest. For there would be a bottom to the well, if there were any bounds to his sin. Whence it is well said, 'When a sinner hath come into the lowest depth of sins, he contemneth.' For he puts by returning, because he has no hope that he can be forgiven. But when he sins still more through despair, he withdraws, as it were, the bottom from the well, so as to find therein no resting place" ('Moral.,' 26:69, Oxford transl.). Even the heathen could see this terrible consequence. Thus Juvenal is quoted ('Sat.,' 13:240, etc.) -

"Nam quis
Peccandi finem posuit sibi? quando receipt
Ejectum semel attrita de fronte ruborem?
Quisnam hominum est, quem tu contentum videris uno
Flagitio?" And with ignominy cometh reproach. Here again it is not the reproach suffered by the sinner that is meant (as in Proverbs 11:2), but the abuse which he heaps on others who strive to impede him in his evil courses. All that he says or does brings disgrace, and he is always ready to revue any who are better than himself. Both the Septuagint and the Vulgate make the wicked man the victim instead of the actor, thus: "but upon him there cometh disgrace and reproach." The Hebrew does not well admit this interpretation.

18:1 If we would get knowledge and grace, we must try all methods of improving ourselves. 2. Those make nothing to purpose, of learning or religion, whose only design is to have something to make a show with. 3. As soon as sin entered, shame followed.When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt,.... When he comes into the world, as Aben Ezra; as soon as he is born, he is liable to contempt, being born in sin; but this is true of all: rather, as the Vulgate Latin, and with which the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions agree, when he cometh into the depth of sin, or to the height of his wickedness; he commences a scoffer at, and condemner of all that is good: when he comes into the house of God, it may be said, "there comes contempt"; for he comes not to hear the word, in order to receive any profit by it, but to contemn it, and the ministers of it;

and with ignominy reproach: or, "with the ignominious man reproach" (l): he that despises all that is good, and treats divine things in a ludicrous way, will not spare to reproach the best of men, and speak evil of them falsely, for the sake of religion. Or the meaning of the whole is, that wicked men, sooner or later, come into contempt, ignominy, and reproach, themselves; they that despise the Lord are lightly esteemed by him; and a vile person is contemned in the eyes of a good man: such bring shame and disgrace upon themselves and families while they live; and, when they die, they are laid in the grave with dishonour; an infamy rests upon their memories, and they wilt rise to everlasting shame and contempt.

(l) "viro ignominioso, venit opprobriunu", Pagninus; "cum ignominioso probrum", Junis & Tremeilius; "cum probroso opprobrium", Schultens, so Vatablus, Mercerus, Gejerus.