(10) They are inclosed . . .--Literally, Their fat have they shut up. So LXX. and Vulgate, without indicating the meaning. But the "proudly" of the next clause suggests that "fat" is only a figure for the conceit of prosperity, and as that verb is active, the word mouth should be joined with it as object from the next clause, "In their conceit they shut their mouth; (when they do speak) they speak proudly.

Verse 10. - They are enclosed in their own fat (comp. Deuteronomy 32:15; Job 15:27; Psalm 119:70). Self-indulgence has hardened their feelings and dulled their souls. An organ enclosed in fat cannot work freely. So their feelings cannot work as nature intended through the coarseness and hardness in which they are, as it were, embedded. With their mouth they speak proudly (comp. Psalm 12:3, 4; Psalm 86:14).

17:8-15 Being compassed with enemies, David prays to God to keep him in safety. This prayer is a prediction that Christ would be preserved, through all the hardships and difficulties of his humiliation, to the glories and joys of his exalted state, and is a pattern to Christians to commit the keeping of their souls to God, trusting him to preserve them to his heavenly kingdom. Those are our worst enemies, that are enemies to our souls. They are God's sword, which cannot move without him, and which he will sheathe when he has done his work with it. They are his hand, by which he chastises his people. There is no fleeing from God's hand, but by fleeing to it. It is very comfortable, when we are in fear of the power of man, to see it dependent upon, and in subjection to the power of God. Most men look on the things of this world as the best things; and they look no further, nor show any care to provide for another life. The things of this world are called treasures, they are so accounted; but to the soul, and when compared with eternal blessings, they are trash. The most afflicted Christian need not envy the most prosperous men of the world, who have their portion in this life. Clothed with Christ's righteousness, having through his grace a good heart and a good life, may we by faith behold God's face, and set him always before us. When we awake every morning, may we be satisfied with his likeness set before us in his word, and with his likeness stamped upon us by his renewing grace. Happiness in the other world is prepared only for those that are justified and sanctified: they shall be put in possession of it when the soul awakes, at death, out of its slumber in the body, and when the body awakes, at the resurrection, out of its slumber in the grave. There is no satisfaction for a soul but in God, and in his good will towards us, and his good work in us; yet that satisfaction will not be perfect till we come to heaven.They are enclosed in their own fat,.... Or "their fat has enclosed them"; either their eyes, that they can hardly see out of them, or their hearts, so that they are stupid and senseless, and devoid of the fear of God; the phrase is expressive of the multitude of their wealth and increase of power, by which they were swelled with pride and vanity, and neither feared God nor regarded man; so the Targum paraphrases it,

"their riches are multiplied, their fat covers them;''

see Deuteronomy 32:15; some read it, "their fat shuts their mouths", so Aben Ezra and Kimchi; or "with their fat they shut them" (h); but the accent "athnach" will not admit of this reading; the last word belongs to the next clause;

with their mouth they speak proudly; against God and his people, belching out blasphemies against the one, and severe menaces and threatenings against the other.

(h) So De Dieu.