The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants of it
Or, "and the earth"; or, "for the earth is defiled" F17; and so it is a reason why it is emptied and spoiled, because polluted and corrupted with the fornication of the whore of Rome, with her idolatries and superstitions, with which the inhabitants of the earth are defiled; or with her rapine and violence, cruelties, bloodshed, and murders; for blood defiles a land, ( Numbers 35:33 ) all which are committed by the inhabitants of the earth, subject to the see of Rome, by reason of which it may be said to be corrupted or defiled; so the phrase may be interpreted "for", or "because of the inhabitants of it": thus Jarchi and Kimchi, because of their wickedness and impieties; see ( Revelation 11:18 ) ( 18:24 ) ( 19:2 ) or, "the earth is deceitful" F18, or plays the hypocrite; promising and showing as if it would bring forth fruit, and brings forth none, but is barren and unfruitful, because of the sins of the inhabitants of it; see ( Revelation 18:14 ) : because they have transgressed the laws;
of God and man, as antichrist and his followers have done; who is that wicked (anomov) , that "lawless one", that sets up himself above laws, and takes upon him to dispense with the laws of God and man, ( 2 Thessalonians 2:4 2 Thessalonians 2:8 ) and in innumerable instances has transgressed both, casting all contempt upon them, and bidding all defiance to them, as being not at all bound and obliged by them: changed the ordinance;
or "ordinances"; the singular for the plural, a collective word; the ordinances of divine revelation, of the Gospel dispensation, those of baptism, and the Lord's supper; the former of these is changed, both as to subjects and mode, from adult baptism to infant baptism, from immersion to aspersion; and the latter, in it the bread and wine are pretended to be changed into the very body and blood of Christ, and is only given in one kind to the laity, and made a real sacrifice of, when its end and use are only to commemorate the one sacrifice already offered up; moreover, by the "ordinance" may be meant the Scriptures, which are the (qx) , "the rule of judgment"; which antichrist has most miserably perverted, and has changed and altered the sense of them; taking upon him to be the infallible interpreter of them, and judge of all controversies, forbidding the reading of them to the people, and setting up his own decrees, definitions, and determinations, above them; and is "that throne of iniquity, that frameth mischief, by a law", or ordinance, of his own making, and which he puts in the room of the divine law or ordinance, ( Psalms 94:20 ) where the same word is used as here; and he is that little horn, that thought to change times and laws, ( Daniel 7:25 ) : broken the everlasting covenant;
not the eternal law of nature, nor the everlasting covenant of circumcision, or that made with Israel on mount Sinai; but the new covenant, or the administration of the covenant of grace under the Gospel dispensation, which is to last to the end of time, and lies in the ministration of the word, and administration of ordinances; which antichrist has done all that in his power lies to break, make null and void, by corrupting the word, and changing the ordinances, and setting up his own institutions above them, and against them.