To the same purpose is what he adds, thou hast sinned against thy soul. Some give this version, “Thou hast sinned licentiously” or immoderately; others, “Thy soul has sinned,” but these pervert the Prophet’s meaning; for what he intended was nothing else but the evils which the avaricious and the cruel bring on themselves, and which will return on their own heads. When therefore the Babylonians contrived ruin for the whole world, the Prophet predicts that an end, very different from what they thought, would be to them: thou hast sinned, he says, against thine own soul; Literally, “sinning thy soul.” We have in Proverbs 8:36, [הטאי], “my sinner,” rendered no doubt correctly, “he that sinneth against me.” So here “sinning thy soul,” means “sinning against thy soul.” See the same words in Proverbs 20:2. In Numbers 16:38, the preposition [ב] is before “souls.” “Thy soul hath sinned,” as given by the Septuagint, and adopted by Newcome, does not convey the meaning; for to sin against our souls, is to injure ourselves so as to bring down judgment, as in the case mentioned in Numbers 16:38, while the other phrase conveys only the idea of doing what is wrong.—Ed. that is, the evil which thou didst prepare to bring on others, shall be made by God to fall on thine own head.