I. Let them know that God will plead their just but injured cause against their persecutors (v. 5): Your brethren that hated you said, Let the Lord be glorified. But he shall appear to your joy. This perhaps might have reference to the case of some of the Jews at their return out of captivity; but nothing like it appears in the history, and therefore it is rather to be referred to the first preachers and professors of the gospel among the Jews, to whose case it is very applicable. Observe, 1. How the faithful servants of God were persecuted: Their brethren hated them. The apostles were Jews by birth, and yet even in the cities of the Gentiles the Jews they met with there were their most bitter and implacable enemies and stirred up the Gentiles against them. The spouse complains (Cant. i. 6) that her mother's children were angry with her. Pilate upbraided our Lord Jesus with this, Thy own nation have delivered thee unto me, John xviii. 35. Their brethren, who should have loved them and encouraged them for their work's sake hated them, and cast them out of their synagogues, excommunicated them as if they had been the greatest blemishes, when they were really the greatest blessings, of their church and nation. This was a fruit of the old enmity in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman. Those that hated Christ hated his disciples, because they supported his kingdom and interest (John xv. 18), and they cast them out for his name's sake, because they were called by his name, and called upon his name, and laid out themselves to advance his name. Note, It is no new thing for church censures to be misapplied, and for her artillery, which was intended for her defence, to be turned against her best friends, by the treachery of her governors. And those that did this said, Let the Lord be glorified; they pretended conscience and a zeal for the honour of God and the church in it, and did it with all the formalities of devotion. Our Saviour explains this, and seems to have reference to it, John xvi. 2. They shall put you out of their synagogues, and whosoever kills you will think that he does God service. In nomine Domini incipit omne malum—In the name of the Lord commences evil of every kind. Or we may understand it as spoken in defiance of God: "You say God will be glorified in your deliverance; let him be glorified then; let him make speed and hasten his work (ch. v. 19); let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him." Some take it to be the language of the profane Jews in captivity, bantering their brethren that hoped for deliverance, and ridiculing the expectations they often comforted themselves with, that God would shortly be glorified in it. They thus did what they could to shame the counsel of the poor, Ps. xiv. 6. 2. How they were encouraged under these persecutions: "Let your faith and patience hold out yet a little while; your enemies hate you and oppress you, your brethren hate you and cast you out, but your Father in heaven loves you, and will appear for you when no one else will or dare. His providence shall order things so as shall be for comfort to you; he shall appear for your joy and for the confusion of those that abuse you and trample on you; they shall be ashamed of their enmity to you." This was fulfilled when, upon the signals given of Jerusalem's approaching ruin, the Jews' hearts failed them for fear; but the disciples of Christ, whom they had hated and persecuted, lifted up their heads with joy, knowing that their redemption drew nigh, Luke xxi. 26, 28. Though God seem to hide himself, he will in due time show himself.