In the last words of the text the adversaries are massed together. The
confidence that the Lord God will help and justify leads to the
conviction that all opposition to Him is futile and leads to
destruction.
We see the historical fulfilment in the fate of the nation. 'His blood
be upon us and upon our children.'
We have a truth applying universally that antagonism to Him is
self-destructive.
Two forms of destruction are here named. There is a slow decay going on
in the opponents and their opposition, as a garment waxing old, and
there is a being fretted away by the imperceptible working of external
causes, as by gnawing moths.
Applied to persons. To opposing systems.
How many antagonists the Gospel has had, and one after another has been
antiquated, and their books are only known because fragments of them
are preserved in Christian writings. Paganism is gone from Europe, and
its idols are in our museums. Each generation has its own phase of
opposition, which lasts for a little while. The mists round the sun
melt, the clouds piled in the north, surging up to bury it beneath
their banks, are dissipated. The sea roars and smashes on the cliffs,
but it ebbs and calms. Some of us have seen more than one school of
thought which came to the assault of Christianity, with colours flying
and drums rattling, defeated utterly and forgotten, and so it will
always be. One may be sure that each enemy in turn will descend to the
oblivion that has already received so many, and can imagine these
beaten foes rising from their seats to welcome the newcomer with the
sad greeting: 'Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like
unto us?'