PESTILENCE, or Plague. In the Hebrew Tongue, as well as in most others, the Word Plague or Pestilence is put for all Sorts of Distempers and Calamities. It answers to the Hebrew Word Deber, which properly signifies the Plague, and which is extended to all other epidemical and pestilential Diseases. Commonly the Prophets connect together the Sword, the Pestilence, and the Famine, as three Evils, which hardly go one without the other, by taking the Prov. xv. 12. Vulg.Word Plague in the Sense we have mentioned.
The Pestilent Man is the Scorner, the Fleerer, the pretended Free-thinker, who diverts himself with the Simplicity of good People, and with the Timorousness of pious Souls. The Hebrew Word Lez, which is translated by pestilent, signifies a Scorner. The Chair of Pestilence, [or Seat of the Scorner,] mention’d in the first Psalm, is the Seat of such pernicious People. Ibid. Prov. xix. 25.Solomon in many Places cautions his Readers against their Discourse. Non amat pestilens (the Hebrew has derisor) eum qui se castigat. The Scorner loves not him that reproves him. And elsewhere, Pestilenti flagellato, stultus sapientior erit. The Correction of such Scoffers is a Prov. xxix. 8.great Instruction for the Weak, the Low, the Foolish, those that want Light and Understanding, Homines pestilentes dissipant civitatem. Such kind of Men are only fit to draw down the Anger of God upon a Community, in order to its Destruction. Tertullus, the Advocate of the Jews, says, that St. Paul was a pestilent Fellow, a common Disturber and Mover of Sedition, because he maintained that Jesus was the Christ. Jeremiah gives to Babylon the Name of the contagious Mountain. Ecce ego ad te, mons pestifer; because it spread the Infection of Idolatry and Superstition through the whole World. Hos. xiii. 14.The Messiah says in Hosea, O Death, I will be thy Plagues; O Grave, I will be thy Destruction. St. Jerom translates it; Ero mors tua, ô mors, morsus tuus ero, inferne. And in Psalm xc. 3. instead of these Words, Ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium, & à verbo aspero; the Hebrew has, He shall deliver me from the Snares of the Hunter, and from the dangerous Pestilence. The same Letters that signify a Word, dabar, also signify the Pestilence, deber.