He hath said in his heart,.... To and within himself, he thought in his own mind; for the thought is the word or speech of the mind, logov endiauetov;I shall not be moved; from his prosperous and happy condition, abounding: with riches and honours; from his seat of empire, over kings, princes, and the nations of the world; flattering himself that it would never be otherwise with him than it is: even "to generation and generation", I shall not be moved; so the words may be rendered;for [I shall] never [be] in adversity, or "in evil" : meaning either the evil of sin; so asserting his innocence, wiping himself clean of all iniquity, claiming to himself the title of "holiness" itself, and the character of infallibility; giving out that he is impeccable, and cannot err; when he is not only almost, but altogether, in all evil; and is o anomov, the lawless and wicked one, the man of sin, who is nothing but sin itself.
The Targum paraphrases the whole thus; "I shall not be moved from generation to generation from doing evil"; and so it is a boast of impiety, and that none can restrain him from it, no one having a superior power over him; see Ps 12:4.
Or the evil of affliction, or calamity; wherefore we render it "adversity", so Jarchi and Aben Ezra understand it: the note of the former is,"evil shall not come upon me in my generation,''or for ever; and the latter compares it with Nu 11:15; Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it of long life.
It is a vaunt of antichrist, promising himself a continuance of his grandeur, ease, peace, and prosperity; in which he will be wretchedly disappointed. The language and sense are much the same with that of the antichristian Babylon, Re 18:7.