The wicked worketh a deceitful work,.... Such a wicked man as before described; that neither enjoys the good things of life he has, nor suffers others to enjoy them; and all to accumulate riches, which are deceitful and perishing; and who abstains from meats, which God has created for use, under a pretence of religion, and so deceives his own soul; and indeed every sin which a wicked man commits is a deceitful work; it promises him that pleasure, or profit, or liberty, which it does not give him, and in the issue is the ruin of him; and so all false doctrines, propagated by deceitful workers, are deceitful works, by which they deceive the simple, and at last themselves; they "obtain a deceitful reward of [their] work", as Gussetius renders it;but to him that soweth righteousness; does acts of beneficence and liberality; see 2Co 9:9; and all other good works, or works of righteousness,[shall be] a sure reward; according to what a man sows, and the manner in which he sows, so shall he reap, 2Co 9:6; or, "a reward of truth"; instead of being given up to believe a lie, he shall receive the love of the truth, and abide in it, which will bring him to eternal glory and happiness; he being chosen to it through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth, 2Th 2:10; and, instead of a deceitful reward, shall have a true, real, solid, and substantial one.
Ebr. Comment. p.