Verse 20. — Is not their exaltation cut down, and hath not fire devoured the remnant of them? The wicked now flourish, but are one day to be cut down, and to be punished both in flesh and in soul. — For here the wicked are exalted, because they are lifted up in their depraved deeds, since they act perversely and yet are by no means struck down for their perverse acts. They sin and flourish; they increase their sins and multiply their earthly goods. But their exaltation is then cut down, when they are dragged either from the present life to destruction, or from the sight of the eternal Judge to the eternal burning of Gehenna. And though here they leave their flesh behind them dead, they also receive it again in the resurrection, that they may burn together with the flesh in which they sinned.
For just as their guilt was in mind and body, so their punishment shall be alike in soul and in flesh. Since, therefore, not even this shall be free for them from torment — namely, what they here leave behind dead — it is rightly now said: Fire hath devoured the remnant of them. There follows: