Isaiah 3:4,5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And I will give children to be their princes Either, 1st, Children in age, whose minority corrupt ministers of state commonly abuse, to the producing of much evil: or, 2d, In understanding and experience. When all the eminent persons, mentioned Isaiah 3:2-3, were removed, the necessary consequence must be, that persons of no qualifications for government must succeed in their places. This also was fully accomplished in the succession of weak and wicked princes, from the death of Josiah to the destruction of the city and temple. And the people shall be oppressed By the command or permission of such childish rulers. The child shall behave himself proudly, &c. The child in understanding, or the young and inexperienced; and the base against the honourable “The usual effects,” says Lowth, “of a weak and unsettled government, where faction grows too hard for justice, and seditious men become so bold as openly to insult those that are in authority.”