Which made oil within their walls - Or rather, they compel them to express oil within their walls. The word יצהירו yatshı̂yrû, rendered “made oil,” is from צחר tsachar, to shine, to give light; and hence, the derivatives of the word are used to denote light, and then oil, and thence the word comes to denote to press out oil for the purpose of light. Oil was obtained for this purpose from olives by pressing them, and the idea here is, that the poor were compelled to engage in this service for others without compensation. The expression “within their walls,” means probably within the walls of the rich; that is, within the enclosures where such presses were erected. They were taken away from their homes; compelled to toil for others; and confined for this purpose within enclosures erected for the purpose of expressing oil. Some have proposed to read this passage, “Between their walls they make them toil at noonday;” as if it referred to the cruelty of causing them to labor in the sweltering heat of the sun. But the former interpretation is the most common, and best agrees with the usual meaning of the word, and with the connection.
And tread their wine-presses and suffer thirst - They compel them to tread out their grapes without allowing them to slake their thirst from the wine. Such a treatment would, of course, be cruel oppression. A similar description is given by Addison in his letter from Italy:
Il povreo Abitante mira indarno
Il roseggiante Arancio e’l pingue grano,
Crescer dolente ei mira ed oli, e vini,
E de mirti odorar l’ ombra ei sdegna.
In mezzo alla Bonta della Natura
Maledetto languisce, e deatro a cariche
Di vino vigne muore per la sete.
“The poor inhabitant beholds in vain
The reddening orange and the swelling grain;
Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines
And in the myrtle’s fragrant shade repines;
Starves, in the midst of nature’s bounty curst,
And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.”
Addison’s works, vol. i. pp. 51-53. Ed. Lond. 1721.