Thy princes are rebellious. — The Hebrew words present an alliterative paronomasia (sârim, sôrerîm), which may be represented by “Thy rulers are rebels.” Here, as before, we note the “influence of Hosea (Hosea 9:15), from whom the words are cited.
Companions of thieves. — We seem almost to be reading a report of the state of police in a provincial city under the government of Turkey as it is, or of Naples or Sicily as they were. The kadi himself is in secret partnership with the brigands who infest the highways. Nothing can be done without baksheesh, and the robbers who have the plunder can bribe more heavily than the man whom they have robbed. (Comp. Micah 7:3.) To the complaints of the widow and the orphan the judges turned a deaf ear, and put off the hearing of their cause with indefinite procrastination. There is, perhaps, a touch of irony in the word for “bribes” (shalmônîm, as if “peace gifts”), which were sought after, instead of shalôm, the true peace itself.