(1) В¶ And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. (2) For there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live. (3) Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth. (4) There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards. (5) Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.
Though in the laws by Moses, every provision was made for the happiness of Israel, in the several situations of poor and rich; yet there were then, as there is now, and from the same cause, the ruined state of our nature by the fall, many whose hearts felt not for the poor, but for the love of gain, and in direct defiance of God's law, cared not but to oppose their brethren. We have here the complaint. The oppressed felt the evil, and cried out under it. What a sweet thought is it, under all the mortgaged state of our spiritual inheritance, our captive state to sin and Satan; we have a Brother, our next of kin, to redeem both our persons and our inheritance. Leviticus 25:25.