And I will give children [to be] their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
Ver. 4. And I will give children to be their princes.] Si non annis, at animis; If not with years but with life, such as were Ahaz, Manasseh, the four last kings of Judah, the calamity of that kingdom. a Princes that are witless, wilful, weak, or wicked, are the people's woe; Ecc 10:16 this childhood of theirs is the maturity of their subjects' misery. Job 34:30
And babes shall rule over them.] Sept., Mockers; some render it foxes, others effeminate persons, but babes is best. Such a one was Rehoboam, and Honorius the Emperor, who when he heard that his city of Rome was taken by Alarichus, grieved most of all for the loss of a certain bird which was there kept for him, and by him called "Rome." Indignum sane, Regem aves praeferre urbibus, saith the historian.
a Dii avertant principes pueros. - Vopis.