They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
Ver. 11. They send forth their little ones like a flock] Sunt qui de eorum vitulis intelligunt recens natis, saith Mercer. Some understand it to be young calves, but better of young children, which have here their name from a root which signifieth wickedness, naughtiness, to show what little ones are, not innocents, as we call them, not pueri quasi puri; νηπιος, is both a fool and a child. The first blanket wherein a child is wrapped, is woven of sin, shame, blood, and filth, Ezekiel 16:4; Ezekiel 16:6. Hence infants were circumcised, and their foreskin cast away, to show that they themselves had deserved to be so served. Parents therefore should strive to mend that by education which they have marred by propagation. Wicked parents think not on this, though they send out their little ones like a flock, but tend them not, keep them not from the wolf of hell, who seeketh to devour them.
And their children dance] Exiliunt, vitulantur, choreas ducunt, they skip and leap up and down, as young cattle, and are taught to dance artificially, which no sober man will do, saith Cicero, Nemo sobrius saltat. And, the better dancer the worse man, said Diogenes.