They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.
Ver. 9. They pluck the fatherless from the breast] What can be more to be pitied than a fatherless suckling? Who less to be molested or violenced than the mother doing that office to her babe? In the Parisian Massacre one of the murderers took a little one in his arms, who smiled upon him and played with his beard; yet this barbarous wretch was so far from compassion, that he wounded it with his dagger, and so cast it all gore blood into the river (Acts and Mon.). The story of the infant of the isle of Guernsey, thrown back into the fire, out of which it had sprawled, is well known. So is the savage inhumanity of that merciless Minerius, the pope's champion, who at Merindola, in France, cut off the paps of many which gave suck to their children; which, looking for suck at their mother's breasts, being dead before, died also for hunger. Well, therefore, might our Saviour say, "Beware of men," Matthew 10:17. It had been better the Indies had been given to the devils of hell, said those poor natives, than to those bloody Spaniards, who dashed the mothers in pieces upon their children, as once at Betharbel, Hosea 10:14 .
And take a pledge from the poor] Misery, which should beget pity in them, begetteth but audacity, and inviteth them to ruin the poor, and fill their houses with their spoils. Some render it thus, They take the poor for a pledge; sc. putting them to their ransom, and meanwhile enslaving them.