Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people [as] they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
Ver. 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?] No, not so much as Pilate's wife had in a dream; for else they would take heed of having anything to do with those just men. But they are workers of iniquity, habituated and hardened in cruelty, fleshed in blood; and having a hoof upon their hearts, so that they are masters of their consciences, and have taken a course with them. In this question here asked the psalmist doth not so much quaerere as queri, ask as chide and complain.
Who eat up my people as they eat bread] That is, quotidie, daily, saith Austin; as duly as they eat bread; or, with the same eagerness and voracity. These man eaters, these Dαοβοροι, cruel cannibals, make no more conscience to undo a poor man than to eat a good meal when they are hungry. Like pickerels in a pond, or sharks in the sea, they devour the poorer, as those do the lesser fishes; and that many times with a plausible invisible consumption; as the usurer, who, like the ostrich, can digest any metal, but especially money.
They call not upon the Lord] viz. For a blessing upon that their bread, as some sense it; how should they, since God abhorreth them? Psalms 10:3. But better take it for neglect of the duty of prayer; they rob God of his inward and outward worship, and so deal worse with him than idolaters do with their dunghill deities, whom they cease not to call upon. These will commit no impropriety in God's service; and be sure that their prayer (like that of Haman's, Est 7:7) shall never be turned into sin. If they pray in extremity (as then a Joab will lay hold on the horns of the altar), it is but as blind beggars are forced to ask, though they know not of whom.