The dead bodies of thy servants have they given [to be] meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.
Ver. 2. The dead bodies of thy servants] Either they denied them the honour of burial (which is reckoned among the τα νομιζομενα, the dues of the dead), or else they mangled their dead bodies, and exercised their rage upon them, as the Papists did upon Huss and Zwinglius, and many of the English martyrs. A barbarous practice, as Pausanias judged it in Herodot. Calliope, Nεκρω λυμαινεσθαι πρεπει μαλλον βαρβαροισιν, &c.
The flesh of thy saints, &c.] Of thy beneficiaries, whose souls are with thee in heaven; these have not so much as a burying place on earth, but lie like common carrion, Morticina, like cattle that die of the murrain, and are most ignominously dealt with; and yet these are God's saints, and, in some sense, martyrs.