Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!
King is a child - given to pleasures; behaves with childish levity. Not in years; because a nation may be happy under a young prince, as Josiah; but as Rehoboam, who, though forty-one years old, is called "young and tender-hearted," 2 Chronicles 13:7. Eat in the morning - the usual time for dispensing justice in the East (Jeremiah 21:12); here, given to feasting.