Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.
Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me. "Thy fatherless and widows" must rest their hope in God alone, as none of the adult males shall be left alive, so desperate will be the affairs of Edom. The verse also, besides this threat, implies a promise of mercy to Esau in God's good time, as there was to Moab and Ammon (Jeremiah 49:6; Jeremiah 48:47): the extinction of the adult males is the prominent idea (cf. Jeremiah 49:12).