They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. As the pagan enemies did not usually make the widow and the fatherless the chief objects of their rage, perhaps under the image of "the widow" the widowed Church, in the absence visibly of the Heavenly Bridegroom, is meant (Luke 18:3-8); "the stranger" expresses the relation in which the saint stands to this world (Psalms 39:12); "the fatherless," the orphaned state of the disciples on the departure of their Lord, (John 14:18, margin.) However, the Assyrians, probably, like the Chaldeans, "slew with the sword, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age" (2 Chronicles 36:17); so that the literal meaning may also hold good. God, as being the "Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the windows" (Psalms 68:5: cf. Deuteronomy 10:18), will be moved to compassion by such wrongs inflicted on the defenseless, so as to interpose in behalf of His elect. No appeal could be more effectual with the righteous and merciful God than this.