(21) Therefore deliver up their children . . .--The bitter words that follow startle and pain us, like the imprecations of Psalms 35, 69, 109. To what extent they were the utterances of a righteous indignation, a true zeal for God, which had not yet learnt the higher lesson of patience and forgiveness, or embodied an element of personal vindictiveness, we are not called on to inquire, and could not, in any case, decide. It is not ours to judge another man's servant. In all like cases we have to remember that the very truthfulness with which the prayer is recorded is at least a proof that the prophet felt, like Jonah, that he did well to be angry (Jonah 4:9), that a righteous anger is at least one step towards a righteous love, and that we, as disciples of Christ, have passed, or ought to have passed, beyond that earlier stage.

Pour out their blood by the force of the sword.--Literally, with a bolder metaphor, pour them out into the hands of the sword.

Verse 21. - Pour out their blood by the force, etc.; rather, spill them into the hands of, etc. (see Psalm 63:10); a phrase akin to that in Isaiah 53:12. The sword is personified. Let their men he put to death; another personification, for the Hebrew has "slain of Death" - pestilence is referred to, as Jeremiah 15:2.

18:18-23 When the prophet called to repentance, instead of obeying the call, the people devised devices against him. Thus do sinners deal with the great Intercessor, crucifying him afresh, and speaking against him on earth, while his blood is speaking for them in heaven. But the prophet had done his duty to them; and the same will be our rejoicing in a day of evil.Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,.... To be starved, and perish by it, as they were in the siege of Jerusalem, both by the Chaldeans, and the Romans:

and pour out their blood by the force of the sword: or, "upon the hands of the sword" (f); by means of it; that is, the blood of the parents of the children; let the one perish by famine, and the other by the sword; which, when thrust into a man, blood gushes out, and runs upon the sword to the handle of it:

and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; let them have neither husbands nor children; which latter might be a comfort to them, when they had lost their husbands; but being stripped of these also, the affliction and distress must be the greater:

and let their men be put to death; or "slain with death" (g); with the pestilence, as Kimchi rightly interprets it; see Revelation 6:8; Jarchi understands it of the angel of death; see Hebrews 2:14;

let their young men be slain by the sword in battle; such being commonly employed in military service, as being the most proper persons for it.

(f) "super manus gladii", Montanus, Schmidt. (g) "occisi morte", Pagninus, Montanus, "i.e. peste" Schmidt; "occisi mortis", Cocceius.