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Job_24:3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
Ver. 3. They drive away the ass of the fatherless] The only ass of orphans, those helpless, shiftless creatures, so merciless are these abigei, which is no small aggravation of their injustice. {see 2Sa_12:3} For all sins are not equal, as the Stoics once held, but lighter or heavier according to their circumstances. To rob the rich is a great offence, but to pillage the poor is far greater.
They take the widow’s ox for a pledge] Without which she cannot plough; or, her cow, as some render it, without which she and her children cannot live. A poor body’s livelihood is his life (as that poor widow’s was ïëïí ôïí âéïí , Mar_12:44, and the like is said of the haemorrhoisse, Luk_8:43), crush this snail in his shell, and you kill him. Now therefore albeit it be not unlawful to take a pledge for security in some cases; yet courtesy must be used, and mercy must be shown to orphans, widows, strangers, and such like, because they are God’s clients, and he hath taken them into his special care and tuition.