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The next sin which our apostle convicts the rich of, and condemns them for, is the sin of oppression, and that of the worst sorts, even of labourers and servants; their covetousness was the cause of this oppression. There is no sin so heinous and base but covetousness may be a mother or a nurse to it: What more sordid than for the rich master to detain the wages of the poor labourer? Yet, Behold the hire of the labourers crieth: though they did not, durst not complain, yet their hire kept back did complain.
Learn hence, that as all oppression is very sinful, so especially the detaining of the labourers' wages when their hire is delayed or denied, both are exceeding sinful; and accordingly we find oppressors in Scripture joined with the vilest of sinners, even with sorcerers, adulterers, and false swearers.
And to testify that God cannot want witnesses against oppressors, he tells us, their hire shall cry as well as the poor themselves: "The beam, and the stone out of the wall shall cry," Hab_2:11.
Remember we then that secret wrongs are known to God; the poor may not always know who wrongs them, but the Lord fully knows, and their wrongs and oppressions will cry against us, when they know not against whom to cry.
And note, the person gloriously described, who is the poor's avenger; he is the Lord of Sabaoth, or the Lord of hosts, who has all power in his hand, and all creatures at his command. How bold and daring then is the oppressor to afflict the poor, who have the Lord of hosts for their avenger? Their cry is entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.