11 Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
As with Moab Jeremiah 48:47, and Ammon Jeremiah 49:6, so there is mercy for Edom. The widows shall be protected, and in the orphans of Edom the nation shall once again revive.
Leave thy fatherless children - The connection of this with the context is not easy to be discerned; but, as a general maxim, it is of great importance. Widows and orphans are the peculiar care of God. He is as the best of fathers to the one, and the most loving of husbands to the other. Even the widows and orphans of Esau, who escape the general destruction, shall be taken care of by the Lord.
Leave thy (m) fatherless children, I will preserve [them] alive; and let thy widows trust in me.
(m) The destruction will be so great that there will be none left to take care of the widows and the fatherless.
Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive,.... Leave them with me; commit them to my care; I will provide for them; they shall have food and raiment, and want nothing to make them comfortable: to have such a friend or friends, promising such things to a man, when he is obliged to flee and leave his family, or is at the point of death, serves to make him easy; but there would be none left of the Edomites to say such kind words, or do such a friendly part. Some think they are the words of God, either spoken ironically or seriously; suggesting that they should have no children or widows to leave, all should be destroyed; or, if any left, they could not expect that he would take care of them, whom they had so provoked; or that such would be their miserable case, unless he had mercy on them, and took care of their fatherless children, there would be none to do it. Others think it respects a remnant of the Edomites that should be preserved, and be converted to Christ in Gospel times. The Targum takes them to be an address to the people of Israel, paraphrasing them thus:
"you, O house of Israel, your orphans shall not be left, I will sustain them, and your widows shall trust in my word:''
which last clause we render,
let your widows trust in me; which, could they be considered as the words of God, agree well with him, who is the Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the widows, Psalm 68:5; and a great encouragement to persons, in such circumstances, to place their confidence in him; and it must be right so to do.
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 (compare Jeremiah 49:12).
*More commentary available at chapter level.