[As for] my people, children [are] their oppressors,.... Or rulers; for vgwn, in the Ethiopic language, signifies a king: or "exactors", as in Isa 60:17 princes are so called, because they exact tribute of their subjects, and sometimes in a tyrannical and oppressive manner, and so get the name of oppressors.
The sense is the same with Isa 3:4. The words may be rendered, "as for my people, everyone of their governors, is a child" ; not in age, but in understanding:and women rule over them, or "over him" ; either over the people of Israel, as Alexandra before Hyrcanus, and Helena queen of the Adiabenes; or over the child their governor, as women had great influence over their husbands, the governors of Judea, in those times, as Herodias, Bernice, and Drusilla; or it may be understood of men, weak, effeminate, and given to pleasure:O my people, they which lead thee: as the former may design their political governors, this their ecclesiastic rulers, who were to direct and lead them in the paths of religion and truth.
Some render the words, "who praise thee", as the Targum; "or bless you", or "call you blessed", as the Septuagint and Arabic versions, though guilty of the most flagitious crimes:cause [thee] to err, or wander from the way of God's commandments,and destroy the way of the paths, by turning them out of the right way; by enjoining them the traditions of the elders; by taking away the key of knowledge from them, and not suffering them to go into the kingdom of heaven, or attend the ministry of the Gospel and ordinances; as did the Scribes and Pharisees, who were blind leaders of the blind.
llwem wyvgn "exactorum ejus quisque parvulus est", Piscator.