Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
] This sometimes is the case of good men, who leave widows and fatherless children, whom the Lord shows mercy to; being the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widow, ( Psalms 68:5 ) , but sometimes it is threatened and comes as a judgment, when the Lord shows no mercy and favour to them, ( Exodus 22:24 ) ( Isaiah 9:17 ) . And this is the case here, which very probably was literally fulfilled in Judas, who might have a wife and children; since it looks as if the other apostles had, and certain it is that one of them had a wife, even Peter, in the times of Christ; see ( 1 Corinthians 9:5 ) ( Matthew 8:14 ) . And this was verified in the people of the Jews; whom the Lord divorced from himself, and wrote a "loammi" upon them, and left them as orphans and fatherless, ( Hosea 1:9 ) . This will never be the case of Christ's people, or the Christian church, ( John 14:18 ) , though it will be of the antichristian one, ( Revelation 18:7 Revelation 18:8 ) .