24. For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

24. Et pudor (vel, probrum) voravit laborem patrum nostrorum a pueritia nostra, oves eorum et pecora eorum, filios eorum et filias eorum.

They confirm more fully the same complaint, -- That God had by manifest proofs shewed the sins of the nation; for he had consumed their labor, that is, whatever they had acquired by labor. He also adds sheep and cattle, and then sons and daughters He does not indeed ascribe this consumption to God; but the mode of speaking is more emphatic, when he says, Shame has consumed the labor of our fathers from our childhood: for by shame he understands wickedness, of which they ought to have been ashamed. The meaning then is, that all the evils they had endured could in no other way be accounted for, inasmuch as the whole was to be ascribed to their wickedness. Our shame, then, [96] that is, our wickedness, has consumed the labor of our fathers It follows --

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Footnotes:

[96] Rather, "And the shame," i e , the idol-worship, referred to in the preceding verse; the article h is prefixed to the noun. This is the view taken by Gataker and Blayney See Jeremiah 11:13; Hosea 9:10. -- Ed