Lamentations 3:34

All the prisoners of the earth— All the prisoners of the land. By "the prisoners of the land," I am persuaded are meant the poor insolvent debtors, whom their creditors among the Jews, as well as among other nations, were empowered to cast into prison, and oblige to work out the debt; a power too often exerted with great rigour and inhumanity. See Matthew 18:30; Matthew 18:34. The sufferings of these persons seem to be alluded to Isaiah 58:3 where the people asking with surprise, why their voluntary fastings and acts of self-mortification were so little noticed and regarded by God, receive for answer, that while they laid themselves under restraint in one point, they indulged their vicious passions and inclinations of different kinds, and shewed not that forbearance in their treatment of others, which they hoped to experience at the hand of God.