John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 10:2

"to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!" — Isaiah 10:2 (ASV)

To keep back. Others render it, to cause them to turn aside; but the true meaning is, to keep back the poor from judgment, or make them lose their cause. This is the iniquity and oppression which he had mentioned in the former verse, that the poor are deprived of their rights, and are robbed for the sake of the rich, and go away mocked from the judgment-seat, while everything is laid open to plunder.

He chiefly mentions the poor, because for the most part they are destitute of help and assistance. While magistrates and judges ought to have assisted them more than others, they allow themselves greater liberty, and indulge more contemptuously in oppressing them. Those who have wealth, or friends, or favor, are less liable to be oppressed; for they have arms in their hands to defend and even to revenge themselves.

But the Lord says that he takes special care of the poor (Exodus 22:23; Deuteronomy 15:9; Deuteronomy 24:15), even though they are commonly despised. He takes such care of them that he does not allow oppression inflicted on them to pass unpunished. For it is not without good ground that he calls himself the protector and defender of such persons (Psalms 68:5).

From this consideration, therefore, the poor and weak ought to derive consolation, and more calmly to endure distresses and afflictions, because they learn that God takes care of them, and will not permit any injustice done to them to pass unpunished.

The powerful and wealthy are at the same time warned not to take it as an incentive to sin that they have not been punished; for though no avenger is now seen, still the Lord will avenge, and will undertake the cause of those whom they imagined to be destitute of all assistance.