But ten of the men among them said to Ishmael, “Do not kill us, for we have hidden treasure in the field—wheat, barley, oil, and honey!” So he refrained from killing them with the others.
We here see that the barbarity of Ishmael was connected with avarice, he was indeed inflamed with ferocious madness when he slew simple and innocent men; but when the hope of gain was presented to him, he spared some of them.
It is hard to say which is more astonishing, God's permitting or men's perpetrating such villanies as here we find committed. Such base, barbarous, bloody work is here done by men who by their birth should have been men of honour, by their religion just men, and this done upon those of their own nature, their own nation, their own religion, and now their brethren...
Commenting on Jeremiah 41:1-10
But ten men were found among them, that said unto Ishmael, slay us not,.... They begged for their lives, using what follows as an argument to prevail upon him: for we have treasures in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey; not that they had then a stock upon the ground at this time; for this being the seventh...