Have respect unto the covenant. The "covenant" intended is probably that made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whereby Canaan was assured to their descendants, as "the lot of their inheritance." Israel is being deprived of its inheritance, and dragged off into "dark places."
Will not "respect for his covenant" induce God to interpose, and even now at the last gasp deliver his afflicted ones? For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. Israel is being dragged into "dark places of the earth"—benighted lands, where there is no glimmer of the light of God's truth—and lands, moreover, which are "full of habitations of cruelty," abodes, i.
e; where captives taken in war are treated with harshness and violence.