But those of those who escape, they will escape and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity.
Parallel Translations
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But those of those who escape, they will escape and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity.
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But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.
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But they that shall at all escape of them, shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, every one in his iniquity.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 7:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezra 9:15 Yahweh, the God of Israel, you are righteous; for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guiltiness; for no one can stand before you because of this.”
- Isaiah 38:14 I chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security.”
- Isaiah 59:11 We all roar like bears and moan bitterly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far off from us.
- Isaiah 37:31 The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
- Zechariah 12:10-14 I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn. In that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. The land will mourn, every family apart; the family of David’s house apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart; all the families who remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.
- Ezekiel 6:8-9 “ ‘ “Yet I will leave a remnant, in that you will have some that escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
- Ezekiel 36:31 “ ‘ “Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
- Proverbs 5:11-14 You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed, and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor turned my ear to those who instructed me! I have come to the brink of utter ruin, among the gathered assembly.”
- Isaiah 1:9 Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah.
- Jeremiah 31:9 They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.
- Jeremiah 31:18-19 “I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God. Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’
- Jeremiah 44:14 so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’ ”
- Jeremiah 44:28 Those who escape the sword will return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah few in number. All the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will know whose word will stand, mine or theirs.
- Jeremiah 50:4-5 “In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God. They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet seems here to be at variance with…
The Prophet seems here to be at variance with himself, because he formerly pronounced them all devoted to destruction. How, then, does he now say that some should come hither and thither, to seek hiding-places in the mountains? But what seem at, variance easily agree, because by these words he means that the life of those who escaped should be more miserable than if they had perished by the sword, or had been consumed by pestilence and famine. And why so? They shall be, says he, in the mountains. By mountains he doubtless understands dry and desert places. But he who seeks hiding-places in the mountains is only anxious about preserving his life, since he expects not to live. So, therefore, the Prophet means, nothing can be more miserable than the exile of those who had escaped, because they would be in dry and desert places, like doves of the valleys, there they will not dare to cry out. He means, also, that they would be so timorous, that even in anxiety, want, and squalidness, and despair of all things, finally, in the heap of their miseries, they would groan as doves, and as doves of the valleys, that is, which hide themselves through fear, and dare not show themselves; unless, perhaps, the contrast increases the evil, as if he had said that they should be much more astonished, because the unaccustomed aspect of the place should strike them with greater fear. Now, therefore, we understand the Prophet’s meaning — if any should escape from the people, yet nothing else would happen through their flight, than that they should miserably protract their life in the greatest anxiety. For we know that this is the last solace in evils, when men complain freely, and unburden themselves by weeping and groaning. But when the wretched one dares not complain, he becomes as it were twice dead among the living. It follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 7:16 But they that escape of them shall…
Eze 7:16 But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.
Ver. 16. But they that escaped of them.] Here we have the mournful repentance of them that escaped, Fere autem fit ut, malo demure accepto, oculos aperiamus, saith Lavater here.
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All of them mourning, {a} every one for his iniquity.] Thus Hezekiah "mourned as a dove." {Isa 38:14} And we mourn sore like doves, saith the Church; {Isa 59:11} happy if it be every man for his iniquity, and not for the punishment of it only or mainly. See that it be a "sorrow according to God," a sorrow to a "transmentation." {2Co 7:10-11}
{a} המת eiulantes, ut pueri solent qui virgis coercentur.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain As we read the words they are a prediction,…
As we read the words they are a prediction, some shall escape, and a promise of some mercy in the escape. But if we read them as we may, And
flee ye that are escaped of them, in the imperative, they are a command to, or direction for, such as would escape, like that Jer 21:9.
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On the mountains; wandering out of their proper place, and uneasy, like doves that are frighted out of their nests, and fly among the wilder sort of doves, which give them trouble and danger, such will be the state of escaped ones among savage idolaters.
Mourning; bemoaning themselves, and making a mournful noise, Nah 2:7.
For his iniquity; either for the punishment of their iniquity, so the worst of those that escape; or for their iniquity, cause of their punishment, so the best among them; or for both together: the mourning, though on different motives, yet should be universal, every one weeping.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have attended the fate of those that are…
We have attended the fate of those that are cut off, and are now to attend the flight of those that have an opportunity of escaping the danger; some of them shall escape (Eze 7:16), but what the better? As good die once as, in a miserable life, die a thousand deaths, and escape only like Cain to be fugitives and vagabonds, and afraid of being slain by every one they meet; so shall these be.
I. They shall have no comfort or satisfaction in their own minds, but be in continual anguish and terror; for, wherever they go, they carry about with them guilty consciences, which make them a burden to themselves. 1. They shall be always solitary and under prevailing melancholy; they shall not be in the cities, or places of concourse, but all alone upon the mountains, not caring for society, but shy of it, as being ashamed of the low circumstances to which they are reduced. 2. They shall be always sorrowful. Those have reason to be so that are under the tokens of God's displeasure; and God can make those so that have been most jovial and have set sorrow at defiance. Those that once thought themselves as the lions of the mountains, so daring were they, now become as the doves of the valleys, so timid are they, and so dispirited, ready to flee when none pursues and to tremble at the shaking of a leaf. They are all of them mourning (not with a godly sorrow, but with the sorrow of the world, which works death), every one for his iniquity, that is, for those calamities which they now see their iniquity has brought upon them, not only the iniquity of the land, but their own: they shall then be brought to acknowledge what they have each of them contributed to the national guilt. Note, Sooner or later sin will have sorrow of one kind or other; and those that will not repent of their iniquity may justly be left to pine away in it; those that will not mourn for it as it is an offence to God shall be made to mourn for it as it is a shame and ruin to themselves, to mourn at the last, when the flesh and the body are consumed, and to say, How have I hated instruction! Pro 5:11, Pro 5:12. 3. They shall be deprived of all their strength of body and mind (Eze 7:17): All hands shall be feeble, so that they shall not be able to fight, or defend themselves, and all knees shall be weak as water, so that they shall neither be able to flee nor to stand their ground; they shall feel a universal colliquation: their knees shall flow as water, so that they must fall of course. Note, It is folly for the strong man to glory in his strength, for God can soon weaken it. 4. They shall be deprived of all their hopes and shall abandon themselves to despair (Eze 7:18); they shall have nothing to hold up their spirits with; their aspects shall show what are their prospects, all dreadful, for they shall gird themselves with sackcloth, as having no expectation ever to wear better clothing. Horror shall cover them, and shame, and baldness, all the expressions of a desperate sorrow, Isa 17:11. Note, Those that will not be kept from sin by fear and shame shall by fear and shame be punished for it; such is the confusion that sin will end in.
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II. They shall have no benefit from their wealth and riches, but shall be perfectly sick of them, Eze 7:19. Those that were reduced to this distress were such as had had abundance of silver and gold, money, and plate, and jewels, and other valuable goods, from which they promised themselves a great deal of advantage in times of public trouble. They thought their wealth would be their strong city, that with it they could bribe enemies and buy friends, that it would be the ransom of their lives, that they could never want bread as long as they had money, and that money would answer all things; but see how it proved. 1. Their wealth had been a great temptation to them in the day of their prosperity; they set their affections upon it, and put their confidence in it. By their eager pursuit of it they were drawn into sin, and by their plentiful enjoyment of it they were hardened in sin; and thus it was the stumbling-block of their iniquity; it occasioned their falling into sin and obstructed their return to God. Note, There are many whose wealth is their snare and ruin. The gaining of the world is the losing of their souls; it makes them proud, secure, covetous, oppressive, voluptuous; and that which, it well used, might have been the servant of their piety, being abused, becomes the stumbling-block of their iniquity. 2. It was no relief to them now in the day of their adversity; for, (1.) Their gold and silver could not protect them from the judgments of God. They shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not serve to atone his justice, or turn away his wrath, nor to screen them from the judgments he is bringing upon them. Note, Riches profit not in the day of wrath, Pro 11:4. They neither set them so high that god's judgments cannot reach them nor make them so strong that they cannot conquer them. There is a day of wrath coming, when it will appear that men's wealth is utterly unable to deliver them or do them any service. What the better was the rich man for his full barns when his soul was required of him, or that other rich man for his purple, and scarlet, and sumptuous fare, when in hell he could not procure a drop of water to cool his tongue? Money is no defence against the arrests of death, nor any alleviation to the miseries of the damned. (2.) Their gold and silver could not give them any content under their calamities. [1.] They could not fill their bowels; when there was no bread left in the city, none to be had for love or money, their silver and gold could not satisfy their hunger, nor serve to make one meal's meat for them. Note, We could better be without mines of gold than fields of corn; the products of the earth, which may easily be gathered from the surface of it, are much greater blessings to mankind than its treasures, which are with so much difficulty and hazard dug out of its bowels. If God give us daily bread, we have reason to be thankful, and no reason to complain, though silver and gold we have none. [2.] Much less could they satisfy their souls, or yield them any inward comfort. Note, The wealth of this world has not that in it which will answer the desires of the soul, or be any satisfaction to it in a day of distress. He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, much less he that loses it. (3.) Their gold and silver shall be thrown into the streets, either by the hands of the enemy, who shall have more spoil than they care for or can carry away (silver shall be nothing accounted of; they shall cast that in the streets; but the gold, which is more valuable, shall be removed and brought to Babylon); or they themselves shall throw away their silver and gold, because it would be an incumbrance to them and retard their flight, or because it would expose them and be a temptation to the enemy to cut their throats for their money, or in indignation at it, because, after all the care and pains they had taken to scrape it together and hoard it up, they found that it would stand them in no stead, but do them a mischief rather. Note, The world passes away, and the lusts thereof, Jo1 2:17. The time may come when worldly men will be as weary of their wealth as now they are wedded to it, when those will fare best that have least.
III. God's temple shall stand them in no stead, Eze 7:20-22. This they had prided themselves in, and promised themselves security from (Jer 7:4; Mic 3:11); but this confidence of theirs shall fail them. Observe, 1. The great honour God had done to that people in setting up his sanctuary among them (Eze 7:20): As for the beauty of his ornament, that holy and beautiful house, where they and their fathers praised God (Isa 64:11), which was therefore beautiful because holy (it was called the beauty of holiness, and holiness is the beauty of its ornament; it was also adorned with gold and gifts) - as for this, he set it in majesty; every thing was contrived to make it magnificent, that it might help to make the people of Israel the more illustrious among their neighbours. He built his sanctuary like high palaces, Psa 78:69. It was a glorious high throne from the beginning, Jer 17:12. But, 2. Here is the great dishonour they had done to God in profaning his sanctuary; they made the images of their counterfeit deities, which they set up in rivalship with God, and which are here called their abominations and their detestable things (for so they were to God, and so they should have been to them), and these they set up in God's temple, than which a greater affront could not be put upon him. And therefore, 3. It is here threatened that they shall be deprived of the temple, and it shall be no succour to them: Therefore have I set it far from them, that is, sent them far from it, so that it is out of the reach of their services and they are out of the reach of its influences. Note, God's ordinances, and the privileges of a profession of religion, will justly be taken away from those that despise and profane them. Nay, they shall not only be kept at a distance from the temple, but the temple itself shall be involved in the common desolation (Eze 7:21); the Chaldeans, who are strangers, and therefore have no veneration for it, who are the wicked of the earth, and therefore have an antipathy to it, shall have it for a prey and for a spoil; all the ornaments and treasures of it shall fall into their hands, who will make no difference between that and other plunder. This was a grief to the saints in Zion, who complained of nothing so much as of that which the enemy did wickedly in the sanctuary (Psa 74:3); but it was the punishment of the sinners in Zion, who, by profaning the temple with strange gods, provoked God to suffer it to be profaned by strange nations, and to turn his face from those that did it as if he had not seen them and their crimes and from those that deprecated it as not regarding them and their prayers. Let the soldiers do as they will; let them enter into the secret place, into the holy of holies, as robbers; let them strip it, let them pollute it; its defence has departed, and then farewell all its glory. Note, Those are unworthy to be honoured with the form of godliness who will not be governed by the power of godliness.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain All hands shall be feeble,.... No strength in them,…
All hands shall be feeble,.... No strength in them, to lay hold on weapons of war to defend themselves, or fight the enemy; no heart nor courage in them, to go forth and meet him; and even afraid to lift up their voice in mourning, lest they should be heard, and pursued, and taken:
and all knees shall be weak as water; tremble and beat one against another, for fear of the enemy; or,
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"shall flow with water,''
as the Targum; either with sweat or urine, which are sometimes both caused by fear.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Iniquity - Either for the punishment of their iniquity,…
Iniquity - Either for the punishment of their iniquity, or for their iniquity itself.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 16. They - shall be on the mountains…
Verse 16. They - shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys] Rather, like mourning doves הגאיות haggeayoth, chased from their dove-cotes, and separated from their mates.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eze 7:16-19. They that escape of them shall escape…
Eze 7:16-19. They that escape of them shall escape — This might be more intelligibly rendered, There are of them who shall escape; that is, “Some few shall have the favour of escaping the common calamity, called elsewhere the escaped, or the remnant, from whence is derived the phrase οι Σωζομενοι, in the New Testament, such as are, or should be, saved.” And shall be on the mountains like doves — Fearful and trembling, and bemoaning themselves on account of the calamities their sins have brought on them. All hands shall be feeble, &c. — Feebleness in the hands and knees is the consequence of the weakness and failing of the spirit. They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth — A general custom in the eastern countries in deep sorrows and distresses. Horror shall cover them — Or, has overwhelmed them, as the same phrase is translated Psa 55:5. Shame shall be upon all faces — The marks of confusion and misery shall be seen on all faces; and baldness upon all their heads — Either by their pulling off their hair amidst their sorrows, or cutting it off in token of mourning: see note on Jer 48:37. They shall cast their silver in the streets — Either that they may be lighter to flee, or to engage the enemy’s attention, and so to give themselves time to escape out of the city. And their gold shall be removed — Carried away to Babylon. Their silver and their gold shall not deliver — Shall not remove the distresses of the famine, or prevent their being carried into captivity. They shall not satisfy their souls — Shall not procure them food to satisfy their hunger, nor afford them any comfort. Because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity — This silver and gold, which they valued too much, coveted immeasurably, abused to the purposes of pride, luxury, oppression, and idolatry; this that they stumbled at, and fell into sin, now they stumble at, and fall into the deepest misery.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain As doves whose natural abode is the valleys moan…
As doves whose natural abode is the valleys moan lamentably when driven by fear into the mountains, so shall the remnant, who have escaped actual death, moan in the land of their exile.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Doves, not daring to vent their complaints. (Calmet)
Doves, not daring to vent their complaints. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain (Eze 6:6).
(Eze 6:6).
like doves--which, though usually frequenting the valleys, mount up to the mountains when fearing the bird-catcher (Psa 11:1). So Israel, once dwelling in its peaceful valleys, shall flee from the foe to the mountains, which, as being the scene of its idolatries, were justly to be made the scene of its flight and shame. The plaintive note of the dove (Isa 59:11) represents the mournful repentance of Israel hereafter (Zac 12:10-12).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 16. They that escape of them shall escape, and…
16. They that escape of them shall escape, and shall be — Rather, they that escape of them, if they escape, shall be. The sentence is conditional. If there are any who seem to escape from the threefold destruction (Eze_7:15), they shall escape only to mourn with an anguish worse titan death (Eze_7:17).
Like doves… mourning — The plaintive mourning (literally, moaning) of the dove has been noticed in all ages. The Babylonians as well as the Hebrews use this comparison. (Compare Isa_38:14; Isa_59:11.)
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For his iniquity — Literally, in his iniquity.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 16. Read: and when (if) they that escape of…
16. Read: and when (if) they that escape of them shall escape, they shall be upon the mountains.
mourning] This refers to the doves: the fugitives shall be on the mountains (seeking refuge) like doves of the valleys, all of which mourn. Isa_59:11, We moan all like bears, and mourn sore like doves; Eze_38:14, Like a swallow so did I chatter, I did mourn as a dove. The Arabic poets often refer to the mourning of the dove or ring-dove (Ḳumrî) as being like their own. See the citations of Ahlwardt, Chalef el Aḥmar p. 102 seq. Similarly in the Babylonian Penitential Psalms (Zimmern), Ps. 1:10, Like doves do I mourn; on sighs I feed myself; Psa_6:4; Psa_7:10.
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for his iniquity] Or, in; in the consciousness of it and its consequences.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (16) Like doves of the valleys.—To this general destruction…
(16) Like doves of the valleys.—To this general destruction there will be exceptions, as generally in war there are fugitives and captives; but these, like doves whose home is in the valleys driven by fear to the mountains, shall mourn in their exile. In the mourning “every one for his iniquity,” iniquity is to be understood in the sense of the punishment for iniquity; the thought of repentance is not here brought forward. Their utter discouragement and feebleness and grief are further described in Eze_7:17-18.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain They that escape, etc. The sentence is virtually conditional.…
They that escape, etc. The sentence is virtually conditional. They that escape shall, it is true, in one sense, escape the immediate doom; but if so, it shall only be to the mountains. These were, in all times (Gen_19:17; Jud_1:6:2; 1Sa_13:6; Psa_11:1 RAPC 1Ma 2:28; Mat_24:16; Mar_13:14) the natural refuge for those who fled from danger, but even this should fail those of whom the prophet speaks. They should be like the doves of the mountain gorges, that are fluttered at the appearance of the eagle or the fowler, and seem by note (Isa_38:14 Isa_59:11) and gesture, (Nah_2:7) to be mourning forevermore. There also they shall lie, every man in his iniquity, and wailing for its punishment. We are reminded of Dante"s similitudes in "Inf.," 5:40, 46, 82.
Mourning as doves.
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The fugitives from Jerusalem flee to the mountains and hide themselves there, like the doves in the valleys below, whose melancholy notes seem to be a suitable echo to their own sad feelings.
I NATURE INTERPRETS MAN TO HIMSELF. There is an interpretation of nature by man; there is also an interpretation of man by nature. The glad sights and sounds of spring are commentaries on the fresh joyousness of youth. We should not know the hope and beauty of life so well if May never came. So, also, storm, night, winter, desert, mountain, and raging torrent open the heart of man"s grief and despair, and reveal its desolation. The key to human passion is there. Wordsworth, the prophet of nature, who saw deepest into her secret, discerned among the woods and hills "the still, sad music of humanity.
II SORROW IS RELIEVED BY CONGENIAL SCENES OF NATURE. The mourning exiles will note the melancholy tones of the doves of the valley. To the happy these sounds come as a touching variation from the generally pleasing aspect of nature; but to the sorrowful fugitives among the mountains they express the sympathy of nature. It is well to cultivate this sympathy, which is not all imaginative; "for there is a spirit in the woods." and hills and valleys are filled with a Divine presence.
III IN THE SECLUSION OF NATURE THE DEEPER FEELINGS OF THE SOUL FIND VENT. While among the mountains the exiles utter their lamentations. In the city, scenes of warfare, bloodshed, fury, and terror absorb all attention. These are the immediate and the coarser experiences in a season of great calamity. For the time they destroy the power of reflection. But in solitude and silence men have leisure to think. Then the sadness of the soul wakes up, and takes the place of the agitation and distress of external circumstances.
IV THE SORROW OF MAN IS DEEPER THAN THE MELANCHOLY OF NATURE, While the doves coo in plaintive notes that suggest to the hearer a feeling of grief, though they are not really mourning, the exiles from Jerusalem respond to the natural notes of the doves with utterances of true sorrow. Man is greater than nature. He has self-consciousness and conscience. He knows his trouble and he knows his sin. He pays the penalty of his higher endowments in the greater depth of his fall and shame and sorrow. The whole range of nature"s experiences is slight by the side of the lofty aspirations and profound griefs of nan. Going from the one to the other is like leaving the soft, undulating landscape of England for the cliffs and chasms and dark valleys and the awful mountain peaks of Switzerland. The chief difference is moral. Man alone has conscience; he only can mourn for sin. This grief for sin and not merely grief on account of its penalties is one of the deepest experiences of the human heart. It puts leagues of space between the men who mourn like doves, and the innocent, simple birds whose notes suggest a grief they can never feel. But in this deeper grief is man"s hope. Mourning for sin is a part of repentance, and it points to the day of better things, when God has forgiven his guilty children, and when the mourning doves will be forgotten, and the singing of the lark at heaven"s gate will be the key to a new experience of heavenly gladness.
Mourning.
This chapter has justly been termed rather a dirge than a prophecy. Whilst its language is in some respects special to the experience of the children of Israel, such representations as this may well be applied to all those who have forsaken God, and have turned every man to his own way.
I THERE IS ABUNDANT OCCASION FOR MOURNING ON THE PART OF THOSE WHO HAVE SINNED AND WHO ENDURE THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN.
II IT IS ONLY A NATURE IN SOME MEASURE SENSITIVE AND SUSCEPTIBLE OF BETTER FEELING WHICH IS CAPABLE OF MOURNING. How truly has it been said that "the worst of feeling is to feel all feeling die"! "They that lack time to mourn lack time to mend.
III MOURNING FOR SIN IS MINGLED WITH SELF-REPROACH AND HORROR. They who mourn because they have lost what was precious to them, especially because they have been bereaved of such as they held dear, may mourn tranquilly and holily, and with a patient submission to the will of God. but they who "mourn, every one for his iniquity," cannot but feel conscience stricken because of their personal participation in sin, and their personal guilt for sin; they cannot but accuse themselves, and pass judgment, as it were, upon their own wrong doing and folly.
IV SUCH MOURNING IS AGGRAVATED BY THE NUMBER OF THOSE PARTICIPATING IN IT. The prophet compares the conscience stricken remnant, distressed and weeping because of their own and their nation"s iniquities, to a flight of doves uttering their doleful lamentations. It is no exceptional, singular case; multitudes are involved in the common fate, the common trouble. The feeling is heightened by sympathy. When all heads are bowed in confession, when the utterance of contrition rises from many afflicted hearts, when a contagion of sorrow and distress passes through a vast congregation of humble and penitent worshippers, each is the better able to realize his own and the common distress, and to unburden the over-laden heart.
V SINCERE MOURNING MAY LEAD TO TRUE REPENTANCE, AND MAY ISSUE IN NEWNESS or LEFT. There is a "godly sorrow which worketh repentance a sorrow which is not only or chiefly because of the painful results of sin, but because of the very evil itself which is in sin, and because it is an offence against a forbearing and gracious God. Where such sorrow is, there can be no despair. The rainbow of hope spans the cloud, dark and heavy though it be. T.
Vers. 16-22. Fallacious deliverance.
Flight is not deliverance. If the invading army is God"s army, no escape is possible, save in submission. We cannot elude God"s detectives. Lonely mountains, no more than crowded cities, serve as an asylum, if God be our Foe. As we cannot get beyond the limits of his world, neither can we get beyond the reach of his sword.
I THEIR MISERY. They may escape, for a moment, sword wounds and bodily captivity; yet they have not escaped from inward distress and wretchedness. Exposure to hunger and cold and nakedness on the mountains is scarcely to be preferred to violent death. God, the real Avenger, has smitten them in their flight. Their senseless cowardice has added to their pain. Even though they live, they are dishonoured among men. The heathen nations will point at them with a finger of scorn. The common moralities of men reflect, though it be feebly, the just displeasure of God. Honour is lost, though life is yet continued.
II THEIR REMORSE. Tears are on all faces, and sorrow is an occupant of every breast. Yet it is a selfish sorrow, which bears the fruit of death. It is not repentance, it is only remorse. Had this sorrow earlier come, and had it sprung from a better motive, it would have availed to deliver them. They mourn, not because they have sinned, but because their sin has been found out. When retribution comes, repentance is impossible.
III THE COLLAPSE OF FALSE TRUST. In the day of their prosperity they had made their riches their trust. They reposed their faith in idols of silver instead of the living God. For gold they imagined they could hire mercenaries or buy the favour of kings. Such wealth as theirs seemed to them an impregnable security. They could make gates of brass and towers of iron. Yet how sudden and how complete was the collapse of their proud hope! Their gold, instead of a protection, became a snare. It attracted the cupidity of their foes. As hounds scent the prey, so foreign soldiers scented from afar Israel"s riches. The gold and silver lavished on Jehovah"s temple drew, like a magnet, the avarice of the Babylonian king! To rely on material possessions is to rely on a broken reed is to slumber on the edge of a volcano.
IV THEIR RELIGIOUS DEGRADATION. Their temple had been their pride; now it shall be their shame. They had gloried in its external beauty, and had forgotten that the Lord of the temple is greater than the building. They had neglected the spirituality of worship, and had profaned the holy place with human inventions and with idolatrous symbols. In their folly they had deemed it politic to set up, side by side with Jehovah, the shrines of other deities. But their policy was rotten. It was based on atheistic selfishness. And new the profanation they had commenced shall be completed by their foes. They had admitted a trickling stream of idolatry into the temple; now it shall become a flood. Thus God makes our sins to become our punishments; at length they sting like hornets, they bite like adders. Once our sin lasted like a sweet morsel; when once in the veins it works like poison. Rebellion is but a seed, of which retribution is the rife fruit.
V THE CLIMAX OF DISASTER IS GOD"S DEPAPRTURE. "My face will I turn also from them." This is the crowning disaster, the bitter dregs of misery, the knell of doom. If, in our hour of crushing affliction, God would turn towards us as a Friend, the wheel of ill fortune would be reversed; all loss would be recovered. If he would only move upon our hearts with his mighty grace, and reduce our self-will and pride, disaster would be changed into dowry, night into day. The hurtling clouds would burst into showers of blessing. But when God departs, the last ray of hope departs, and man"s prospects set in blackest night. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.