*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Her gates shall mourn and lament. Hence arises the mourning of the gates, which, he threatens, will take place when they have met with their calamities; for he means, that where there were great crowds and multitudes, nothing but a dismal solitude will be found. We know that at that time public meetings were held at the gates; and, therefore, as the gates sometimes rejoice at the multitude of citizens, so they are said to mourn on account of their frightful desolation. And yet I do not deny that he compares Jerusalem to a woman who is sad, and who bewails her widowhood; for it was customary with mourners to sit on the ground, as that nation was in the habit of using ceremonies and outward signs to a greater degree than would be consistent with our customs. But the sum of the matter is that the city will have lost her inhabitants.
And her gates - Cities were surrounded with walls, and were entered through gates opening into the principal streets. Those gates became, of course, the places of chief confluence and of business; and the expression here means, that in all the places of confluence, or amidst the assembled people, there should be lamentation on account of the slain in battle, and the loss of their mighty men in war.
And she - Jerusalem is often represented as a female distinguished for beauty. It is here represented as a female sitting in a posture of grief.
Being desolate, shall sit upon the ground - To sit on the ground, or in the dust, was the usual posture of grief and mourning, denoting great depression and humiliation; Lamentations 2:10; Lamentations 3:28; Jeremiah 15:17; Job 3:13; Ezra 9:3-5. It is a remarkable coincidence, that in the medals which were made by the Romans to commemorate the captivity of Judea and Jerusalem, Judea is represented under the figure of a female sitting in a posture of grief, under a palm tree, with this inscription - judea capta. The passage here, however, refers not to the captivity by the Romans, but to the first destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. It is a tender and most affecting image of desolation. During the captivity at Babylon, it was completely fulfilled; and for ages since, Judea might be appropriately represented by a captive female sitting pensively on the ground.
Sit upon the ground - Sitting on the ground was a posture that denoted mourning and deep distress. The prophet Jeremiah (Lamentations 2:8) has given it the first place among many indications of sorrow, in the following elegant description of the same state of distress of his country: -
"The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the ground, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed down their heads to the ground."
"We find Judea," says Mr. Addison, (on Medals, Dial. ii), "on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity. I need not mention her sitting on the ground, because we have already spoken of the aptness of such a posture to represent an extreme affliction. I fancy the Romans might have an eye on the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their country, in the several marks of sorrow they have set on this figure. The psalmist describes the Jews lamenting their captivity in the same pensive posture: 'By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion.' But what is more remarkable, we find Judea represented as a woman in sorrow sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet, that foretells the very captivity recorded on this medal." Mr. Addison, I presume, refers to this place of Isaiah; and therefore must have understood it as foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation by the Romans: whereas it seems plainly to relate, in its first and more immediate view at least, to the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, and the dissolution of the Jewish state under the captivity at Babylon. - L.
Several of the coins mentioned here by Mr. Addison are in my own collection: and to such I have already referred in this work. I shall describe one here. On the obverse a fine head of the emperor Vespasian with this legend, Imperator Julius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia Potestate Pater Patriae, Consul VIII.
On the reverse a tall palm tree, emblem of the land of Palestine, the emperor standing on the left, close to the tree, with a trophy behind him; on the right, Judea under the figure of a female captive sitting on the ground, with her head resting on her hand, the elbow on her knee, weeping. Around is this legend, Judea Capta. Senates Consulto. However this prediction may refer proximately to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, I am fully of opinion that it ultimately refers to the final ruin of the Jewish state by the Romans. And so it has been understood by the general run of the best and most learned interpreters and critics.
And her gates shall lament and mourn,.... These being utterly destroyed; or there being none to pass through them, meaning the gates of the city of Jerusalem:
and she being desolate; clear of inhabitants, quite emptied, and exhausted of men; being laid even with the ground, and her children within her, Luke 19:44.
shall sit upon the ground; being levelled with it, and not one stone cast upon another; alluding to the posture of mourners, Job 2:13. Our countryman, Mr. Gregory (k), thinks that the device of the coin of the emperor Vespasian, in the reverse of it, upon taking Judea, which was a woman sitting on the ground, leaning back, to a palm tree, with this inscription, "Judea Capta", was contrived out of this prophecy; and that he was helped to it by Josephus, the Jew, then in his court. The whole prophecy had its accomplishment, not in the Babylonish captivity, as Jarchi suggests, much less in the times of Ahaz, as Kimchi and Abarbinal suppose, but in the times of Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans.
(k) Notes and Observations, &c, p. 26, 27.
gates--The place of concourse personified is represented mourning for the loss of those multitudes which once frequented it.
desolate . . . sit upon . . . ground--the very figure under which Judea was represented on medals after the destruction by Titus: a female sitting under a palm tree in a posture of grief; the motto, JudÃ&brvbr;a capta (Job 2:13; Lamentations 2:10, where, as here primarily, the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar is alluded to).
that day--the calamitous period described in previous chapter.
seven--indefinite number among the Jews. So many men would be slain, that there would be very many more women than men; for example, seven women, contrary to their natural bashfulness, would sue to (equivalent to "take hold of," Isaiah 3:6) one man to marry them.
eat . . . own bread--foregoing the privileges, which the law (Exodus 21:10) gives to wives, when a man has more than one.
reproach--of being unwedded and childless; especially felt among the Jews, who were looking for "the seed of the woman," Jesus Christ, described in Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 54:1, Isaiah 54:4; Luke 1:25.
What the prophet here foretells to the daughter of Zion he sees in Isaiah 3:26 fulfilled upon her: "Then will her gates lament and mourn, and desolate is she, sits down upon the ground." The gates, where the husbands of the daughters of Zion, who have now fallen in war, sued at one time to gather together in such numbers, are turned into a state of desolation, in which they may, as it were, be heard complaining, and seen to mourn (Isaiah 14:31; Jeremiah 14:2; Lamentations 1:4); and the daughter of Zion herself is utterly vacated, thoroughly emptied, completely deprived of all her former population; and in this state of the most mournful widowhood or orphanage, brought down from her lofty seat (Isaiah 47:1) and princely glory (Jeremiah 13:18), she sits down upon the ground, just as Judaea is represented as doing upon Roman medals that were struck after the destruction of Jerusalem, where she is introduced as a woman thoroughly broken down, and sitting under a palm-tree in an attitude of despair, with a warrior standing in front of her, the inscription upon the medal being Judaea capta, or devicta. The Septuagint rendering is quite in accordance with the sense, viz., καὶ καταλειφθἠση μόνη καὶ εἰς την̀ γῆν ἐδαφισθήση (cf., Luke 19:44), except that תּשׁב is not the second person, but the third, and נקּתה the third pers. pret. niph. for נקּתה - a pausal form which is frequently met with in connection with the smaller distinctive accents, such as silluk and athnach (here it occurs with tiphchah, as, for example, in Amos 3:8). The clause "sits down upon the ground" is appended ἀσυνδἔτως - a frequent construction in cases where one of two verbs defines the other in a manner which is generally expressed adverbially (vid., 1-Chronicles 13:2, and the inverted order of the words in Jeremiah 4:5; cf., Isaiah 12:6): Zion sits upon the earth in a state of utter depopulation.
Gates - The gates of Zion or Jerusalem, which, by a figure, are said to lament, to imply the great desolation of the place; that there would be no people to go out and come in by the gates, as they used to do. Shall sit - Like a mournful woman bewailing the loss of her husband and children.
*More commentary available at chapter level.