*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Mourning over the breasts. This verse is explained in various ways. Some understand it to mean simply, that there will be so great a scarcity of provisions, that women will lose their milk, and thus the children will "mourn over dry breasts;" which we see sometimes happen, when a very great scarcity of provisions occasions leanness. But the more generally received and more appropriate interpretation is, to view the word "breasts" as figuratively denoting fields and vineyards, as the Prophet himself declares; for they are justly compared to the breasts of mothers, because, by deriving nourishment from them, we suck the milk or blood of the earth. He therefore means that there will be a want of food and nourishment, because the Lord will curse the earth, so that it shall yield no fruits. Thus shall men sigh over that scarcity, as if over their mother's "breasts," from which they formerly received delicious nourishment. This appears to me to be a more natural meaning, and to agree best with the context; for it serves to explain what afterwards follows, about "rich fields and the fruitful vine." [1]
1 - "It may be better translated, striking your breasts, because of the pleasant fields and fruitful vines, which should be destroyed by the Assyrians. It was a common gesture used on all mournful occasions, to strike the breasts; though others think teats may be taken metaphorically for the pleasant fields and fruitful vine by which they subsisted, as infants by the mother's paps." -- Samuel White
They shall lament for the teats - Interpreters have been not a little perplexed by this expression. Lowth supposes it is to be taken in connection with the previous verse, and that it denotes that sackcloth was to be girded upon the breast as well as upon the loins. Others have supposed that it denotes to 'smite upon the breasts,' as a token of grief; others, that the word 'breast' here denotes children by a synecdoche, as having been nourished by the breast, and that the women here were called to mourn over their children. But it is evident, I think, that the word breasts here is used to denote that which nourishes or sustains life, and is synonymous with fruitful fields. It is so used in Homer (Iliad, ix. 141), where οίθαρ ἀρούρης oithar arourēs denotes fertility of land. And here the sense doubtless is, that they would mourn over the fields which once contributed to sustain life, but which were now desolate. In regard to the grammatical difficulties of the place, Rosenmuller and Gesenius may be consulted.
The pleasant fields - Margin, as in Hebrew, 'Fields of desire.'
They shall lament - for the pleasant fields "Mourn ye for the pleasant field" - The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate read ספדו siphdu, mourn ye, imperative; twelve MSS., (five ancient), two editions, the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Syriac, and Vulgate, all read שדה sadeh, a field; not שדי shedey, breasts.
They shall lament for the (i) breasts, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
(i) By the breasts he means the plentiful fields, by which men are nourished as children with the breast: or, the mothers for sorrow and heaviness will lack milk.
They shall lament for the teats,.... Either of the beasts of the field, that should be dried up, and give no milk, through the great drought that should be upon the land; or through the waste of the herbage by the enemy; or else of the women, their breasts and paps, which should afford no milk for their infants, through the famine that should press them sore, which would occasion great lamentation, both in mothers and children; though some think are to be understood of the fields, and are explained by them in the next clause; the fruitful earth being compared to a woman, its fields are like breasts or paps, which yield food and nourishment, but now should not afford any, and therefore there would be cause of lamentation. Jarchi interprets it, "they shall beat upon their breasts" (m) a gesture used in lamentation to express exceeding great grief and sorrow, Luke 18:13 some, because the word rendered "lament" is of the masculine gender, and so not applicable to women, render the words in connection with the preceding verse Isaiah 32:11 thus,
"gird sackcloth on your loins, and on your mourning breasts'' (n);
though they may be interpreted indefinitely, "there shall be lamentation for the teats", among all sorts of people, men, women, and children:
for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine; as the fields are when covered with corn and grass, and the vines with clusters of grapes, but now should not be, either through drought, or by being foraged and trampled on by the enemy.
(m) So it is explained in T. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 27. 2. (n) So Castalio.
lament for . . . teats--rather, shall smite on their breasts in lamentation "for thy pleasant fields" (Nahum 2:7) [MAURER]. "Teats" in English Version is used for fertile lands, which, like breasts, nourish life. The transition from "ye" to "they" (Isaiah 32:11-12) is frequent.
The teats - For the pleasant and fruitful fields, which like teats yielded you plentiful and excellent nourishment.
*More commentary available at chapter level.