Jeremiah 14:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Judah mourneth The people of Judah and Jerusalem, here considered collectively, and represented as a mother oppressed with grief for the miseries which have come upon her children. And the gates languish, they are black “They are in deep mourning:” so Blaney, who observes, “The gates of cities, being places of public resort, where the courts of justice were held, and other common business transacted, seem here to be put for the persons wont to meet there; in like manner as when we say, ‘The court is in mourning,' we mean the persons that attend the court. So that by this passage we are to understand, that all the persons who appeared in public were dejected, and put on black, or mourning, on account of the national distress.” And the cry of Jerusalem is gone up Namely, to heaven: That is, the cry of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; of their sin and trouble, but not, as it seems, of their confessions, prayers, and supplications.