The elders, &c., sit upon the ground, and keep silence
These and the other expressions of this and the two following verses betoken the deepest mourning and sorrow. Mine eyes do fail with tears My sight is become dim with weeping. My bowels are troubled As they were when he foresaw these calamities coming, Jeremiah 4:19-20. My liver is poured upon the earth My vitals seem to be dissolved, and have lost all their strength. “That the mental passions.” says Blaney, “have a considerable influence upon the habit of the body in various instances, is a fact not to be questioned. And experience daily shows, that a violent uneasiness of mind tends greatly to promote a redundance and overflowing of vitiated bile. The liver is the proper seat of the bile, where its secretions are carried on. Hence the prophet's meaning in this place seems to be, that he felt as if his whole liver was dissolved and carried off in bile, on account of the copious discharge brought on by continual vexation and fretting. Job expresses the same thing, Job 16:13, where he says, He poureth out my gall upon the ground.” Because the children and sucklings swoon in the streets For want of sustenance. As the wounded As those who are not presently despatched, but die a lingering death. What thing shall I take to witness for thee? What instance can I bring of any calamity like thine, that such an example may be some mitigation of thy complaints. For thy breach is great, like the sea, &c. The breach made in thee is like the breaking in of the sea that overflows a whole country, where no stop can be put to the inundation.