Amos 8:13 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In this hopelessness as to all relief, those too shall fail and sink under their sufferings, in whom life is freshest and strongest and hope most buoyant. Hope mitigates any sufferings. When hope is gone, the powers of life, which it sustains, give way. “They shall faint for thirst,” literally, “shall be mantled over, covered” , as, in fact, one fainting seems to feel as if a veil came over his brow and eyes. “Thirst,” as it is an intenser suffering than bodily hunger, includes sufferings of body and mind. If even over those, whose life was firmest, a veil came, and they fainted for thirst, what of the rest?