The people rouse one another to exertion. “Why,” they ask, “do we remain here to be overwhelmed?” They are ready now to follow the command given (see the marginal reference), but with the conviction that all hope is over.
Let us be silent there - Rather, let us perish there, literally “be put to silence.”
Water of gall - i. e., poison. The word rendered “gall” was probably the belladonna, or night-shade, to the “berries” of which the grapes of Israel were compared.