For I will no more pity - Therefore were they a “flock of the slaughter,” because God would “have no pity” on those who went after shepherds “who had no Pity” upon them, but corrupted them; who “entered not in themselves, and those who were entering in, they hindered” Luke 11:52.
The inhabitants of the land - “That land, of which he had been speaking,” Judaea. “And lo.” God, by this word, “lo,” always commands heed to His great doings with man; I, I, Myself, visibly interposing, “will deliver man,” the whole race of inhabitants, “every one into his neighbor’s hand,” by confusion and strife and hatred within, “and into the hand of his king,” him whom they chose and took as their own king, when they rejected Christ as their King, repudiating the title which Pilate gave Him, to move their pity. Whereas He, their Lord and God, was their King, they formally “denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go; they denied the Holy One and the Just” Acts 3:13-14, and said, “We have no king but Caesar” John 19:15.
And they - The king without and the wild savages within, “shall smite,” bruise, crush in pieces, like a broken vessel, “the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver” them. Their captivity shall be without remedy or end. Holy Scripture often says, “there is no deliverer Judges 18:28; 2 Samuel 14:6; Job 5:4; Psalms 7:3; Psalms 50:22; Psalms 71:11; Isaiah 5:29; Isaiah 42:22; Hosea 5:14, Micah 5:7-8, or “none can deliver out of My hand” Deuteronomy 32:39; Job 10:7; Psalms 50:22; Psalms 71:11; Isaiah 43:13; Daniel 8:4, Daniel 8:7, or, since God delighteth in doing good, I Exo 6:6; 2 Kings 20:6; Jeremiah 15:21; Jeremiah 39:17; Ezekiel 34:27, He 1 Samuel 7:3; Psalms 18:15; Psalms 72:12; 2 Kings 17:39; Isaiah 19:20; Isaiah 31:5; Job 5:19, will deliver, or delivered Exodus 18:10; Joshua 24:10; Judges 6:9; 1 Samuel 10:18; 1Sa 14:10; 2 Samuel 22:1; Psalms 34:5, Psalms 34:18; 54:9; Ezra 8:31; Jeremiah 20:13 from the hands of the enemy, or their slavery, or their own fears, or afflictions, or the like. God nowhere else says absolutely as here, “I will not deliver” . “Hear, O Jew,” says Jerome, “who holdest out to thyself hopes most vain, and hearest not the Lord strongly asserting, “I will not deliver them out of their hands,” that thy captivity among the Romans shall have no end.” In the threatened captivity before they were carried to Babylon, the prophet foretold the restoration: here only it is said of Judah, as Hosea had said of lsrael, that there should be no deliverer out of the hand of the king whom they had chosen.