Isaiah 32:12 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

They shall lament for the teats... — Better, shall smite upon the breasts. The Hebrew nouns for “teats” and “fields,” Shâdaim and Sadè, have an assonance which may be represented by the Latin ubera and ubertas. In the renewed, unabated luxury of the women of Jerusalem Isaiah sees the precursor of another time of desolation like that which he had foretold before in the reign of Ahaz (Isaiah 7:24). “Thorns and briers” are again to take the place of the fair gardens in the outskirts of Jerusalem during the invasion of Sennacherib, as they had once before in that of Rezin and Pekah. The “houses of joy” are manifestly what we should call the stately villas of the rich.