They have made it desolate. — The Hebrew is impersonal. “One has made it...,” i.e., it is made desolate. As in other poetry of strong emotion, the prophet dwells with a strange solemn iteration on the same sound — “desolate,” “desolate,” “desolate” — thrice in the same breath. The Hebrew word shemâma, so uttered, must have sounded like a wail of lamentation.
Because no man layeth it to heart. — Better, no man laid it... The neglect of the past was bearing fruit in the misery of the present.