Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. 2 Howl, fir-tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty is spoiled: howl, O ye oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down. 3 There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds: for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions: for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
The thirty pieces of silver, mentioned in this Chapter as the price given for the Almighty Speaker in this Chapter, serves for a key to open and explain the rest. And as the passage is expressly applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Evangelist, we cannot err, if we accept the whole Chapter as principally referring to him. Opening the doors of Lebanon, meaning the Church, serves to shew that the hand of the Lord was in the judgments of Jerusalem. Those gates, which were forever shut against receiving the truths of Jesus, shall now be opened to destruction. But, though this may be, and no doubt is, in relation to temporal things, suited to the description of that event, yet an higher spiritual sense is the first and great object; intended to be conveyed. The heart is to be opened by grace, or broken by judgment. A spirit of judgment, and a spirit of burning, are the great means the Lord makes use of, to melt the hard heart of sinners, and to consume the lusts and affections. Howling, distress, and anguish of soul, will always attend these divine operations, Isaiah 4:4.