The elders. .. keep silence.
Overwhelming judgments
1. The wisest of God’s servants are at their wit’s end, or fall into despair, if they be deprived of their hope, in the promise of God’s assistance (Psalms 119:92).
2. Bodily exercises do profit to further lamentations in the day of heaviness, but are no part of God’s service in themselves.
3. The extremity of God’s judgments do for the time overwhelm God’s dearest children in the greatest measure of grief that can be in this life (Psalms 6:3; Psalms 22:1).
4. The most dainty ones are made to stoop when God’s hand is heavy upon them for their sins. (J. Udall.)