And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother.
Ver. 19. And he said to his father, My head, my head.] The sunbeams in that hot season of harvest had beaten hard upon his head, and made him sick. The Latins call a sick man Aegrum, from the pitiful moan he maketh, crying, Ai, Ai. a But what an undivine inference was that of the Bishop of Hereford in his sermon at Oxford upon this text, in the reign of Edward II - pursued at that time by his queen and son - that an aching and sick head of a kingdom was of necessity to be taken off, and no otherwise cured! b
Till noon, and then died.] The child was well, sick, and dead, and all in the space of four or five hours. A sore trial; and a fair warning to all parents not to love their little ones too much, lest God soon take away the earthly idol.
a ai, ai, vox dolentis.
b Dan., Hist., 216.