What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?
Ver. 5. What will ye do in the solemn day, &c.] q.d. How will ye do to laugh and leap then, as ye do now? Hosea 9:1. How will you be able to support yourselves, to keep your hearts from dying within you, when you call to mind and consider your former solemnities and festivities, which now (alas!) in your captivity you are utterly deprived of? There was a time when you went with the multitude to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day, Psalms 42:4, with dancing, eating, drinking, and joy, Deu 16:14-15 Judges 21:19,20. But now the scene is altered; your singing is turned into sighing, your mirth into mourning, your joy into heaviness; and you must needs hold yourselves so much the more miserable, that you have been happy. The epicures indeed held that a man might be cheerful against the most exquisite torments: 1. In consideration of his honesty and integrity; 2. In consideration of those pleasures and delights that formerly he had enjoyed; and now cheered himself up with the remembrance of them (Ex praeteritarum voluptatum recordatione. Cic. de Finib. 1. 2. Senec. de Benef. 1. 4, c. 22.). This last is a very slight and sorry comfort indeed. The former hath much in it; for a good man keeps every day holy day, said Diogenes; and can be merry without music, saith another philosopher. He hath a merry heart, or good conscience, which is a continual feast; and is bound to "rejoice evermore," 1 Thessalonians 5:16, and to keep the feast in all countries, 1 Corinthians 5:8, the calendar of his whole life is crowned with continual festivals (εορταζωμεν); and he is the happiest man, and may be the merriest, if he but understand his own happiness. But this, alas! was not the case of these woeful caitiffs and captives. They had sinned away all their comforts; and with the sad remembrance of their former enjoyments, and with the sense of their present sevitude, they had little mind to keep holy day. Hence this passionate exclamation, "What will ye do," &c.? God had threatened before, Hosea 2:11, to take away their feast days, new moons, sabbaths, and solemnities; but they heeded him not, tanquam monstra marina Dei verba surda aura praeterierunt; therefore now God fulfilleth what he had forethreatened, and calleth, as in a solemn day, his terrors round about them, Lamentations 2:22. What they were wont to do in their solemn days and festivals may be seen, Numbers 10:10; what we do, or should do, at least, upon our Lord's Day sabbaths (the delight of every good soul) we need not be told. Let us take heed, lest by profane violation or careless observing that holy rest, with all its solemnities, we deprive not ourselves (as these Israelites did) of such a precious privilege. God gave us a good warning, in that the first blow given the German Churches was upon the sabbath day; which is there so ill sanctified, that if it should be named according to their deserving of it, Daemoniacus potius quam Dominicus, the Devil is greater than God, saith Alsted, it should be called not the Lord's day, but the priest's day rather. It is very remarkable, that upon that day was Prague lost, and with it all opportunity of hearing, singing, public praying, communicating, on that high and honourable day, Isaiah 58:13 .