The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedars.
Ver. 10. The bricks are fallen down.] Not thrown down by Providence, but fallen down by fate or blind fortune. God is not so far honoured as once to be owned by these atheists, who think they can make their party good against him, and mend what he had marred, whether he would or not. Thus this giant-like generation; and the like impiety is in the corrupt nature of us all. For "as in water face answereth to face, so doth the heart of a man to a man," saith Solomon. Pro 27:19
The sycamores are cut down, &e.] Another proverbial speech to the same purpose. Sycamores were then very common in that country, and little set by. 1Ki 10:27 Now they are not to be found there, saith Jerome, as neither are cedars in Lebanon.