Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Ver. 1. Oh that mine head were waters.] Mira sermonis transfiguratione utitur propheta, A wonderful wish of this weeping prophet, and to be taken up by God's faithful ministers, considering the woeful condition of their perishing people, posting to perdition. Pia est illa tristitia, et si dici potest, beata miseria, Appease this sadness and if able to be said, bless this woe, saith Augustine; a this is a sweet sorrow, a blessed misery. Such waters will be turned into wine, at the wedding day of the Lamb; for which purpose also they are kept safe in God's bottle. Psa 56:8
And mine eyes a fountain of tears.] That there might be a perennity of them. The same word in Hebrew signifieth both an eye and a fountain; both because the eye is of a watery constitution, and for that our eye should trickle down and not cease for our own and other men's sins and miseries. Lam 3:49 Athanasius by his tears, as by the bleeding of a chaste vine, is said to have cured the leprosy of that tainted age. b
a Epist. 545.
b Proborum virorum lachrymae sunt peccatorum diluvium, et mundi piamentum - Nazianzen, Orat. 3.