The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
Ver. 10. The field is wasted, the land mourneth] The sacrifices are not only cut off for present, but little hopes left for the future; for the field, that common storehouse, that horreum unde hauriatur, is wasted: Shuddad Sadeh, there is an elegant allusion in the original: as in the following words a personification not inferior to those of the poets, as Luther and Vatablus here note.
The land mourneth] By an ordinary metaphor among the Hebrews, those things are said to mourn that are wasted, desolated, corrupted, and changed for the worse. Lamentations 2:8, the rampart and the wall are said to lament, and to languish together. When Ephestion died, Alexander not only clipped his horses' and mules' hair, but plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city; because it should appear that the wails and ramparts did mourn for his death (Plutarch): so Isaiah 24:7, "The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry hearted do sigh." It is fit that if the land mourn and fail of her increase, men should much more mourn and be moved with a sense of their sins, the cause of such calamities. The earth lies under a curse of barrenness, at its best, Genesis 3:17, and was never so beautiful and cheerful since the fall of Adam. At this day it lieth bedridden, as it were, waiting for the coming of the Son of God, that it may be delivered from the bondage of corruption, Romans 8:20. But in times of dearth it seemeth to mourn more than ordinary, yea, to blush and bleed.
The new wine is dried up] Or is abashed; as loth to look men in the face, because not answerable to their expectation: see Isaiah 33:9 .
The oil languisheth] Or, is sick. Grain, wine, and oil are the main supports of man's life: all is gone.