Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.
Ver. 6. Before their face the people shall be much pained] This is a confirmation of the former assertion. The people when they shall see those swarms of locusts, &c., mustering and marching in the air, they shall be much pained, as a travailing woman is, "pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them, their faces shall be as flames," Isaiah 13:8, for fear lest they should light on their country and lay all waste.
All faces shall gather blackness] Pallorem, paleness, so Castalio rendereth it; a blackish lead-like paleness, such as on sooty pots. The original here is, "hath gathered a pot," that is, by a metonymy, a pot-like blackness, Nigricantern colorem significat (Mercer). See Nah 3:10 Jer 30:6 Psalms 68:13, where, by blackness (such as slaves and scullions contract by lying among the pots, and smokey and sooty chimney corners), is set forth the exceeding great fear and affliction that God's people are often in and from whence he graciously promiseth to deliver them that trust in him. Such shall not "be afraid whose heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." It was fear that now caused (the natural heat and the blood retiring to the heart to receive it, as, in a sudden surprise, the soldiers run to the castle) paleness and blackness of face. It was hunger afterwards that burnt them, Deuteronomy 32:24, and made their visages blacker than a coal, as Lamentations 4:8, or, "darker than blackness," as the original hath it.