Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.
Ver. 12. There was a dead man] Though a young man. Our decrepit age both expects death and solicits it, but vigorous youth looks strangely upon that grim sergeant of God. Senibus mors in ianuis, adolescentibus in insidiis, (Bern.) Death seizeth on old men, and lays wait for the youngest.
Carried out] sc. Out of the city, for without the gates were the burying places of old, for fear of annoyance by ill air. Hence harlots were called moechae bustuariae, sluts of the tombs, because they were thrust out of the city to play their pranks, where the dead were buried, as being dead while they lived. (Turneb. Advarsar.)