Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.
Ver. 8. Therefore I will wail and howl] Good men are usually more deeply affected with the wretched estate of wicked persons than they themselves are. Thus Samuel mourned for Saul's rejection; Daniel was astonished and troubled at the import of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Daniel 4:19; Habakkuk's belly trembled, and his lips quivered, at the consideration of the judgments that were to come upon the Chaldeans, Habakkuk 3:16. Do we so (saith Mr Perkins) at other men's smartings?
I will go stripped] Tam mente quam veste, rending off my garments, and casting them from me, as if bereft of my wits: Pro demente vel insane quidam accipiunt, saith Calvin here. See Isaiah 59:15, with the margin, and Isaiah 20:2 .
I will make a wailing like the dragons] Which, sucking the elephant's blood till he fall down dead upon them and oppress them with his huge bulk, make a horrible howling; so horrible (saith Palacius out of Pliny and Solinus) that they amaze, yea, kill those that hear it. Fides sit penes autores.
And mourning as the owls] Heb. as the daughters of the owl, or of the ostrich. Young ostriches cast off by their dams, Job 39:14 Lamentations 4:3, and hunger bitten, howl pitifully, as do also the young ravens for like cause, Psalms 147:9. Of the ravens of Arabia it is recorded, that, full gorged, they have a tuneable sweet song; but empty, screech horribly. By these similitudes here used the prophet would express his grief to be unexpressible.