Would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.
Ver. 13. Would ye tarry for them?] Heb., Hope. The Hebrew word that signifieth hope, signifieth a line: because by hope the heart is stretched out as a line, to the thing it hopeth for.
Till they were grown.] Children are not to be married till mature and marriageable.
Nay, my daughters,] q.d., If you mean to marry at all, marry in due time, and defer not too long. Every Jew at this day is bound to marry before he is twenty years old, else he is looked upon as one that liveth in sin.
For it grieveth me much.] I have much bitterness: "remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall." Lam 3:19 But did not Naomi herself cast this gall into God's cup, by her impatiency and excess of grief? which yet was much mitigated, no doubt, when she considered that it was -
The hand of the Lord that was gone out against her.] That her afflictions befell her not by fate or blind fortune. Among philosophers the most noted sect for patience was that of the Stoics, who ascribed all to fate. God's people have better comforts. Virtus lecythos habet in malis.