And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
Ver. 12. And the land shall mourn] Not the generality of the Jews (unless it be at their last general conversion, that resurrection from the dead, as it is called, Rom 11:15), but the elect according to grace, who are here called the land, because more esteemed by God than all the other Jews besides; for he reckoneth of men by their righteousness, as he did of Lot at Sodom.
Every family apart] To show the soundness of their sorrow, the sincerity by the secrecy; for Ille dolor vere qui sine teste dolor. He grieves with a witness that grieves without a witness. There is a worldly sorrow that hardeneth the heart, and indisposeth it for repentance; as did that of Nabal. There is also a hellish sorrow, a desperate grief for sin, poenitentia Iscariotica, as was that of Judas. There is no birth without travail; but some children die in the birth, are killed with the pains of the labour. Lastly, there is a sorrow according to God (η κατα Yεον λυπη, 2Co 7:10), whereby we weep kindly after God, inquiring the way to Zion, with our faces set thitherward, and renewing our covenant, Jeremiah 50:4,5 "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned," saith David, Psalms 51:4. Lo, there lay this pinch of his grief, that he had offended so good a God. It was the myrrh and its scent that Christ had dropped on the bars of the door, that waked the drowsy spouse, and made her bowels fret, Cant. v. This made her first weep in secret, and then seek out after him whom her soul loved. She first went to inquire of the Lord, as Rebecca did, Genesis 25:22, and then she hears from him those sweet words, Song of Solomon 2:14 "O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rocks," that hast wrought thyself a burrow, a receptacle of rest in the Rock of Ages, "in the secret places of the stairs," whither thou art retired, as for security so for secrecy, to mourn as a dove, and to pray for pardon. Show me thy face, which now appeareth most orientally beautiful, because most instamped with sorrow for sin; "let me hear thy voice," which never sounds so melodiously as when thy heart is broken most penitentially; "for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance comely."
And their wives apart] Sarah had her peculiar tent, Genesis 24:67, wherein she dwelt, Genesis 18:6, and died, Genesis 23:2. Rebecca, likewise, had her retiring room, whither she went to inquire of the Lord, Genesis 25:22. Rachel and Leah had their several tents, apart from Jacob's, Genesis 31:33. Miriam and her women do apart by themselves praise God for deliverance, Exodus 15:20 "I and my maidens will fast likewise," saith Esther, Esther 4:16. In a time of solemn humiliation, "let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet," Joel 2:16. See 1 Corinthians 7:5. Among both Jews, Greeks, and Romans, the women were separated from the men in public acts and assemblies, in times of common calamity especially, as may be gathered out of Plutarch, Athenaeus, Virgil, Livy. Stratae passim Matres crinibus Templa verrentes, veniam irarum coelestium exposcant, saith he; The men by themselves, and the women by themselves, sought to appease the angry gods - ad templum non aequae Palladis ibant Iliades - (Virg.). Here they are severed, to show that they wept not for company, sed sponte et proprio affectu, as Calvin hath it, but of their own accord, and out of pure affection; they freely lamented, not so much for Christ's dolorous death, as for that themselves had a chief hand in it, and were the principal causes of it. The best kind of humiliation is to love and weep, as that woman did, Luke 7:38, who made her eyes a fountain to wash Christ's feet in, and had his side opened for a fountain to wash her soul in, as it is Zechariah 13:1 .