But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.
Ver. 14. But I scattered them with a whirlwind] This is the second part of their punishment. The first was no audience or help from heaven at their greatest need, Zechariah 7:13. This was the curse of Saul, 1 Samuel 28:15; of Moab, Isaiah 16:12; of David's enemies, Psalms 18:41. The next now is, they were dejected and dissipated, as the dust of the mountains before a whirlwind; cast out of their native soil, and carried, they knew not whither, with a great and fearful dispersion and discerption of the same body and nation.
Thus the land was desolate after them] This is the third degree of their grievous punishment, their land laid utterly waste and desolate; according to that, "God turneth a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein," Psalms 107:34. Here a learned expositor observeth a wonderful providence, that this pleasant country, left thus destitute of inhabitants, and compassed about with warlike nations, was not invaded and replanted by foreigners for seventy years' time; but enjoyed her sabbaths, resting from tillage and all other employments.
For they laid the pleasant land desolate] They, by their sins, rather than the Babylonians by their armies, did all this spoil, as Daniel also confesseth, Daniel 9:16, and Nehemiah, Nehemiah 1:8. Sin is the great mischief-maker, hell-hag, a trouble maker, that hurled confusion over the world at first, and brings desolation still to pleasant countries. Palestine was very pleasant, not more by the nature of the soil than by God's special blessing; a land that he had espied out for them, flowing with milk and honey, which was the glory of all lands, Ezekiel 20:6. This land they had laid desolate, or for an astonishment, as some render it; or for an In qua quid? as Montanus reads it, What is here? Nothing of its old pleasantness.
a A diabolical or vile woman. ŒD