And all the country wept with a loud voice,.... The people that came out of the country villages round about, upon the report of the king's leaving Jerusalem, because of his son's conspiracy against him; these wept when they saw him in the circumstances in which he was, obliged to fly from a rebellious son:
and all the people passed over; the people that were with David passed over Kidron, and so the Cherethites, and Pelethites:
the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron; this explains what place it was they passed over, which is not before mentioned, but is particularly named in the account of the king's passing over it; over which same brook the Messiah, his antitype, passed a little before his sufferings and death; of which brook, John 18:1. It is often by Josephus m called a valley, sometimes a brook, it having little water, except in winter; Mr. Maundrell n says, it ran along the bottom of the valley of Jehoshaphat, a brook in the wintertime; but without the least drop of water in it all the time, says he, we were in Jerusalem; and so Reland o, that in summertime it ceases to be a river, and has the name of a valley; and Le Bruyn says p, it is at present dried up; it runs along the valley of Jehoshaphat, and is not above three paces broad; it has no other but rain water, which flows from the adjacent hills:
and all the people passed over to the way of the wilderness; which lay between Jerusalem and Jericho.
m Antiqu. l. 8. c. 1. sect. 5. & l. 9. c. 7. sect. 3. De Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 2. sect. 3. c. 4. sect. 2. c. 6. sect. 1. n Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 102. o Palestin. Illustrat. tom. 1. p. 294, 351. p Voyage to the Levant, ch. 48. p. 188.