And I will lay it waste,.... Or "desolate", as it was by the Romans: the whole land of Judea, as well as the city and temple
it shall not be pruned nor digged; as vineyards are, to make them more fruitful; but no care shall be taken of it, no means made use of to cultivate it, all being ineffectual:
but there shall come up briers and thorns; sons of Belial, wicked and ungodly men; immoralities, errors, heresies, contentions, quarrels, c. which abounded about the time of Jerusalem's destruction, and before:
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon them by "the clouds" are meant the apostles of Christ, who were full of the doctrines of grace, from whom they dropped as rain upon the mown grass; these, when the Jews contradicted and blasphemed the Gospel, and judged themselves unworthy of it, were commanded by Christ to turn from them, and go to the Gentiles, Acts 13:45 agreeably to this sense is the Targum,
"and I will command the prophets, that they do not prophesy upon them prophecy.''