And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.
When I heard this ... I rent my garment and my mantle ... - the outer and inner garment, which was a token not only of great grief, but of dread at the same time of the divine wrath; "plucked off the hair of my head and my beard," which was a still more significant sign of overpowering grief. In order to enter into the causes of this intense sorrow and disappointment, we must endeavour to realize the position of a devout patriot like Ezra, and remember that, though he anticipated many irregularities and disorders in Jerusalem, he was not at all prepared for the awful extent of their prevalence. 'That which a pious pilgrim to Rome, in the time of its most shameless corruptions, would experience, will illustrate the experience of this earnest and faithful Jew. The lamentations of such a pilgrim, when he witnessed that senselessness and profligacy which too plainly betokened the utter absence of any consciousness of their high and privileged position, in the persons who dealt at the earthly center of divine worship, and which, when actually present to him, was so much greater than anything for which rumour had prepared him, would, however, only faintly represent the disappointment and suffering on hearing and seeing what he did hear and see the notes at arriving in Jerusalem' (Drew, 'Scripture Studies,' p. 207).