26 The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; empty, she shall sit on the ground.
26 The entrance gate to Zion will be clotted with people mourning their dead - A city stooped under the weight of her loss, brought to her knees by her sorrows.
26 Her gates shall lament and mourn, And she being desolate shall sit on the ground.
26 The gates of Zion will weep and mourn. The city will be like a ravaged woman, huddled on the ground.
4 The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish with the earth.
4 The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty
4 The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.
4 The earth turns gaunt and gray, the world silent and sad, sky and land lifeless, colorless. Earth Polluted by Its Very Own People
4 The earth mourns and fades away, The world languishes and fades away; The haughty people of the earth languish.
4 The earth mourns and dries up, and the land wastes away and withers. Even the greatest people on earth waste away.
(Read Isaiah 24:1-12)
All whose treasures and happiness are laid up on earth, will soon be brought to want and misery. It is good to apply to ourselves what the Scripture says of the vanity and vexation of spirit which attend all things here below. Sin has turned the earth upside down; the earth is become quite different to man, from what it was when God first made it to be his habitation. It is, at the best, like a flower, which withers in the hands of those that please themselves with it, and lay it in their bosoms. The world we live in is a world of disappointment, a vale of tears; the children of men in it are but of few days, and full of trouble, See the power of God's curse, how it makes all empty, and lays waste all ranks and conditions. Sin brings these calamities upon the earth; it is polluted by the sins of men, therefore it is made desolate by God's judgments. Carnal joy will soon be at end, and the end of it is heaviness. God has many ways to imbitter wine and strong drink to those who love them; distemper of body, anguish of mind, and the ruin of the estate, will make strong drink bitter, and the delights of sense tasteless. Let men learn to mourn for sin, and rejoice in God; then no man, no event, can take their joy from them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 3:26
Commentary on Isaiah 3:16-26
(Read Isaiah 3:16-26)
The prophet reproves and warns the daughters of Zion of the sufferings coming upon them. Let them know that God notices the folly and vanity of proud women, even of their dress. The punishments threatened answered the sin. Loathsome diseases often are the just punishment of pride. It is not material to ask what sort of ornaments they wore; many of these things, if they had not been in fashion, would have been ridiculed then as now. Their fashions differed much from those of our times, but human nature is the same. Wasting time and money, to the neglect of piety, charity, and even of justice, displease the Lord. Many professors at the present day, seem to think there is no harm in worldly finery; but were it not a great evil, would the Holy Spirit have taught the prophet to expose it so fully? The Jews being overcome, Jerusalem would be levelled with the ground; which is represented under the idea of a desolate female seated upon the earth. And when the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem, they struck a medal, on which was represented a woman sitting on the ground in a posture of grief. If sin be harboured within the walls, lamentation and mourning are near the gates.