Isaiah 32:12

Isa 32:12 They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

Ver. 12. They shall mourn for the teats.] That is, for their grain and wine. The heathens called Ceres their goddess of plenty, πολυμασθον, Mammosam, full teated. Some sense it thus, Let them (infants) mourn for the teats denied them in this day of humiliation, {Jon 3:5-6} or so dried up that there is no milk for them. Others render it, Beating upon their breasts, Plangentes pectora palmis.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

By the teats he meaneth the plentiful fields, whereby men are nourished as children with the teat: or, the mothers for sorrow and heaviness shall lack milk.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

lament for . . . teats--rather, shall smite on their breasts in lamentation "for thy pleasant fields" (Nah 2:7) [MAURER]. "Teats" in English Version is used for fertile lands, which, like breasts, nourish life. The transition from "ye" to "they" (Isa 32:11-12) is frequent.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 12. They shall lament - for the pleasant fields - "Mourn ye for the pleasant field"] The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate read ספדו siphdu, mourn ye, imperative; twelve MSS., (five ancient,) two editions, the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Syriac, and Vulgate, all read שדה sadeh, a field; not שדי shedey, breasts.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(12) They shall lament for the teats . . .—Better, shall smite upon the breasts. The Hebrew nouns for “teats” and “fields,” Shâdaim and Sadè, have an assonance which may be represented by the Latin ubera and ubertas. In the renewed, unabated luxury of the women of Jerusalem Isaiah sees the precursor of another time of desolation like that which he had foretold before in the reign of Ahaz (Isa_7:24). “Thorns and briers” are again to take the place of the fair gardens in the outskirts of Jerusalem during the invasion of Sennacherib, as they had once before in that of Rezin and Pekah. The “houses of joy” are manifestly what we should call the stately villas of the rich.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. They shall lament for the teats] R.V. gives a better translation: they shall smite upon the breasts; but the construction is difficult. The verb is a masculine plural participle and signifies strictly “to mourn.” The word for “breasts” might by a slight change of points be read as “fields”; hence some commentators think that the reference to the women is here abandoned, and render, “men shall mourn for the fields.” If the R.V. is right we must suppose that the word “mourn” (like the Greek κόπτεσθαι) meant originally “smite upon (the breast)” and is here used in its literal sense. The clause would be somewhat more easily construed if read as the conclusion of Isa_32:11 (Duhm, “smiting on the breasts”), but even with this change the masculine gender is exceedingly harsh.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They shall lament for the teats,.... Either of the beasts of the field, that should be dried up, and give no milk, through the great drought that should be upon the land; or through the waste of the herbage by the enemy; or else of the women, their breasts and paps, which should afford no milk for their infants, through the famine that should press them sore, which would occasion great lamentation, both in mothers and children; though some think are to be understood of the fields, and are explained by them in the next clause; the fruitful earth being compared to a woman, its fields are like breasts or paps, which yield food and nourishment, but now should not afford any, and therefore there would be cause of lamentation. Jarchi interprets it, "they shall beat upon their breasts" (m) a gesture used in lamentation to express exceeding great grief and sorrow, Luk 18:13 some, because the word rendered "lament" is of the masculine gender, and so not applicable to women, render the words in connection with the preceding verse Isa 32:11 thus,

"gird sackcloth on your loins, and on your mourning breasts'' (n);

though they may be interpreted indefinitely, "there shall be lamentation for the teats", among all sorts of people, men, women, and children:

for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine; as the fields are when covered with corn and grass, and the vines with clusters of grapes, but now should not be, either through drought, or by being foraged and trampled on by the enemy.

(m) So it is explained in T. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 27. 2. (n) So Castalio.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

They shall lament for the teats - Interpreters have been not a little perplexed by this expression. Lowth supposes it is to be taken in connection with the previous verse, and that it denotes that sackcloth was to be girded upon the breast as well as upon the loins. Others have supposed that it denotes to ‘smite upon the breasts,’ as a token of grief; others, that the word ‘breast’ here denotes children by a synecdoche, as having been nourished by the breast, and that the women here were called to mourn over their children. But it is evident, I think, that the word breasts here is used to denote that which nourishes or sustains life, and is synonymous with fruitful fields. It is so used in Homer (Iliad, ix. 141), where οίθαρ ἀρούρης oithar arourēs denotes fertility of land. And here the sense doubtless is, that they would mourn over the fields which once contributed to sustain life, but which were now desolate. In regard to the grammatical difficulties of the place, Rosenmuller and Gesenius may be consulted.

The pleasant fields - Margin, as in Hebrew, ‘Fields of desire.’

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Mourn. Septuagint, "beat." (Haydock) --- Breasts, suckling infants. In mourning, women beat and uncovered their breasts, which, on any other occasion, would have been deemed very indecent. (Calmet) (Ezechiel xxiii. 34.) (Herodotus ii. 84.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

They shall lament for the teats; either,

1. Properly, because through famine your teats are destitute of milk for the nourishment of your poor children. Or rather,

2. Metaphorically, as the following words explain it,

for the pleasant and fruitful fields, which like teats yielded you plentiful and excellent nourishment, for which the land was said to flow with milk, Eze 20:6. And the earth being compared to the womb that bare us, Job 1:21, it is not strange if its fruitful fields be compared to the breasts which nourish us.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Lament, etc. — Better rendered, Smiting the breasts, as on funeral occasions.

Pleasant fields — The loss of these, and the loss of successive vintages, are the ground of lament. Desolation generally is to befal the proud daughters of Zion.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They shall lament for the teats, etc.; rather, they shall beat upon the breasts for the pleasant fields, etc. (so the LXX, the Vulgate, Jarchi, Gesenius, Ewald, Maurer, Knobel, Delitzsch, and Mr. Cheyne). Dr. Kay prefers the rendering of the Authorized Version, understanding by "the teats" such "dry breasts" as Hosea speaks of. (Hos_9:14) But nothing has been said in this place of any such affliction. For the pleasant fields, etc.; i.e. for their loss (see ver. 10).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The teats - For the pleasant and fruitful fields, which like teats yielded you plentiful and excellent nourishment.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Mourning for the breasts (or beating on the breasts as a sign of mourning), for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. The same act is described in Nah 2:8, but by a different verb.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

on the breasts, lamenting They shall beat their heart.

for the desirable fields For the fields of their desire. The Midrash Aggadah (See twenty-fourth poem to Lamentations Rabbah) states: For the sages of the Sanhedrin, who are like breasts that nurture, they will lament, and for the city of their desire that will be plowed up like a field, and for the fruitful - vine that is Israel, called a vine, as it is said (Psalms 80:9): “You plucked a vine out of Egypt.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

סופדים They shall lament. כל all is to be supplied. Comp. וכל הנשים יתנו and all women shall give. (Est. 1:20)

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.