Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 32:12

They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

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 ) 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.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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 oithar aroures 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.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

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

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

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.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. lament for . . . teatsrather,shall smite on their breasts in lamentation “for thy pleasantfields” (Na 2:7) [MAURER].”Teats” in English Version is used for fertilelands, which, like breasts, nourish life. The transition from”ye” to “they” (Isa 32:11;Isa 32:12) is frequent.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

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, Lu 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.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

12. Mourning over the breasts. This verse is explained in various ways. Some understand it to mean simply, that there will be so great a scarcity of provisions, that women will lose their milk, and thus the children will “mourn over dry breasts;” which we see sometimes happen, when a very great scarcity of provisions occasions leanness. But the more generally received and more appropriate interpretation is, to view the word “breasts” as figuratively denoting fields and vineyards, as the Prophet himself declares; for they are justly compared to the breasts of mothers, because, by deriving nourishment from them, we suck the milk or blood of the earth. He therefore means that there will be a want of food and nourishment, because the Lord will curse the earth, so that it shall yield no fruits. Thus shall men sigh over that scarcity, as if over their mother’s “breasts,” from which they formerly received delicious nourishment. This appears to me to be a more natural meaning, and to agree best with the context; for it serves to explain what afterwards follows, about “rich fields and the fruitful vine.” (340)

(340) Bogus footnote

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(12) They shall lament for the teats . . .Better, shall smite upon the breasts. The Hebrew nouns for teats and fields, Shdaim and Sad, 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.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

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.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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, , 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.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)