Mourning and lamentation.
The description here given of the distress and mourning which took place upon the occasion of the downfall of Assyria is very poetical, and might appear exaggerated were we not able, by the aid of imagination, to place ourselves in the position of an observer at that critical epoch in the history of the world. It was necessary that Pharaoh and his people should be enabled to enter into the fate of Assyria in order that they might learn the warning intended to be conveyed by that awful event. It was the aim of Ezekiel to portray Assyria in all her glory and in all her desolation, in order to impress upon the
Egyptians the lesson which at that conjuncture it was so important, for them to lay to heart. The mourning raised over the one kingdom might speedily be required by the condition of the other.
I. THE CAUSE OF MOURNING. The immediate cause was the disaster which befell Assyria and the allied and dependent nations. But to those who looked beneath the surface there was a deep-seated cause in the sin by which the mighty kingdom and its rulers brought upon themselves a fate so calamitous and irreversible. Wherever there is lamentation it may be suspected that the ultimate explanation of it is sin.
II. THE MOURNERS. The prophet speaks of the mighty rivers and the terrible ocean, of the majestic trees of the forest, as taking part in this lamentation. The nations shook at the Sound of Assyria's fall, when it went down to Hades. The literal fact is this—that all spectators with intelligence to understand what had occurred, and with a nature susceptible of feeling, viewed the calamity with appreciative pity. It was a catastrophe never to be forgotten, and the compassion of those who witnessed it rose to sublimity.
III. THE EXTENT AND VASTNESS OF THE MOURNING. This is evident from the fact of the Divine intervention. "Thus saith the Lord God, I caused a mourning." There could then be nothing petty or trivial in it. Originating in the counsels of the Eternal, and diffused throughout the earth, and reaching to the gates of Hades, this lamentation was worthy of the event. And it certainly justifies us in making our own the sorrows, not of individuals alone, but of nations and of mankind. It is a Divine exercise so to sympathize. "In all their afflictions he is afflicted."
IV. THE PROFIT OF MOURNING. We are assured upon high authority that "it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting." It is a whole some and chastening discipline of the Soul. To mourn for our own faults is morally necessary. "They that lack time to mourn lack time to mend." But the case before the reader of this passage is that of mourning for the sins and the chastisement of humanity generally, and especially of the nations with whose experience we are personally conversant. A common sorrow binds hearts together, and enables men to realize their community. Grief over sin and its consequences is no inconsiderable protection against participation in the evil lamented.—T.