26 The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
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.
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.