(7) The new wine mourneth.--Each feature takes its part in the picture of a land from which all sources of joy are taken away. The vine is scorched with the fire of the curse, there is no wine in the winepress, the song of the grape-gatherers (proverbially the type of the "merry-hearted") is hushed in silence.

Verse 7. - The new wine mourneth. Even when the joyous time of the vintage comes round, the earth is still sad, cannot shake off its depression or wake up to merriment. Even those most disposed to be "merry. hearted," under the dismal circumstances of the time can do nothing but "sigh."

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.The new wine mourneth,.... For want men to drink it, or because spilled by the enemy; or the inhabitants of the land mourn for want of it, not having their vintages as usual:

the vine languisheth; or is sickly, and so barren and unfruitful, does not bring forth its clusters of grapes as it used to do; there being none to prune it, and take care of it, and being trodden down by hostile forces. The Targum is,

"all that drink wine shall mourn, because the vines are broken down.''

So the Romish harlot, and those that have drank of the wine of her fornication, and have lived deliciously, shall have, in one hour, death, and mourning, and famine, Revelation 18:7,

all the merryhearted do sigh; such, whose hearts wine has formerly made glad, shall now sigh for want of it; and such who have lived deliciously with the whore of Rome, and have had many a merry bout with her, shall now bewail her, and lament for her, when she shall be utterly burnt with fire, Revelation 18:9.