Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.
The cry of woe is grief over the backsliding of the people and over the wound that backsliding brings, a wound declared grievous. The sufferer owns the hurt as grief and accepts it as what must be borne, so turning from truth is set forth as a lamentable burden to be endured.
The verses that follow give the cause behind the lament and its result, that the pastors have not sought the Lord and therefore the flock is scattered. The same lament reaches to the rejection of Christ, when the leaders of Israel turned the people away from the truth.
The cry of woe is grief over the backsliding of the people and over the wound that backsliding brings, a wound declared grievous. The sufferer owns the hurt as grief and accepts it as what must be borne, so turning from truth is set forth as a lamentable burden to be endured.
The verses that follow give the cause behind the lament and its result, that the pastors have not sought the Lord and therefore the flock is scattered. The same lament reaches to the rejection of Christ, when the leaders of Israel turned the people away from the truth.