These two {q} things have come to thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?

(q) Of which the one is outward as of the things that come to the body, as war, and famine and the other is inward, and belongs to the mind: that is, to be without comfort: therefore he says How will you be comforted?

Wesley's Notes

51:19 These things - Those which follow, which tho' expressed in four words, may fitly be reduced to two things, the desolation or devastation of the land, and the destruction of the people by famine and sword. So famine and sword are not named as new evils, but only as the particular ways of bringing the destruction. By whom - I cannot find any man who is able to comfort and relieve thee.

King James Translators' Notes

are...: Heb. happened

destruction: Heb. breaking

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. two-classes of evils, for he enumerates four, namely, desolation and destruction to the land and state; famine and the sword to the people.

who shall be sorry for thee-so as to give thee effectual relief: as the parallel clause, "By whom shall I comfort thee?" shows (La 2:11-13).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

51:17-23 God calls upon his people to mind the things that belong to their everlasting peace. Jerusalem had provoked God, and was made to taste the bitter fruits. Those who should have been her comforters, were their own tormentors. They have no patience by which to keep possesion of their own souls, nor any confidence in God's promise, by which to keep possession of its comfort. Thou art drunken, not as formerly, with the intoxicating cup of Babylon's idolatries, but with the cup of affliction. Know, then, the cause of God's people may for a time seem as lost, but God will protect it, by convincing the conscience, or confounding the projects, of those that strive against it. The oppressors required souls to be subjected to them, that every man should believe and worship as they would have them. But all they could gain by violence was, that people were brought to outward hypocritical conformity, for consciences cannot be forced.