Many houses shall be desolate, the people that should dwell in
them, being cut off by sword, famine, or pestilence, or carried into captivity;
or trade being dead, and poverty coming upon the country like an armed man,
those that had been housekeepers were forced to become lodgers, or shift for
themselves elsewhere. Even great and fair houses, that would invite tenants,
and (there being a scarcity of tenants) might be taken at low rates, shall
stand empty without inhabitants. God created not the earth in vain; he formed it to be inhabited, ch. 45:18.
But men’s projects are often frustrated, and what they frame answers not the
intention. We have a saying, That fools build houses for wise men to live in;
but sometimes, as the event proves, they are built for no man to live in. God
has many ways to empty the most populous cities. (Matthew
Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the
Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume [Peabody, Mass.:
Hendrickson, 1994], 1086-87)
