We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

We roar all like bears, and moan sore like doves: we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us.

We roar all like bears, and mourn grievously like doves: we look for judgment, and there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

We all roar like bears, and mourn bitterly like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

We make a noise as bears, all of us, And as doves we coo sorely; We wait for judgment, and there is none, For salvation, it hath been far from us.

We make noises of grief, like bears, and sad sounds like doves: we are looking for our right, but it is not there; for salvation, but it is far from us.

We all growl like bears, And mourn sore like doves; We look for right, but there is none; For salvation, but it is far off from us.

We will all roar like bears, and we will sigh like despondent doves. We hoped for judgment, and there is none; for salvation, and it is far from us.

Nos onmes quasi ursi vociferamur; et quasi columbrae susurrando susurramus. Expectavimus judicium, et non apparet; salutem, et longe stetit a nobis.

We all roar like bears. He describes two classes of those who cannot silently endure their afflictions without making them known by external signs; for some howl fiercely, and others moan like doves. This latter metaphor was employed by him in describing the groans of Hezekiah, (Isaiah 38:14;) and this happens when we endeavor to restrain our grief, and yet cannot prevent the outward signs of grief from breaking out in spite of us. The meaning is, that sometimes the violence of their grief constrained them to utter loud cries, and sometimes they complained in low and murmuring sounds, but in both cases without avail, because their condition was not changed for the better. We looked for judgment. He again repeats that in vain they "looked for judgment and salvation," meaning that the people were deprived of the assistance of God, which he desired above all things; and he makes use of the word salvation, in order to describe more fully and completely what he formerly denoted by the word "justice," and now again by the word "judgment." Thence infer that it is by our own fault that we are wretched, and grow old and waste away in our wretchedness, till we are converted to God. We may indeed moan and howl, but can obtain no alleviation of our grief without repentance. There can be no end of our afflictions, so long as we provoke the Lord's wrath, and do not desire with the whole heart to be reconciled to him.

We roar all like bears - This is designed still further to describe the heavy judgments which had come upon them for their sins. The word rendered here 'roar' (from המה hâmâh, like English, to hum, German, hummen, spoken of bees), is applied to any murmuring, or confused noise or sound. It sometimes means to snarl, as a dog Psalm 59:7, Psalm 59:15; to coo, as a dove Ezekiel 7:16; it is also applied to waves that roar Psalm 46:4; Isaiah 51:15; to a crowd or tumultuous assemblage Psalm 46:7; and to music Isaiah 16:11; Jeremiah 48:36. Here it is applied to the low growl or groan of a bear. Bochart (Hieroz. i. 3. 9), says, that a bear produces a melancholy sound; and Horace (Epod. xvi. 51), speaks of its low groan:
Nee vespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile.
Here it is emblematic of mourning, and is designed to denote that they were suffering under heavy and long-continued calamity. Or, according to Gesenius (Commentary in loc.), it refers to a bear which is hungry, and which growls, impatient for food, and refers here to the complaining, dissatisfaction, and murmuring of the people, because God did not come to vindicate and relieve them.
And mourn sore like doves - The cooing of the dove, a plaintive sound, is often used to denote grief (see Ezekiel 7:16; compare the notes at Isaiah 38:14).
We look for judgment - (See the notes at Isaiah 59:9.)

But it is far off from us "And it is far distant from us" - The conjunction ו vau must necessarily be prefixed to the verb, as the Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate found it in their copies; ורחקה verachakah, "and far off."

We all roar like (i) bears, and mourn bitterly like doves: we look for judgment, but [there is] none; for salvation, [but] it is far from us.
(i) We express our sorrows by outward signs, some more and some less.

We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves,.... Some in a more noisy and clamorous, others in a stiller way, yet all in private: for the bear, when robbed of its whelps, goes to its den and roars; and the dove, when it has lost its mate, mourns in solitude: this expresses the secret groanings of the saints under a sense of sin, and the forlorn state of religion. The Targum paraphrases it thus,
"we roar because of our enemies, who are gathered against us as bears; all of us indeed mourn sore as doves:''
we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us; we expect that God will take vengeance on our enemies, and save us; look for judgment on antichrist, and the antichristian states, and for the salvation of the church of God; for the vials of divine wrath on the one, and for happy times to the other; but neither of them as yet come; the reason of which is as follows.

roar--moan plaintively, like a hungry bear which growls for food.
doves-- (Isaiah 38:14; Ezekiel 7:16).
salvation--retribution in kind: because not salvation, but "destruction" was "in their paths" (Isaiah 59:7).

Mourn - Their oppressing governors made the wicked roar like bears, and the good mourn like doves.