Verse 14
They have wandered as blind men in the streets ,.... That is, the false prophets and wicked priests; and may be understood either literally, that when the city was taken, and they fled, they were like blind men, and knew not which way to go to make their escape, but wandered from place to place, and could find no way out; or spiritually, though they pretended to great light and knowledge, yet were as blind men, surrounded with the darkness of ignorance and error, and were blind leaders of the blind:
they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments ; or, "could not but touch it with their garments" F3 בלא יוכלו יגעו בלבושיהם "quem non possunt, quin tangent vestimentis suis", "Junius & Tremellius. ; or, "might not" F4 "Tangebant eum (nempe sanguinem) vestibus eorum quem non potuerunt", i.e. "jure", Gataker. ; it was not lawful for them to do it: the sense is either, that, which way soever these men took to make their escape, they found so many dead carcasses in the streets, and such a profusion of blood by them, that they could not but touch it with their garments; or being besmeared with it, were so defiled, that others might not touch them, even their garments; or these men had defiled themselves with the shedding of the blood of righteous persons; so that they were odious to men, and they shunned them as they would do anything that by the law rendered them in a ceremonious sense unclean, and therefore said as follows:
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