3. They complain of the lamentable destruction that their enemies made of them (v. 47): Fear and a snare have come upon us; the enemies have not only terrified us with those alarms, but prevailed against us by their stratagems, and surprised us with the ambushes they laid for us; and then follows nothing but desolation and destruction, the destruction of the daughter of my people (v. 48), of all the daughters of my city, v. 51. The enemies, having taken some of them like a bird in a snare, chased others as a harmless bird is chased by a bird of prey (v. 52): My enemies chased me sorely like a bird which is beaten from bush to bush, as Saul hunted David like a partridge. Thus restless was the enmity of their persecutors, and yet causeless. They have done it without cause, without any provocation given them. Though God was righteous, they were unrighteous. David often complains of those that hated him without cause; and such are the enemies of Christ and his church, John xv. 25. Their enemies chased them till they had quite prevailed over them (v. 53): They have cut off my life in the dungeon. They have shut up their captives in close and dark prisons, where they are as it were cut off from the land of the living (as v. 6), or the state and kingdom are sunk and ruined, the life and being of them are gone, and they are as it were thrown into the dungeon or grave and a stone cast upon them, such as used to be rolled to the door of the sepulchres. They look upon the Jewish nation as dead and buried, and imagine that there is not possibility of its resurrection. Thus Ezekiel saw it, in vision, a valley full of dead and dry bones. Their destruction is compared not only to the burying of a dead man, but to the sinking of a living man into the water, who cannot long be a living man there, v. 54. Waters of affliction flowed over my head. The deluge prevailed and quite overwhelmed them. The Chaldean forces broke in upon them as the breaking forth of waters, which rose so high as to flow over their heads; they could not wade, they could not swim, and therefore must unavoidably sink. Note, The distresses of God's people sometimes prevail to such a degree that they cannot find any footing for their faith, nor keep their head above water, with any comfortable expectation.