And he knew their desolate palaces,.... He took notice of the palaces or seats of the richest men of the nation, and pillaged them of their treasure and wealth, and so they became desolate: it may be rendered, he "knew their widows" : or, "his own widows"; whom he made so; he slew the men to get their substance into his hands, and then defiled their widows:and he laid waste their cities; by putting the inhabitants to death; or obliging them to leave them, and retire elsewhere, not being able to pay the taxes he imposed upon them, partly to support his own grandeur and luxury, and partly to pay the tribute to the king of Egypt:and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring; by his menaces and threatenings, edicts and exactions, he so terrified the inhabitants of the land, that though it was full of men and riches, it became in a great measure destitute of both; the people left their houses, both in city and country, and fled elsewhere with the remainder of their substance that had not fallen into his hands: his menacing demands being signified by roaring agrees with his character as a lion, to which he is compared, Pr 19:12.
wytwnmla edyw "et cognovit viduas ejus", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius; "viduas eorum", Vatablus, Starckius; so R. Joseph Kimchi. Which sense is approved by Gussetius, Ebr. Comment. p. 312. R. Jonah interprets it, "he broke their palaces"; so Calvin, and some in Vatablus, and R.
Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 96.