Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars. This was the punishment with which the unfruitful vineyard was threatened in Isaiah 5:6. It may be understood either literally or of the wickedness that would abound when the time of judgment came.
Yea, upon all the houses of joy (comp. Isaiah 5:9). If Sennacherib carried off, as he declares, more than two hundred thousand captives from Judaea, he must have left many houses without inhabitants.
The solitude begun by him was completed by the Babylonians. The joyous city (see Isaiah 22:2). The word used has generally the sense of unholy mirth (comp. Isaiah 23:7; Isaiah 24:8; Zephaniah 2:15; Zephaniah 3:11).