The gate - The gate was the place for public gatherings, for conversation, and the music of stringed instruments.

The elders have ceased from the gate - There is now no more justice administered to the people; they are under military law, or disposed of in every sense according to the caprice of their masters.

The elders have ceased from the gate,.... Of the sanhedrim, or court of judicature, as the Targum; from the gate of the city, where they used to sit and try causes; but now there was nothing of this kind done:

the young men from their music; vocal and instrumental; the latter is more particularly specified, though both may be intended; neither were any more heard; their harps were hung upon the willows on the banks of Euphrates, which ran through the city of Babylon, Psalm 137:1.

The elders have ceased from the {h} gate, the young men from their music.

(h) There were no more laws nor form of commonwealth.

14. Aged men in the East meet in the open space round the gate to decide judicial trials and to hold social converse (Job 29:7, 8).

5:1-16 Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him who bare our sins in his own body on the tree.