Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 32:12

"They shall smite upon the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine." — Isaiah 32:12 (ASV)

They shall lament for the teats - Interpreters have been considerably perplexed by this expression. Lowth supposes it is to be taken in connection with the previous verse, and that it denotes that sackcloth was to be girded upon the breast as well as upon the loins. Others have supposed that it denotes to ‘smite upon the breasts,’ as a token of grief; others, that the word ‘breast’ here denotes children by synecdoche, as having been nourished by the breast, and that the women here were called to mourn over their children. But it is evident, I think, that the word ‘breasts’ here is used to denote that which nourishes or sustains life, and is synonymous with fruitful fields. It is so used in Homer (Iliad 9.141), where οίθαρ ἀρούρης oithar arourēs denotes fertility of land.

And here the sense doubtless is, that they would mourn over the fields which once contributed to sustain life, but which were now desolate. Regarding the grammatical difficulties of this passage, Rosenmuller and Gesenius may be consulted.

The pleasant fields - Margin, as in Hebrew, ‘Fields of desire.’