It will happen, if there remain ten men in one house, That they shall die.
"Hold thy peace, for we may not make mention of the name of Jehovah ..." A number of somewhat fanciful interpretations have been given to this, but it seems merely to indicate that all of the people at that late stage of their sorrow had at last recognized that their punishment was of God, and that it was God's judgment that was upon them.  The solicitation, therefore, not to invoke the name of God would have come from the fear that if God were aware of "any" survivor, he also would have been destroyed. That such a conception does not take account of the omniscience of God does not nullify it, for the very fault that led to Israel's destruction was their total failure to develop any adequate conception of the true nature of God.