Won't the land tremble for this, And everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; And it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.
The question is unnecessarily retained, borrowed from the first line of the verse. It is seldom, if ever, that this is the case in Hebrew; it is not consistent with the simplicity of the language. It is evidently the earthquake that is here compared to the rising and subsiding of a river. I would therefore render the whole verse thus, — 