watchmen over the walls

The haftarah for this past week contains the famous words (Yeshayahu 62:6):

עַל חוֹמֹתַיִךְ יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם הִפְקַדְתִּי שֹׁמְרִים כׇּל הַיּוֹם וְכׇל הַלַּיְלָה

Who are these shomrim that stand watch on the walls of Yerushalayim?  Rashi interprets based on Chazal that these are angels appointed by G-d to watch over the city.  Radak similarly writes  דרך הדרוש בזה ידוע, שהשומרים הם המלאכים, והם מתפללים לק-ל על ירושלים שישיבנה לישובה.  The Ibn Ezra puts a slight twist on the same idea and writes that the shomrim are the  אבלי ציון, who sit in mourning all day and all night.  However, what grabbed my attention is the pshat of the Metzudos: אלה השומרים כינוי על אבני ציון שאין להם עסק אחר כי אם יתמידו בבכי ואבל כשומרי החומות שאינם זזים מן השמירה  The watchmen are none other than the stones of Yerushalayim.  What came to my mind when I read that pshat is the huge stones that you see on the south side near the kotel, which remain fallen to the ground exactly as the landed when the Romans tumbled them down 2000 years ago.  Those stones still mourn the churban that they themselves experienced.

All of these interpretations read  שֹׁמְרִים as an analogy.  Just as watchmen never sleep, so too, the angels/mourners/stones never cease mourning.  Radak:  שומרי חומות ירושלים יהיו ערים ביום ובלילה תמיד, והשומרים הם דרך משל.  I think the word שֹׁמְרִים has perhaps a different connotation here, and is akin to its meaning in the pasuk  וְאָבִיו שָׁמַר אֶת הַדָּבָר (Braishis 37:11), which Rashi explains to mean היה ממתין מצפה מתי יבא.  It is not just hashgacha 24x7 which the pasuk is speaking about, but it is the anticipation of return.  The angels, the mourners, even the walls themselves, eagerly await a future where our return in complete, when our control over Yerushalayim is complete.