Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 1:1
How doth the city sit solitary, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the nations, [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she become tributary!
1. How ] The Heb. ( ’Ekhh), which occurs also at the commencement of chs. 2 and 4, as well as in Lam 1:2 of the latter, and may well have been a word introductory to funeral dirges, has supplied the Hebrew name for this Book, the custom of naming the Books of the Bible by the first word being a common one with the Jews.
sit solitary ] as emptied by the departure of the captives, and deserted by her friends, and by God Himself. Cp. this fate as foretold for her in Isa 3:26.
a widow ] The meaning here is not, as might be suggested by such passages as Jer 2:2, that Jehovah was her Husband and has now been lost. The point is that her condition resembles that of a widow inasmuch as she is exposed to penury and oppression in the absence of any to protect her. Cp. the boast of Babylon in Isa 47:8.
provinces ] This name is used in one passage (1Ki 20:14-19) of the Israelitish districts, apparently those referred to in 1Ki 4:7, and afterwards frequently of satrapies of the Persian empire (Est 1:1, etc.), and is used in the singular of Judaea itself in Ezr 2:1; Ezr 5:8; Neh. 1:30, Neh 7:6, Neh 11:3. Here apparently it is simply equivalent to countries, nations.
tributary ] a vassal. The original word implies bond-service. Cp. Jdg 1:3, R.V. mg., and for an account of the Heb. word Driver’s Heb. Text of Samuel, p. 267.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1, 2. Lhr points out as special characteristics of this ch. the writer’s yearning for revenge, and also his full recognition of the sin of his own time as well as of earlier generations. Lam 1:1 for metrical considerations should be arranged in three approximately equal lines; “she nations” forming the second part of the second line.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In these two verses is the same sad image as appears in the well-known medal of Titus, struck to celebrate his triumph over Jerusalem. A woman sits weeping beneath a palm-tree, and below is the legend Judaea capta.
Translate Lam 1:1 :
How sitteth solitary the city that was full of people:
She is become as a widow that was great among the nations:
A princess among provinces she is become a vassal.
Tributary – In the sense of personal labor Jos 16:10.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lam 1:1
That was fall of people!
Reverses of fortune
The picture in this verse is strong by contrasts: solitary, and full of people; a widow, once a queen great among the nations; a princess receiving homage, now stooping in the act of paying tribute to a higher power.
No nest is built so high that Gods lightning may not strike it. To human vision, it certainly does appear impossible that certain estates can ever be turned to desolation; the owners are so full of health and high spirits, and they apparently have so much reason to congratulate themselves upon the exercise of their own sagacity and strength, that it would really appear as if no bolt could shatter the castle of their greatness. Yet that castle we have teen torn down, until there was not one stone left upon another. We are only strong in proportion as we spend our strength for others, and only rich in proportion as we invest our gold in the cause of human beneficence. The ruins of history ought to be monitors and guides to those who take a large view of human life. Is not the whole of human history a succession of ruins? Where is Greece? Rome? proud Babylon? the Seven Churches of Asia? We do not despair when we look at the ruins which strew antiquity; we rather reason that certain institutions have served their day, and what was good in them has been transferred into surviving activities. In the text, however, we have no question of ruin that comes by the mere lapse of time. Such ruin as is here depicted expresses a great moral catastrophe. Judah did not go into captivity because of her excellency or faithfulness; she was driven into servitude because of her disobedience to her Lord. What was true of Judah will be true of every man amongst us. No man can sin, and prosper. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Changes in the outward estate of the Church
1. God often alters the outward estate of His Church in this world.
(1) That He may daily declare Himself the disposer and governor of all things.
(2) To take from us all occasions of promising ourselves any certainty here. Therefore let us prepare ourselves to all conditions (Php 4:11-12); settle our affections on heaven and the things that lead thereto.
2. It is our duty to strive with ourselves to be affected with the miseries of Gods people (2Ch 11:28-29). For we are fellow members of one body, whereof Christ is the Head (1Co 12:25-26).
(1) This reproves those who seek only their own good.
(2) It teaches us to put on tender compassion and labour to profit the whole Church and every member thereof.
3. God sometimes giveth His Church an outward estate that flourisheth both in wealth and peace.
(1) That He may give His peoples taste even of all kinds of earthly blessings (Deu 28:2; Psa 84:11).
(2) That they may have all opportunity to serve Him, and every kind of encouragement thereto.
4. The outward flourishing state of Gods Church lasts not always, but is often changed into affliction and adversity.
5. God often changes the condition of His servants in this life from one extreme to another. Joseph; Job; Israel
(1) That His mighty power may appear to all
(2) That we may learn to ascribe all to Him.
6. It is a great blessing of God for a nation to be populous (Gen 12:2).
7. God often makes His people in their prosperity most admired of all.
(1) That He may show Him, self to love His servants.
(2) That the godly may know that godliness is not without reward.
(3) That the wicked may have all excuse taken from them, in that they are not allured by such notable spectacles of Gods love to them that fear Him.
8. God often humbles His servants under all His foes and their adversaries, because of their disobedience to His word (Deu 28:36).
(1) This shows us how great Gods anger is for sin.
(2) This teaches us not to measure the favour of God towards ourselves or others by the blessings or adversities of this life. (J. Udall.)
How is she become as a widow!—
Desolation
It would not be just to read into the image of widowhood ideas collected from utterances of the prophets about the wedded union of Israel and her Lord; we have no hint of anything of the sort here. Apparently the image is selected in order to express the more vividly the utter lonesomeness of the city. It is clear that the attribute solitary has no bearing on the external relations of Jerusalem–her isolation among the Syrian hills, or the desertion of her allies, mentioned a little later (Lam 1:2); it points to a more ghostly solitude, streets without traffic, tenantless houses. The widow is solitary because she has been robbed of her children. And in this, her desolation, she sits. The attitude, so simple and natural and easy under ordinary circumstances, here suggests a settled continuance of wretchedness; it is helpless and hopeless. The first wild agony of the severance of the closest natural ties has passed, and with it the stimulus of conflict; now there has supervened the dull monotony of despair. It is a fearful thing simply to sit in sorrow. The mourner sits in the night, while the world around lies in the peace of sleep. The darkness has fallen, yet she does not stir, for day and night are alike to her–both dark. In this dread night of misery her one occupation is weeping. The mourner knows how the hidden fountains of tears which have been sealed to the world for the day will break out in the silent solitude of night; then the bravest will wet his couch with his tears. The forlorn woman weepeth sore; to use the expressive Hebraism, weeping she weepeth. Her tears are on her cheeks; they are continually flowing; she has no thought of drying them; there is no One else to wipe them away. This is not the frantic torrent of youthful tears, soon to be forgotten in sudden sunshine, like a spring shower; it is the dreary winter rain, falling more silently, but from leaden clouds that never break. The woe of Jerusalem is intensified by reason of its contrast with the previous splendour of the proud city. This thought of a tremendous fall gives the greatest force to the portrait. It is Rembrandtesque; the black shadows on the foreground are the deeper because they stand sharply out against the brilliant radiance that streams in from the sunset of the past. The pitiableness of the comfortless present lies in this, that there had been lovers whose consolations would now have been a solace; the bitterness of the enmity now experienced is its having been distilled from the dregs of poisoned friendship. Against the protests of her faithful prophets Jerusalem had courted alliance with her heathen neighbours only to be cruelly deserted in her hour of need. It is the old story of friendship with the world, keenly accentuated in the life of Israel because this favoured people had already seen glimpses of a rich, rare privilege, the friendship of heaven. This is the irony of the situation; it is the tragic irony of all Hebrew history. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
Chronological notes relative to the Book of the Lamentations
– Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3416.
– Year of the Jewish era of the world, 3173.
– Year from the Deluge, 1760.
– First year of the forty-eighth Olympiad.
– Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian account, 166.
– Year before the birth of Christ, 584.
– Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 588.
– Year of the Julian Period, 4126.
– Year of the era of Nabonassar, 160.
– Cycle of the Sun, 10.
– Cycle of the Moon, 3.
– Second year after the fourth Sabbatic year after the seventeenth Jewish jubilee, according to Helvicus.
– Twenty-ninth year of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of the Romans: this was the seventy-ninth year before the commencement of the consular government.
– Thirty-eighth year of Cyaxares or Cyaraxes, the fourth king of Media.
– Eighteenth year of Agasicles, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae.
– Twentieth year of Leon, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae.
– Thirty-second year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia. This was the father of the celebrated Croesus.
– Fifteenth year of AEropas, the seventh king of Macedon.
– Nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
– Eleventh year of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah.
CHAPTER I
The prophet begins with lamenting the dismal reverse of fortune
that befell his country, confessing at the same time that her
calamities were the just consequence of her sins, 1-6.
Jerusalem herself is then personified and brought forward to
continue the sad complaint, and to solicit the mercy of God,
7-22.
In all copies of the Septuagint, whether of the Roman or Alexandrian editions, the following words are found as a part of the text: , , , , – “And it came to pass after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping: and he lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem; and he said.”
The Vulgate has the same, with some variations: – “Et factum est, postquam in captivitatem redactus est Israel, et Jerusalem deserta est, sedit Jeremias propheta fiens, et planxit lamentations hac in Jerusalem, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans, digit.” The translation of this, as given in the first translation of the Bible into English, may be found at the end of Jeremiah, taken from an ancient MS. in my own possession.
I subjoin another taken from the first PRINTED edition of the English Bible, that by Coverdale, 1535. “And it came to passe, (after Israel was brought into captyvitie, and Jerusalem destroyed;) that Jeremy the prophet sat weeping, mournynge, and makinge his mone in Jerusalem; so that with an hevy herte he sighed and sobbed, sayenge.”
Matthew’s Bible, printed in 1549, refines upon this: “It happened after Israell was brought into captyvite, and Jerusalem destroyed, that Jeremy the prophet sate wepyng, and sorrowfully bewayled Jerusalem; and syghynge and hewlynge with an hevy and wooful hert, sayde.”
Becke’s Bible of the same date, and Cardmarden’s of 1566, have the same, with a trifling change in the orthography.
On this Becke and others have the following note: – “These words are read in the LXX. interpreters: but not in the Hebrue.”
All these show that it was the ancient opinion that the Book of Lamentations was composed, not over the death of Josiah, but on account of the desolations of Israel and Jerusalem.
The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: “Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said.”
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. How doth the city sit solitary] Sitting down, with the elbow on the knee, and the head supported by the hand, without any company, unless an oppressor near, – all these were signs of mourning and distress. The coin struck by Vespasian on the capture of Jerusalem, on the obverse of which there is a palm-tree, the emblem of Judea, and under it a woman, the emblem of Jerusalem, sitting, leaning as before described, with the legend Judea capta, illustrates this expression as well as that in Isa 47:1. See Clarke on Isa 3:26, where the subject is farther explained.
Become as a widow] Having lost her king. Cities are commonly described as the mothers of their inhabitants, the kings as husbands, and the princes as children. When therefore they are bereaved of these, they are represented as widows, and childless.
The Hindoo widow, as well as the Jewish, is considered the most destitute and wretched of all human beings. She has her hair cut short, throws off all ornaments, eats the coarsest food, fasts often, and is all but an outcast in the family of her late husband.
Is she become tributary!] Having no longer the political form of a nation; and the remnant that is left paying tribute to a foreign and heathen conqueror.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The interrogative particle
how, once expressed and twice more understood in this verse, doth not so much inquire the cause or reason of the effect, as express admiration or lamentation. The prophet admires the miserable state of the city, which was full of people beyond the proportion of other cities, and now was solitary, so thin of people that scarce any could be seen in her streets. She that had a king, or rather a god, that was a husband to her, now was forsaken of God, her king taken from her, and she like a poor widow. She that was like a princess amongst the nations, that sometimes (as in David’s time) had the Moabites, Ammonites, &c. tributaries to her, was now a tributary herself.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. how is she . . . widow! she thatwas great, c.English Version is according to theaccents. But the members of each sentence are better balanced inantithesis, thus, “how is she that was great among the nationsbecome as a widow! (how) she who was princess among the provinces(that is, she who ruled over the surrounding provinces from the Nileto the Euphrates, Gen 15:181Ki 4:21; 2Ch 9:26;Ezr 4:20) become tributary!”[MAURER].
siton the ground; theposture of mourners (Lam 2:10;Ezr 9:3). The coin struck on thetaking of Jerusalem by Titus, representing Judea as a female sittingsolitary under a palm tree, with the inscription, Juda Capta,singularly corresponds to the image here; the language therefore mustbe prophetical of her state subsequent to Titus, as well as referringretrospectively to her Babylonian captivity.
Beth.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!…. These are the words of Jeremiah; so the Targum introduces them,
“Jeremiah the prophet and high priest said;”
and began thus, “how”; not inquiring the reasons of this distress and ruin; but as amazed and astonished at it; and commiserating the sad case of the city of Jerusalem, which a little time ago was exceeding populous; had thousands of inhabitants in it; besides those that came from other parts to see it, or trade with it: and especially when the king of Babylon had invaded the land, which drove vast numbers to Jerusalem for safety; and which was the case afterwards when besieged by the Romans; at which time, as Josephus f relates, there were eleven hundred thousand persons; and very probably a like number was in it before the destruction of it by the Chaldeans, who all perished through famine, pestilence, and the sword; or were carried captive; or made their escape; so that the city, as was foretold it should, came to be without any inhabitant; and therefore is represented as “sitting”, which is the posture of mourners; and as “solitary”, or “alone” g, like a menstruous woman in her separation, to which it is compared, La 1:17; or as a leper removed from the society of men; so the Targum,
“as a man that has the plague of leprosy on his flesh, that dwells alone;”
or rather as a woman deprived of her husband and children; as follows:
[how] is she become as a widow! her king, that was her head and husband, being taken from her, and carried captive; and God, who was the husband also of the Jewish people, having departed from them, and so left in a state of widowhood. Jarchi h observes, that it is not said a widow simply, but as a widow, because her husband would return again; and therefore only during this state of captivity she was like one; but Broughton takes the “caph” not to be a note of similitude, but of reality; and renders it, “she is become a very widow”. Vespasian, when he had conquered Judea, struck a medal, on one side of which was a woman sitting under a palm tree in a plaintive and pensive posture, with this inscription, “Judea Capta”, as Grotius observes:
she [that was] great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, [how] is she become tributary! that ruled over many nations, having subdued them, and to whom they paid tribute, as the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, and Edomites, in the times of David and Solomon; but since obliged to pay tribute herself, first to Pharaohnecho, king of Egypt; then to the king of Babylon in the times of Jehoiakim; and last of all in the times of Zedekiah; so the Targum,
“she that was great among the people, and ruled over the provinces that paid tribute to her, returns to be depressed; and after this to give tribute to them.”
f De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3. g “sola”, V. L. Montanus. h E Talmud Bab. Sanhedrin. fol. 104. 1. & Taanith, fol. 20. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Doleful consideration and description of the dishonour that has befallen Jerusalem. In these verses the prophet, in the name of the godly, pours out his heart before the Lord. The dreadful turn that things have taken is briefly declared in Lam 1:1 in two clauses, which set forth the fall of Jerusalem from its former glory into the depths of disgrace and misery, in such a way that the verse contains the subject unfolded in the description that follows. We have deviated from the Masoretic pointing, and arranged the verse into three members, as in the succeeding verses, which nearly throughout form tristichs, and have been divided into two halves by means of the Athnach; but we agree with the remark of Gerlach, “that, according to the sense, and not is the proper antithesis to .” is here, as in Lam 2:1; Lam 4:1-2, an expression of complaint mingled with astonishment; so in Jer 48:17; Isa 1:21. “She sits solitary” (cf. Jer 15:17) is intensified by “she has become like a widow.” Her sitting alone is a token of deep sorrow (cf. Neh 1:4), and, as applied to a city, is a figure of desolation; cf. Isa 27:10. Here, however, the former reference is the main one; for Jerusalem is personified as a woman, and, with regard to its numerous population, is viewed as the mother of a great multitude of children. is a form of the construct state, lengthened by Yod compaginis , found thrice in this verse, and also in Isa 1:21, elegiac composition; such forms are used, in general, only in poetry that preserves and affects the antique style, and reproduces its peculiar ring.
(Note: On the different views regarding the origin and meaning of this Yod compaginis, cf. Fr. W. M. Philippi, Wesen u. Ursprung des Status constr. im Hebr. S. 96ff. This writer (S. 152ff.) takes it to be the remnant of a primitive Semitic noun-inflexion, which has been preserved only in a number of composite proper names of ancient origin e.g., , etc.]; in the words , , and , in which it has become fused with the third radical into a long vowel; and elsewhere only between two words standing in the construct relation see Ges. 90; Ewald, 211.)
According to the twofold meaning of ( Much and Great), in the first clause designates the multiplicity, multitude of the population; in the second, the greatness or dignity of the position that Jerusalem assumed among the nations, corresponding to the , “a princess among the provinces.” , from (properly, the circuit of judgment or jurisdiction), is the technical expression for the provinces of the empires in Asia (cf. Est 1:1, Est 1:22, etc.), and hence, after the exile, was sued of Judah, Ezr 2:1; Neh 7:6, and in 1Ki 20:17 of the districts in the kingdom of Israel. Here, however, are not the circuits or districts of Judah (Thenius), but the provinces of the heathen nations rendered subject to the kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon (corresponding to ), as in Ecc 2:8. Jerusalem was formerly a princess among the provinces, during the flourishing period of the Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon. The writer keeps this time before his mind, in order to depict the contrast between the past and present. The city that once ruled over nations and provinces has now become but dependent on others. (the derivation of which is disputed) does not mean soccage or tribute, but the one who gives soccage service, a soccager; see on Exo 1:11 and 1Ki 4:6. The words, “The princess has become a soccager,” signify nothing more than, “She who once ruled over peoples and countries has now fallen into abject servitude,” and are not (with Thenius) to be held as “referring to the fact that the remnant that has been left behind, or those also of the former inhabitants of the city who have returned home, have been set to harder labour by the conquerors.” When we find the same writer inferring from this, that these words presuppose a state of matters in which the country round Jerusalem has been for some time previously under the oppression of Chaldean officers, and moreover holding the opinion that the words “how she sits…” could only have been written by one who had for a considerable period been looking on Jerusalem in its desolate condition, we can only wonder at such an utter want of power to understand poetic language.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Miseries of Jerusalem; Grief for the Loss of Ordinances. | B. C. 588. |
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! 2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. 3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. 4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. 5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. 6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. 7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. 8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. 9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself. 10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. 11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.
Those that have any disposition to weep with those that weep, one would think, should scarcely be able to refrain from tears at the reading of these verses, so very pathetic are the lamentations here.
I. The miseries of Jerusalem are here complained of as very pressing and by many circumstances very much aggravated. Let us take a view of these miseries.
1. As to their civil state. (1.) A city that was populous is now depopulated, v. 1. It is spoken of by way of wonder–Who would have thought that ever it should come to this! Or by way of enquiry–What is it that has brought it to this? Or by way of lamentation–Alas! alas! (as Rev 18:10; Rev 18:16; Rev 18:19) how doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! She was full of her own people that replenished her, and full of the people of other nations that resorted to her, with whom she had both profitable commerce and pleasant converse; but now her own people are carried into captivity, and strangers make no court to her: she sits solitary. The chief places of the city are not now, as they used to be, place of concourse, where wisdom cried (Pro 1:20; Pro 1:21); and justly are they left unfrequented, because wisdom’s cry there was not heard. Note, Those that are ever so much increased God can soon diminish. How has she become as a widow! Her king that was, or should have been, as a husband to her, is cut off, and gone; her God has departed from her, and has given her a bill of divorce; she is emptied of her children, is solitary and sorrowful as a widow. Let no family, no state, not Jerusalem, no, nor Babylon herself, be secure, and say, I sit as a queen, and shall never sit as a widow,Isa 47:8; Rev 18:7. (2.) A city that had dominion is now in subjection. She had been great among the nations, greatly loved by some and greatly feared by others, and greatly observed and obeyed by both; some made her presents, and others paid her taxes; so that she was really princess among the provinces, and every sheaf bowed to hers; even the princes of the people entreated her favour. But now the tables are turned; she has not only lost her friends and sits solitary, but has lost her freedom too and sits tributary; she paid tribute to Egypt first and then to Babylon. Note, Sin brings a people not only into solitude, but into slavery. (3.) A city that used to be full of mirth has now become melancholy and upon all accounts full of grief. Jerusalem had been a joyous city, whither the tribes went up on purpose to rejoice before the Lord; she was the joy of the whole earth, but now she weeps sorely, her laughter if turned into mourning, her solemn feasts are all gone; she weeps in the night, as true mourners do who weep in secret, in silence and solitude; in the night, when others compose themselves to rest, her thoughts are most intent upon her troubles, and grief then plays the tyrant. What the prophet’s head was for her, when she regarded it not, now her head is–as waters, and her eyes fountains of tears, so that she weeps day and night (Jer. ix. 1); her tears are continually on her cheeks. Though nothing dries away sooner than a tear, yet fresh griefs extort fresh tears, so that her cheeks are never free from them. Note, There is nothing more commonly seen under the sun than the tears of the oppressed, with whom the clouds return after the rain, Eccl. iv. 1. (4.) Those that were separated from the heathen now dwell among the heathen; those that were a peculiar people are now a mingled people (v. 3): Judah has gone into captivity, out of her own land into the land of her enemies, and there she abides, and is likely to abide, among those that are aliens to God and the covenants of promise, with whom she finds no rest, no satisfaction of mind, nor any settlement of abode, but is continually hurried from place to place at the will of the victorious imperious tyrants. And again (v. 5): “Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy; those that were to have been the seed of the next generation are carried off; so that the land that is now desolate is likely to be still desolate and lost for want of heirs.” Those that dwell among their own people, and that a free people, and in their own land, would be more thankful for the mercies they thereby enjoy if they would but consider the miseries of those that are forced into strange countries. (5.) Those that used in their wars to conquer are now conquered and triumphed over: All her persecutors overlook her between the straits (v. 3); they gained all possible advantages against her, sot hat her people unavoidably fell into the hand of the enemy, for there was no way to escape (v. 7); they were hemmed in on every side, and, which way soever they attempted to flee, they found themselves embarrassed. When they made the best of their way they could make nothing of it, but were overtaken and overcome; so that every where her adversaries are the chief and her enemies prosper (v. 5); which way soever their sword turns they get the better. Such straits do men bring themselves into by sin. If we allow that which is our greatest adversary and enemy to have dominion over us, and to be chief in us, justly will our other enemies be suffered to have dominion over us. (6.) Those that had been not only a distinguished by a dignified people, on whom God had put honour, and to whom all their neighbours had paid respect, are now brought into contempt (v. 8): All that honoured her before despise her; those that courted an alliance with her now value it not; those that caressed her when she was in pomp and prosperity slight her now that she is in distress, because they have seen her nakedness. By the prevalency of the enemies against her they perceive her weakness, and that she is not so strong a people as they thought she had been; and by the prevalency of God’s judgments against her they perceive her wickedness, which now comes to light and is every where talked of. Now it appears how they have vilified themselves by their sins: The enemies magnify themselves against them (v. 9); they trample upon them, and insult over them, and in their eyes they have become vile, the tail of the nations, though once they were the head. Note, Sin is the reproach of any people. (7.) Those that lived in a fruitful land were ready to perish, and many of them did perish, for want of necessary food (v. 11): All her people sigh in despondency and despair; they are ready to faint away; their spirits fail, and therefore they sigh, for they seek bread and seek it in vain. They were brought at last to that extremity that there was no bread for the people of the land (Jer. lii. 6), and in their captivity they had much ado to get break, ch. v. 6. They have given their pleasant things, their jewels and pictures, and all the furniture of their closets and cabinets, which they used to please themselves with looking upon, they have sold these to buy bread for themselves and their families, have parted with them for meat to relieve the soul, or (as the margin is) to make the soul come again, when they were ready to faint away. They desired no other cordial than meat. All that a man has will he give for life, and for break, which is the staff of life. Let those that abound in pleasant things not be proud of them, nor fond of them; for the time may come when they may be glad to let them go for necessary things. And let those that have competent food to relieve their soul be content with it, and thankful for it, though they have not pleasant things.
2. We have here an account of their miseries in their ecclesiastical state, the ruin of their sacred interest, which was much more to be lamented than that of their secular concerns. (1.) Their religious feasts were no more observed, no more frequented (v. 4): The ways of Zion do mourn; they look melancholy, overgrown with grass and weeds. It used to be a pleasant diversion to see people continually passing and repassing in the highway that led to the temple, but now you may stand there long enough, and see nobody stir; for none come to the solemn feasts; a full end is put to them by the destruction of that which was the city of our solemnities, Isa. xxxiii. 20. The solemn feasts had been neglected and profaned (Isa 1:11; Isa 1:12), and therefore justly is an end now put to them. But, when thus the ways of Zion are made to mourn, all the sons of Zion cannot but mourn with them. It is very grievous to good men to see religious assemblies broken up and scattered, and those restrained from them that would gladly attend them. And, as the ways of Zion mourned, so the gates of Zion, in which the faithful worshippers used to meet, are desolate; for there is none to meet in them. Time was when the Lord loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob, but now he has forsaken them, and is provoked to withdraw from them, and therefore it cannot but fare with them as it did with the temple when Christ quitted it. Behold, you house is left unto you desolate, Matt. xxiii. 38. (2.) Their religious persons were quite disabled from performing their wonted services, were quite dispirited: Her priests sigh for the desolations of the temple; their songs are turned into sighs; they sigh, for they have nothing to do, and therefore there is nothing to be had; they sigh, as the people (v. 11), for want of bread, because the offerings of the Lord, which were their livelihood, failed. It is time to sigh when the priests, the Lord’s ministers, sigh. Her virgins also, that used, with their music and dancing, to grace the solemnities of their feasts, are afflicted and in heaviness. Notice is taken of their service in the day of Zion’s prosperity (Ps. lxviii. 25, Among them were the damsels playing with timbrels), and therefore notice is taken of the failing of it now. Her virgins are afflicted, and therefore she is in bitterness; that is, all the inhabitants of Zion are so, whose character it is that they are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, and that to them the reproach of it is a burden, Zeph. iii. 18. (3.) Their religious places were profaned (v. 10): The heathen entered into her sanctuary, into the temple itself, into which no Israelite was permitted to enter, though ever so reverently and devoutly, but the priests only. The stranger that comes nigh, even to worship there, shall be put to death. Thither the heathen now crows rudely in, not to worship, but to plunder. God had commanded that the heathen should not so much as enter into the congregation, nor be incorporated with the people of the Jews (Deut. xxiii. 3); yet now they enter into the sanctuary without control. Note, Nothing is more grievous to those who have a true concern for the glory of God, nor is more lamented, than the violation of God’s laws, and the contempt they see put upon sacred things. What the enemy did wickedly in the sanctuary was complained of, Psa 74:3; Psa 74:4. (4.) Their religious utensils, and all the rich things with which the temple was adorned and beautified, and which were made use of in the worship of God, were made a prey to the enemy (v. 10): The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things, has grasped them all, seized them all, for himself. What these pleasant things are we may learn from Isa. lxiv. 11, where, to the complaint of the burning of the temple, it is added, All our pleasant things are laid waste; the ark and the altar, and all the other tokens of God’s presence with them, these were their pleasant things above any other things, and these were now broken to pieces and carried away. Thus from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed, v. 6. The beauty of holiness was the beauty of the daughter of Zion; when the temple, that holy and beautiful house, was destroyed, her beauty was gone; that was the breaking of the staff of beauty, the taking away of the pledges and seals of the covenant, Zech. xi. 10. (5.) Their religious days were made a jest of (v. 7): The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. They laughed at them for observing one day in seven as a day of rest from worldly business. Juvenal, a heathen poet, ridicules the Jews in his time for losing a seventh part of their time:–
| ——–cui septima quque fuit lux Ignava et vit partem non attigit ullam—- They keep their sabbaths to their cost, For thus one day in sev’n is lost; |
whereas sabbaths, if they be sanctified as they ought to be, will turn to a better account than all the days of the week besides. And whereas the Jews professed that they did it in obedience to their God, and to his honour, their adversaries asked them, “What do you get by it now? What profit have you in keeping the ordinances of your God, who now deserts you in your distress?” Note, it is a very great trouble to all that love God to hear his ordinances mocked at, and particularly his sabbaths. Zion calls them her sabbaths, for the sabbath was made for men; they are his institutions, but they are her privileges; and the contempt put upon sabbaths all the sons of Zion take to themselves and lay to heart accordingly; nor will they look upon sabbaths, or any other divine ordinances, as less honourable, nor value them less, for their being mocked at. (6.) That which greatly aggravated all these grievances was that her state at present was just the reverse of what it had been formerly, v. 7. Now, in the days of affliction and misery, when every thing was black and dismal, she remembers all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, and now knows how to value them better than formerly, when she had the full enjoyment of them. God often makes us know the worth of mercies by the want of them; and adversity is borne with the greatest difficulty by those that have fallen into it from the height of prosperity. This cut David to the heart, when he was banished from God’s ordinances, that he could remember when he went with the multitude to the house of God, Ps. xlii. 4.
II. The sins of Jerusalem are here complained of as the procuring provoking cause of all these calamities. Whoever are the instruments, God is the author of all these troubles; it is the Lord that has afflicted her (v. 5) and he has done it as a righteous Judge, for she has sinned. 1. Her sins are for number numberless. Are her troubles many? Her sins are many more. it is for the multitude of her transgressions that the Lord has afflicted her. See Jer. xxx. 14. When the transgressions of a people are multiplied we cannot say, as Job does in his own case, that wounds are multiplied without cause, Job ix. 17. 2. They are for nature exceedingly heinous (v. 8): Jerusalem has grievously sinned, has sinned sin (so the word is), sinned wilfully, deliberately, has sinned that sin which of all others is the abominable things that the Lord hates, the sin of idolatry. The sins of Jerusalem, that makes such a profession and enjoys such privileges, are of all others the most grievous sins. She has sinned grievously (v. 8), and therefore (v. 9) she came down wonderfully. note, Grievous sins bring wondrous ruin; there are some workers of iniquity to whom there is a strange punishment, Job xxxi. 3. They are such sins as may plainly be read in the punishment. (1.) They have been very oppressive and therefore are justly oppressed (v. 3): Judah has gone into captivity, and it is because of affliction and great servitude, because the rich among them afflicted the poor and made them serve with rigour, and particularly (as the Chaldee paraphrases it) because they had oppressed their Hebrew servants, which is charged upon them, Jer. xxxiv. 11. Oppression was one of their crying sins (Jer 6:6; Jer 6:7) and it is a sin that cries aloud. (2.) They have made themselves vile, and therefore are justly vilified. They all despise her (v. 8), for her filthiness is in her skirts; it appears upon her garments that she has rolled them in the mire of sin. None could stain our glory if we did not stain it ourselves. (3.) They have been very secure and therefore are justly surprised with this ruin (v. 9): She remembers not her last end; she did not take the warning that was given her to consider her latter end, to consider what would be the end of such wicked courses as she took, and therefore she came down wonderfully, in an astonishing manner, that she might be made to feel what she would not fear; therefore God shall make their plagues wonderful.
III. Jerusalem’s friends are here complained of as false and faint-hearted, and very unkind: They have all dealt treacherously with her (v. 2), so that, in effect, they have become here enemies. Her deceivers have created her as much vexation as her destroyers. The staff that breaks under us may do us as great a mischief as the staff that beats us,Eze 29:6; Eze 29:7. Her princes, that should have protected her, have not courage enough to make head against the enemy for their own preservation; they are like harts, that, upon the first alarm, betake themselves to flight and make no resistance; nay, they are like harts that are famished for want of pasture, and therefore are gone without strength before the pursuer, and, having no strength for flight, are soon run down and made a prey of. Her neighbours are unneighbourly, for, 1. There is none to help her (v. 7); either they could not or they would not; nay, 2. She has not comforter, none to sympathize with her, or suggest any thing to alleviate her griefs, Lam 2:7; Lam 2:9. Like Job’s friends, they saw it was to no purpose, her grief was so great; and miserable comforters were they all in such a case.
IV. Jerusalem’s God is here complained to concerning all these things, and all is referred to his compassionate consideration (v. 9): “O Lord! behold my affliction, and take cognizance of it;” and (v. 11), “See, O Lord! and consider, take order about it.” Note, The only way to make ourselves easy under our burdens is to cast them upon God first, and leave it to him to do with us as seemeth him good.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
LAMENTATIONS
The Lamentations of Jeremiah
CONTENTS
A GENERAL OUTLINE OF
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
I. THE WRETCHEDNESS OF JERUSALEM,
(Chapter 1)
A. HER HUMILIATION, (vs. 1-7)
B. HER RUIN THROUGH SIN, (vs. 8-11)
C. HER PLEA FOR COMPASSIONATE UNDERSTANDING,
(vs.12-22)
II. GOD’S ANGER AGAINST HIS REBELLIOUS
PEOPLE, (Chapter 2)
A. THE MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE HOSTILITY, (vs. 1-9)
B. FAMINE, AND ITS CONSEQUENT SUFFERINGS,
(vs.10-13)
C. PROPHETS: TRUE AND FALSE (vs. 14-17)
D. A CALL TO BROKEN-HEARTED SUPPLICATION,
(vs. 18-22)
III. THE GRIEF OF A TENDER-HEARTED PROPHET,
(Chapter 3)
A. A CRY OF AFFLICTION, (vs. 1-20)
B. HOPE, ROOTED IN REMEMBRANCE OF DIVINE
MERCIES, (vs.21-39)
C. A CALL TO SPIRITUAL RENEWAL, (vs. 40-42)
D. THE HIGH COST OF REBELLION, (vs. 43-54)
E. COMFORT, AND A CRY FOR VENGEANCE,
(vs. 55-66)
IV.JERUSALEM UNDER SIEGE,
(Chapter 4)
A. A CONTRAST BETWEEN THE PAST AND PRESENT,
(vs. 1-12)
B. SPIRITUAL MIS-GUIDANCE AND ITS SAD END,
(vs. 13-20)
C. JUDGMENT AWAITS EDOM, (vs. 21-22)
V. THE PRAYER OF A SUFFERING PEOPLE,
(Chapter 5)360
A. AN APPEAL FOR DIVINE MERCY, (vs. 1-10)
B. BEARING THE SHAME OF SIN, (vs. 11-18)
C. JEHOVAH, AN ETERNAL SOVEREIGN UPON HIS
THRONE, (vs. 19-22)
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
Written by Jeremiah, on the occasion of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (about 586 B.C.), this book is full of pathetic tenderness – further revealing the heart of the weeping prophet. Here are five complete poems – represented by the five chapter divisions. The first four chapters use the acrostic form, where the first letters of each verse begin with the consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet – except that there is a TRIPLE usage of those letters in chapter 3.
Through the writer of this book the Lord teaches Judah not to despise His chastisement, or to faint at His rebuke, (comp. Heb 12:5-6; Luk 19:41-42). But the inspired word is NOT FOR JUDAH ONLY! Through this series of dirges – resulting from Judah’s failure to hear and heed the voice of the Almighty – God would have ALL OF US to recognize the certain disaster toward our lives to His worthy and loving lordship!
One will surely profit by comparing Jeremiah’s vision of Jerusalem in ruin, while Babylon exults, with that of John (Revelation 18, 21-22) – wherein Babylon is destroyed, while a New Jerusalem is revealed in triumphant glory! How much better to endure, with Jerusalem, such divinely imposed affliction as finds it’s fruition in GLORY, than share the pride of Babylon that ends in EVERLASTING SHAME!
LAMENTATIONS – CHAPTER 1
THE WRETCHEDNESS OF JERUSALEM
Vs. 1-7: HER HUMILIATION
1. Here is a solemn contrast between what Jerusalem WAS and IS, (vs. 1).
a. Once she sat as a princess among the provinces; great among the nations, she was full of people – highly honored! (1Ki 4:20-21).
b. Now she sits as a widow – alone, in reproach and forsaken, (comp. Isa 3:26; Isa 47:8-9; Isa 54:4-6); owing tribute to her captors (Ezr 4:20), she is deeply humiliated!
2. Personified as a woman, Jerusalem is heard weeping bitterly in the night-and with good reason, (vs. 2)
a. Of all the lovers she has chased after, there is not one that offers any comfort in the day of her calamity! (Jer 4:30; Jer 22:20).
b. The friends with whom she has formed alliances (Egypt, Tyre, Sidon etc.), for security, have dealt treacherously with her -becoming her enemies, (Mic 7:5-6).
3. Now exiled among the nations, Judah finds no rest (vs. 3); once highly-privileged, she is now powerless – reduced to the role of slavery, in the hands of her enemies, because of her very wickedness!
4. Her appointed feasts deserted (comp. Isa 24:4-6), Zion is pictured as in mourning, affliction and bitterness because of her desolation (vs. 4); no longer is she filled with those who once came to her feasts, and her virgins are deeply distressed for a lack of prospective husbands.
5. Because of her multiplied transgressions, the Lord has afflicted her (Psa 90:7-8; Eze 8:17-18; Eze 9:9-10) – prospering those who lord it over her (vs. 5; Deu 28:13; Deu 28:44), and sending her young children away as captives of the enemy.
6. Once “the perfection of beauty” (Psa 50:2), Zion has lost her splendor; their strength exhausted in flight before their enemies, her princes are likened to stags that have been unable to find pasture, (vs. 6 comp. Jer 39:4-7; 2Ki 25:4-7).
7. In the midst of her helplessness (Jer 37:7-8), and enemies who mock at her desolation (Psa 79:4; Jer 48:27), Jerusalem remembers the blessings that were once hers, in abundance, when she walked in fellowship with Jehovah her God, (vs. 7; Psa 42:4; Psa 77:3; Psa 77:5-7; comp. Luk 15:17).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
The Prophet could not sufficiently express the greatness of the calamity, except by expressing his astonishment. He then assumes the person of one who on seeing something new and unexpected is filled with amazement. It was indeed a thing incredible; for as it was a place chosen for God to dwell in, and as the city Jerusalem was not only the royal throne of God, but also as it were his earthly sanctuary, the city might have been thought exempted from all danger. Since it had been said,
“
Here is my rest for ever, here will I dwell,” (Psa 132:14,)
God seemed to have raised that city above the clouds, and to have rendered it free from all earthly changes. We indeed know that there is nothing fixed and certain in the world, and that the greatest empires have been reduced to nothing; but, the state of Jerusalem did not depend on human protection, nor on the extent of its dominion, nor on the abundance of men, nor on any other defenses whatever, but it was founded by a celestial decree, by the promise of God, which is not subject to any mutations. When, therefore, the city fell, uprooted from its foundations, so that nothing remained, when the Temple was disgracefully plundered and then burnt by enemies, and further, when the king was driven into exile, his children slain in his presence, and also the princes, and when the people were scattered here and there, exposed to every contumely and reproach, was it not, a horrible and monstrous thing?
It was not, then, without reason that the Prophet exclaimed, How! for no one could have ever thought that such a thing would have happened; and then, after the event, no one with a calm mind could have looked on such a spectacle, for innumerable temptations must have come to their minds; and this thought especially must have upset the faith of all — “What does God mean? How is it that, he has promised that this city would be perpetual? and now there is no appearance of a city, and no hope of restoration in future.” As, then, this so sad a spectacle might not only disturb pious minds, but also upset them and sink them in the depths of despair, the Prophet exclaims, How! and then says, How sits the city solitary, which had much people! Here, by a comparison, he amplifies the indignity of the fact; for, on the one hand, he refers to the flourishing state of Jerusalem before the calamity, and, on the other hand, he shews how the place had in a manner been turned into darkness. For this change, as I have said, was as though the sun had fallen from heaven; for the sun has no firmer standing in heaven than Jerusalem had on earth, since its preservation was connected with the eternal truth of God. He then says that this city had many people, but that now it was sitting solitary. The verb to sit, is taken in Hebrew in a good and in a bad sense. Kings are said to sit on their thrones; but to sit means sometimes to lie prostrate, as we have before seen in many places. Then he says that Jerusalem was lying solitary, because it was desolate and forsaken, though it had before a vast number of people.
He adds, How is she become, etc.; for the word how, אכה, aike, ought to be repeated, and applied to both clauses. How, then, is she become as a widow, who was great among the nations! (123) He says that Jerusalem had not only been full of citizens, but had also extended its power through many nations; for it is well known that many contiguous nations were tributary to it under David and Solomon. And to the same purpose is what follows, She who ruled among provinces is become tributary! that is, is become subject to a tribute. This phrase is taken from Deu 28:0, for the prophets were wont freely to borrow expressions from Moses, that chief teacher and prophet, as we shall presently see again.
We now then see the meaning of the Prophet. He wonders at the destruction of the city Jerusalem, and regarded it as a prodigy, which not only disturbed the minds of men, but in a manner confounded them. And by this mode of speaking he shews something of human infirmity; for they must be void of all feeling who are not seized with amazement at such a mournful sight. The Prophet then spoke not only according to his own feelings, but also according to those of all others; and he deplored that calamity as it were in the person of all. But he will hereafter apply a remedy to this astonishment For when we thus exaggerate evils, we at the same time sharpen our grief; and thus it happens that we at length become overwhelmed with despair; and despair kindles rage, so that men clamor against God. But the Prophet so mourned, and was in such a way amazed, that he did not yet indulge his grief nor cherish his amazement; but as we shall see, he restrained himself, lest the excess of his feelings should carry him beyond due bounds. It then follows, —
(123) The word is not repeated in the early Versions, nor by Blayney and Henderson. The word איכה, means properly, “Whence thus?” and it may be rendered, “How is this?” and the passage would be more emphatic, —
1. How is this? alone sits the city, that was full of people! Like a widow is she that was great among nations! A princess among provinces is under tribute!
2. Weeping she weeps in the night, and her tear on her cheek! None to her a comforter of all her lovers! All her friends have deceived her, they are become her enemies!
These were the various things which created astonishment in the Prophet. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE PROPHETS LAMENTATIONS
Lamentations 1-5
WE are quitting the Book of Jeremiah, but not the Prophet, and we are leaving the greater volume of Jeremiah, not because we have exhausted it nor because we have touched even its high points in passing. But having promised our readers forty volumes on the whole Bible, we are beginning to realize the extremely limited discussion we can give to the Books that remain, and yet stay within the number of volumes agreed upon with the publisher.
Jeremiah should have at least another volume similar in size to this, and LAMENTATIONS alone should claim five chapters instead of one.
However, we hope in this discussion to get before you the essential suggestions of this volume. It is correctly supposed to have come from the pen of the great Prophet. Modern criticism, to the contrary, will but poorly impress those students of Biblical history who know that in the septuagint version this volume was introduced in the following words:
And it came to pass that after Israel had been carried away captive Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented this lament of Jerusalem.
Three hundred years, then, before Christ, the scholars had no doubt whatever that these five chapters, constituting the volume of LAMENTATIONS, were from Jeremiah, and voiced his exceeding sorrow at the sight of his people conquered and carried away into captivity. The Prophet had lived to see his direst predictions fulfilled, and to deeply grieve the fact that his warnings to Judah and Israel had been disregarded and the day of judgment had come.
In order to present something like a birds eye view of the Book, we have elected to discuss it under four heads:
The Complete Subjugation, The Conquering Sin, The Consequent Sorrow, and, The Comforting Assurance.
THE COMPLETE SUBJUGATION
The Prophet views this subjugation as a true loyalist might be expected to see it. He looks upon it as it is related to Jerusalem, as it has affected the land of Judah, and as it has depressed the spirits of the people.
As it related to Jerusalem!
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies (Lam 1:1-2).
The first thing that affects and profoundly moves Jeremiahs feelings is the city itself. He loved Jerusalem. Either a man is very unpatriotic or else the metropolis, in which he has elected to live, is very unattractive if he does not come to love it.
When one goes to London and listens to the roar of that great city and looks on its narrow crowded streets, endures its ever-repeated rains and its almost endless fogs, he may wonder that any one loves London; but speak a word against it to a Londoner and you will speedily learn that London holds a large place in his heart.
Think of New York or Chicago, over-grown, bestial, dirty; and yet practically all New Yorkers and most Chicagoans have an abiding affection for their city.
Jerusalem even in Christs day was far from a Minneapolis in beauty; but Christ loved it and wept over it.
A citizen who has no affection for the place of his residence is a poor patriot, and the citizen who is not grieved when his city is subjugated to the vicious, has no right to a residence in it, and even less to its protection of either his person or property.
As it affected the land!
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits (Lam 1:3).
This also is the voice of the patriot. His interest exceeds municipal limitations. They reach to the limits of the state. It is not enough to be a good Minneapolitan; it is absolutely essential to be a good Minnesotan, and a loyal American. We sing sometimes:
My country! tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died!
Land of the Pilgrims pride!
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring!
If we are true patriots, we will find even more pleasure in the second verse:
My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills.
Like that above.
Jeremiah was equally concerned for the spirit of his people, and he wrote:
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. * *
Her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture (Lam 1:4-6).
It is a pathetic picture. To this good hour, America has never learned the meaning of this Scripture. Our people have never been subjugated; in our wars we have never been defeated, much less carried away captive to slave in other lands; and these lamentations are but superficially understood of us.
When the Russian-Japanese war of some years since was on, the great Russian general Stoessel, seeing that their defeat was imminent, since the Japanese had already occupied Keekwan Mountain and Q. fort and heights south of the forts, wired to the Czar: I now bid you all good-by forever. Port Arthur is my grave! For days following he fought on against impossible odds. Says the correspondent of the Associated Press: The hospitals are now in the rake of the Japanese fire. The wounded who can leave, are doing so. They can be seen in the streets on heaps of debris, exposed to the bitterly cold weather, and some staggering back to the front defying the Japanese and desiring death. They know that the stock of ammunition is about out, and that they are in the relentless grasp of the enemy.
When General Stoessel ordered them to fight they answered, We cant fight: we have nothing left with which to fight. Our men cannot move. They sleep, standing. They can see nothing but bayonets at their breasts. Their morale is gone! They were doomed and they knew it.
When a day like that breaks over a people, hopelessness takes possession.
Thats what Jeremiah saw, and thats the ground of his grief, and this Book is the expression of it. But Jeremiah saw another thing, namely,
THE CONQUERING SIN
He knew why these disasters had come. For months and years he had predicted them. But like the warning of Lot to his children in Sodom, he had seemed to them as one that mocked, and as it was sin that necessitated that Sodomic flame, so sin had fruited again and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Judahs transgressions were a multitude.
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of Her transgressions (Lam 1:5).
Sin is like a pestiferous seed. It has great ability to multiply itself. Give Johnson grass a single start and it is with the greatest possible battle that you can keep it from taking the entire field. Let one seed from the Scotch thistle fall into good soil, and in a few years you will be fighting this enemy of fields on a thousand acres.
There is in Australia, a weed called the Australian weed, the seed of which, if sown in the water, multiplies with such rapidity that it soon chokes the flow of the stream itself.
Such a seed is sin! People of America are wondering about the increase of crime and are attempting to account for it in various and sundry ways, but there is nothing mysterious involved. Sin produces sin, and concerning its children, there is no practice of birth control, and its kind rapidly increases; so the life giving streams of decency are being choked by its fungus growth. The current of law is being turned out of its course and the fountain of righteousness itself is being clogged.
The character of sin also increases. Mild sins are somehow able to give birth to malignant ones. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned (Lam 1:8), was the lament of the Prophet. Thats always the result. A little sin to begin with; a grievous sin to end with.
A while ago a very popular modernist minister of New York told his shallow and admiring audience a very palatable thing, namely, Sin and hell have now been put in the museum! If so, then the museum itself is safe no longer.
It is quite interesting to go to the Smithsonian Institute and look on those magnificent specimens that Mr. Roosevelt and his sons and other Nimrods have brought to earth, and finally by the aid of the taxidermist placed in apparent life, but perfect death, before the public gaze.
If, however, the day should come when suddenly those great and ferocious beasts became as intensely alive and voraciously alive, as are sin and hell, I should want to be a long remove from the museum.
Down in Brazil there is a vine called the Matador or murderer. Its slender stem, very harmless looking at first, creeps along the ground until it strikes a tree, when it at once begins to climb the side of the same and throws out tendrils and takes deep hold, embracing the tree at a thousand points. Up and up it goes until the topmost limb, though it be a hundred feet away, is within its embrace and then a writer says, As if in triumph over its victim, this parasitic vine brakes into a huge beautiful blossom, as if joyfully conscious of victory, for that tree is doomed, and from its height above the same the vine scatters its seeds far and near to undertake, at another point, until whole forests are helpless victims within its deadly grasp. Such is the conquest of sin!
It leaves its victim destitute of sympathy. Listen to Jeremiah,
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me? (Lam 1:12).
This is Judahs lament when once she realizes that she is doomed, and the neighbor nations do not care. It is hard for any man or woman to be treated with contempt, but it is hardest for that man who has held the high position, and for that woman who has known the greatest beauty and charms. Such had been Judahs experience. She had been princess among the nations, and now none so poor as to do her reverence.
We may imagine that Germany was embarrassed when the war ended in her defeat, but that embarrassment was as nothing to the embarrassment of this time, when the creditor nations look upon her with contempt because she does not, and perhaps cannot, meet her pledged obligations. Anything is easier to bear than public contempt.
As we saw in our last sermon, self respect is difficult when popular respect has departed. The stricken demands sympathy and to withhold it from them is to crush them!
Do you remember that, in the Marble Faun, Hawthorne presents poor Miriam conscious of her guilt, and yet craving the sympathetic and loving touch of a friend? In her loneliness and remorse, that was her mightiest need. In Hilda she hoped, but alas, Hilda, in her purity and Phariseeism, turned from Miriam as from some contaminating thing, and as she went, walked on Miriams heart, and, with a high and doubtless haughty look in her eyes, crushed the same.
If there is one lesson that we poor mortals need to learn above another, it is the God-like compassion for another, compassion for the poor, tenderness for the sick, and even sympathy for the sinful. The cruelest men in the world are the priests and levites that pass by on the other side; to whom the sight of suffering is naught, and in whom sense of brotherhood is not.
But I am dwelling too long on this first chapter, and consequently must only touch those that remain. We can do this by studying next the
CONSEQUENT SORROW
It was felt most deeply by the Prophet himself.
The third chapter is the expression of it. It is too lengthy for reading. I will leave it to you for your quiet hour.
It opens in such a way as to indicate the deeps of Jeremiahs soul.
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate (Lam 3:1-11).
It is almost uniform for a sinful people to imagine that the Prophet among them is the one man exempt from sorrow. They think that because he warns, he has a conscious superiority, and that he never desires or deserves any sympathy. On the contrary, the Prophet suffers more than the people to whom God hath sent him. When Jesus Christ, the Prophet of Prophets, looked on Jerusalem He saw them happy when His heart was heavy; He saw them giddy with mirth when His heart was broken; He saw them given to frivolity while He was in the mountain in prayer, bedewing the sides of the same with His tears.
Their sin was not only His sorrow, it was also His suffering. Campbell Morgan, speaking of Jeremiah, says, It would have been easy for him to miss the persecution, and the prison. A modification of his message by accommodation to the desire of the princes, a softening of its terrible roughness, even a general denunciation of sin, a mild discourse upon their falsity of their hopes from Egypt, and the certainty of the victory of the Chaldeans; any of these changes would have saved him. Yet he never faltered, but steadily, in spite of the anger of men, spoke what God had given him to say. This brought upon him the suffering described.
This has been repeated in all ages. In the days of the Old Scotch Covenanters a wee laddie, one Jamie Douglas, for refusing to play traitor to the truth was one day held over a steep and rough precipice by a brutal soldier, and given the option of disloyalty or death. Looking up into the face of the man, with eyes bright with the light of true heroism, he said, Drop me down, then, if ye must; tis neer so deep as hell!
In this sorrow his people share.
It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not (Lam 3:22).
He changes from the personal I to the plural we.
It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed.
Let us search and try our ways (Lam 3:40).
Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God (Lam 3:41).
We have transgressed and have rebelled (Lam 3:42).
Thou hast made us as the off scouring and refuse in the midst of the people (Lam 3:45).
Here he identifies himself with the people, and the people with himself. No man liveth unto himself. We cant even suffer alone. Had it been so, Moses would have suffered even unto death for Israels redemption; had it been so, Jeremiah would gladly have gone to the cross for Judah. Only Christ is. the adequate substitute. He alone can stand in the sinners stead. On Him only can God lay the iniquity of us all.
This leads also to an additional thought.
This judgment was divinely visited.
The Lord hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof (Lam 4:11).
People wonder sometimes why God judges sin; why God executes wrath against iniquity; why God punishes the sinner. If it were not so, what a world! We are fast coming to the time when judgment against sin is no longer popular. The superficial thinking, the unbiblical thinking, the shallow reasonings of men are fast ruining and wrecking the world. We have almost as many parole boards as we have police courts, and most of them sit quite as constantly. Some of our Governors in recent years have granted more reprieves than all the judges of the state rendered convictions and what is the productthe land is filled with violence! Lawlessness is triumphant; banditry is the biggest of American businesses; murder is almost as common as birth. If the nations continue they will have to turn and learn again from God, re-establish law, and visit sin with judgment.
But from this unpalatable train of thought we turn to the prophetic conclusion:
THE COMFORTING ASSURANCE
God is always a compassionate God. Jeremiah didnt forget that fact, but in his sorrow he reverts to it and says,
It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him (Lam 3:22; Lam 3:25).
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word;What more can He say than to you He hath saidTo you who for refuge to Jesus have fled.
Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;Ill strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,The waters of sorrow shall not overflow;For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I will not desert to his foes;That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,Ill never, no never, no never forsake.
Gods ears are ever open to penitent cries. Jeremiah says,
I called upon Thy Name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
Thou hast heard my voice: hide not Thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon Thee: Thou saidst, Fear not (Lam 3:55-57).
How like God! This Old Testament truth is beautifully illustrated in the New Testament story of the publican who would not lift up so much as his eyes to Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner, and he went down to his house justified.
With broken heart and contrite sigh,A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry;Thy pardoning grace is rich and free:O God be merciful to me.
I smite upon my troubled breast,With deep and conscious guilt oppressed;Christ and His Cross my only plea;O God, be merciful to me!
Far off I stand with tearful eyes,Nor dare uplift them to the skies;But Thou dost all my anguish see:O God, be merciful to me!
And when redeemed from sin and hell,With all the ransomed throng I dwell;My raptured song shall ever be,God hath been merciful to me.
Gods power is adequate for salvation.
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old (Lam 5:21).
He alone is our hope.
Down in Illinois some years ago there was a cave-in in a coal mine. Sixty men were imprisoned hundreds of feet deep; but there was a small opening left between where they stood and the mouth of the cave. Fred Evans, a little boy, who was his mothers lone support, stood at the mouth of the cave when the foreman said, Fred, you are probably small enough to make it through this hole and carry down a pipe-line to the men and if you can do it you can save the lives of those men, for through it we can pump them fresh air and send them milk and water with which to sustain them. Will you try?
Without a moments hesitation, the little lad said, I will do my best, Sir!
Taking the line, he started on the long six hundred foot crawl. Again and again the line ceased to move, and the people without were filled with fear lest he had struck an impassable place or more probably still, coal or stone had fallen on him. But after a minute it would pick up again and by and by there came back through the tube the glad announcement that Fred had arrived.
For a whole week milk and water and air went through that tube to the men and Fred, and the whole sixty of them were eventually reached by the men and saved.
Gov. John R. Tanner, then Governor of Illinois, hearing of the deed of heroism sent for the lad. Youngster, said the Governor, the state of Illinois wants to recognize your pluck. What can we do for you? To which the lad finally answered after a bit of embarrassment, I would like to learn how to read.
The result was that he received a fine education free from the state of Illinois, and today he is a successful man.
Hear me! When we were caught, not in the accidental cave in a coal mine, but in the consequence of our own conduct; when the sentence of death against sin had been justly passed, Gods Son carried to us the life line. It cost Him, not the long anxious moments of Freds crawl, but rather the cruelties of the Cross, the shedding of the last drop of His precious Blood; but He failed not, and by that Blood we are redeemed.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
Lam. 1:1-2 present the city as she is in sharp contrast with what she was, and as an object of deep distress, on account of her sins and their penalties. The verses have a pictorial illustration in the medal struck by the Roman Emperor Titus in commemoration of the capture of Jerusalem (A.D. 71).
() Lam. 1:1. How, not in interrogation, but in surprise and pain. This particle is unnecessarily inserted twice in the Authorised Version. It is not again employed in the Hebrew of the book, except in chaps. Lam. 2:1 and Lam. 4:1-2, sitteth alone, in a posture of overpowering sorrow rather than of utter isolation, like Nehemiah, who, when he heard of the doleful state of Jerusalem, sat down and wept and mourned (Lam. 1:4), the city = Jerusalem, as following verses prove. The fact that the Chaldean captain left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah (Jer. 39:10) suggests that a few waifs and strays might be still banging round the ruined city, while the reference (chap. Lam. 2:10) to the elders of the daughter of Zion may intimate that some of better means were also with them; that was full of people. No known criterion exists by which to estimate the population of ancient Jerusalem. An approximate guess even cannot be made from the perfunctory census taken in Davids reign. She is become as a widow, forsaken and under the reproach of widowhood, seeing that she is not in communion with the Lord, her Maker; but still she is not quite a widow; there is to be a restoration, because for a small moment have I forsaken thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer (Isa. 54:6); that was great among the nations, respected and powerful; a princess over the provinces. The dominion centered in Jerusalem is illustrated by the letter of Artaxerxes to his subordinates, There have been mighty kings over Jerusalem, which have ruled over all the country beyond the river; and tribute, custom, and toll was paid unto them (Ezr. 4:20). This jurisdiction over dependent peoples was at its height in the reigns of David and Solomon, though after them there were also kings whose rule embraced others beside the Jews. In sad contrast she is become a vassal, generally shown by taskwork, not so often by money-payment, and expressing entire subservience.
() Lam. 1:2. Intense grief overwhelms her, She weeps bitterly in the night; no temporary oblivion comes to her; the silent hours pass with her tears on her cheeks. For her there is no comforter among all her lovers; all her friends, or neighbours, have dealt treacherously with her. The Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them (Eze. 23:23), were alienated from her, while Egypt, Amnion, Edom, Moab, disowned their alliance with her: they are become her enemies, and gloat over her downfall (2Ki. 24:2).
HOMILETICS
Grief for a Ruined City
(Lam. 1:1-2)
There is a fine piece of statuary representing the figure of a Hebrew female in a sitting posture, the head and shoulders slightly bent forward, the hair escaping in disordered tresses from the neatly plaited fillets, the arms, carelessly crossed over each other, resting helplessly in her lap, the eyes, moistened with tears, gazing wistfully on the ground, and the face expressing in every feature the tenderest pathos of sorrow. The whole figure seems to quiver with irrepressible emotion. Every part is moulded with voluptuous grace, and is susceptible of the deepest passion, but it is the passion of an inconsolable grief! The genius of the artist has thus sought to idealise unhappy Judah weeping amid the scattered fragments of national ruin. It is a reproduction, by the art of the nineteenth century, of the same sad image that appeared on the well-known medal of Titus, struck to celebrate his triumph over Jerusalema woman sitting weeping beneath a palm-tree, and below is inscribed the legend Judea capta. It is startling to observe how exactly the heathen conqueror copied the poetic description by Jeremiah of the forlorn condition to which his beloved country was reduced. These words describe a pathetic picture of grief for a ruined city.
I. Because of its utter desolation. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people (Lam. 1:1) There is a tradition that Jeremiah wrote these elegies in a grotto that is still shown, situated in the face of a rocky hill on the western side of Jerusalem; and there is a freshness and versatility in the images employed, as if every time he glanced at the ruins of the ill-fated city, full in his view, he was unable to repress a new outburst of grief. He had seen Jerusalem in prosperity, its Temple thronged with worshippers, its commerce flourishing, its people content and joyous; but now all is changed; the market-place is empty, the streets silent, the princes and people in exile, and the Temple, which the Jew fondly dreamed invulnerable, was a heap of ruins. Such desolation was unparalleled in the history of the nation and in the experience of the prophet, and his heart was riven with anguish. We may read about the decay of great cities without emotion; but to witness the demolition of our own city is a different matter.
II. Because of the loss of its beloved chief. How is she become as a widow! (Lam. 1:1). A city is often described as the mother of its inhabitants, the king as husband, the princes as children. When the king is gone, and not even a representative is left, the city is widowed and orphaned indeed. The condition of an Eastern widow is pitiable. Her hair is cut short, she strips off all her ornaments, eats the coarsest food, fasts often, and is all but an outcast in the family of her late husband. The image employed by the prophet would therefore be painfully suggestive to the Jewish mind.
III. Because of its humiliating subjection. She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary? (Lam. 1:1). The older meaning of the word tributary refers not to a money-payment, but to personal labour (Jos. 16:10). The city that ruled from the Nile to the Euphrates is now reduced to slavery, and the few inhabitants who are left must render bond-service to a heathen potentate. It is galling to a once proud and prosperous people to be thus humiliated. They who will not serve God faithfully must be compelled to serve their enemies.
IV. Because of its being cruelly betrayed. Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies (Lam. 1:2). Her allies, who made great protestations of attachment when all was prosperous, not only forsake her when adversity comes, but unite with her enemies in completing her destruction. It is a bitter irony of human professions when love turns to enmity and friendship to treachery. A loose tooth and a fickle friend are two evils. The sooner we are clear of them the better; but who likes the wrench? If we lose the comfort of God, we are not likely to find help in man. We can trust in no one if we cannot trust in God.
V. Is expressed with irresistible pathos. She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks (Lam. 1:2). It was a fine touch of poetic genius when the prophet selected a sorrowful woman as an emblem of a disconsolate city. Woman is never so fascinating, so tender, so bewitchingly irresistible in commanding sympathy as when she is in tears! The hardest heart is melted, the sternest enemy subdued. The sorrow of Judah was overwhelming because the ruin was so unexpected and unparalleled. No city has been wept over like Jerusalem. The melancholy wail has been prolonged through the centuries, and is reproduced to-day. The Lamentations are still read yearly by the Jews to commemorate the burning of the Temple. Every Friday, Israelites young and old, of both sexes, gather at the wailing place in Jerusalem, where a few of the old stones of the Temple still remain in the wall, and, amid tears, recite these sad verses and suitable psalms, as they fervently kiss the stones. On the 9th of the month Ab, nearly our July, this dirge, composed about 600 years before Christ, is read aloud in every synagogue over the world. Weeping is not repentance; but the tears of the contrite do not flow in vain. They are noted in heaven, and God will help.
LESSONS.
1. The ruin of a once prosperous city is a sad and suggestive spectacle.
2. The miseries of others should rouse our compassion.
3. The greatest grief finds relief in tears.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 1:1. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people. A populous city.
1. A busy scene of activity, gaiety, sin, sorrow, and complicated experiences.
2. Produces a strange sensation upon the belated visitor when it is hushed in the silence of sleep.
3. Its ruin a subject of profound sorrow and suggestive reflections to one who has known it in the flood-tide of its prosperity.
How has she become as a widow, she that was great among the nations. Widowhood.
1. Suggestive of lossloss of happiness, solace, guardianship, affection.
2. Implies loneliness, dejection, sorrow.
3. A painful experience when contrasted with a former state of affluence and grandeur.
Princes among the provinces, how is she become tributary. The strange reverses of fortune.
1. The ruler becomes the ruled.
2. The free are the conquered:
3. Wealth exchanged for poverty.
4. Life dependent on abject submission to those who were once our inferiors.
Lam. 1:2. She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. The pathos of tears.
1. A sublime spectacle in the ideal woman.
2. An evidence of profound sorrow.
3. Gathers its significance from the character of the calamity it bewails
4. A merciful relief to an intensely sensitive nature.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies. The fickleness of human friendships. I. Genuine friends are rare. They may usually be counted on a thumb and finger; the one is the wife or husband, the other is the mother, who is father, mother, and a great deal more. There is no folly so fanatical as that which flings away a real friend. II. Friends are plentiful when we do not need their help. They depend on us more than ever we had occasion to depend on them. While we can help them, their friendship is effusive and their vows of fealty emphatic. When our power declines, so does their attachment: when our circumstances alter, so do they. They are swallow friends, fluttering merrily about us in the summertime of prosperity, but suddenly become invisible when the winter of adversity sets in. III. It is a sad proof of the perversity of human nature when a friend is transformed into an enemy. The enmity is often the more rancorous because of the intimacy of a former friendship. The secrets confided in a moment of familiarity are used against us with a studied ingenuity of irritating spitefulness. It is a painful shock to an unsophisticated youth, and leaves a wound that time cannot heal, when he discovers for the first time the base treachery of a pretended friend.
ILLUSTRATIONS.Mutual sympathy in sorrow. When Henry VII. heard of the sudden death of his son Prince Arthur at Ludlow Castle in 1502, he said, Send some one for the Queen; let me bear this grief with her. She came and did her best to comfort him. She then retired to her own room, was overwhelmed with sorrow, and swooned away. It was now his turn to cheer and comfort. On both sides it was, Let me bear this grief with her, and, Let me bear this grief with him. And thus in their retreat at Greenwich the King and Queen of England mourned in silence for the loss of their first-born son.
It is the weeping cloud that blesses the earth.
Grief useless that does not lead to active help. We are sorry (for the English are a kind-hearted people) for the victims of our luxury and neglect; sorry for the thousands whom we let die every year by preventible diseases, because we are either too busy or too comfortable to save their lives; sorry for the savages whom we exterminate by no deliberate intent, but by the mere weight of our heavy footstep; sorry for the thousands who are used up yearly in certain trades in ministering to our comfort, even to our very luxuries and frivolities; sorry for the Sheffield grinders, who go to work as to certain death; sorry for the people whose lower jaws decay away in lucifermatch factories; sorry for the diseases of artificial flower-makers; sorry for the boys working in glass-houses whole days and nights on end without rest, labouring in the very fire, and wearying themselves with weary vanity. We are sorry for them all, as the giant is for the worm on which he treads. Alas! poor worm. But the giant must walk on. He is necessary to the universe, and the worm is not. So we are sorry, for half an hour, and glad too (for we are a kind-hearted people) to hear that charitable persons or the Government are going to do something towards alleviating these miseries. And then we return, too many of us, each to his own ambition, comforting ourselves with the thought that we did not make the world, and we are not responsible for it.C. Kingsley.
The All-seeing God and the lonely. God sees you always. There is no moment when He does not see you, night or day, waking or sleeping, alone or in company. It is told of Linnus, the famous naturalist, that he was greatly impressed with this thought, and that it told upon his conversation, his writings, and his conduct. He felt the importance of this so much, that he wrote over the door of his study the Latin words, Innocui vivite; Numen ad est. Live innocently; God is here!
Christianity relieves the miseries of great cities. Look at those noble buildings which the generosity of our fellow-countrymen have erected in all our great cities. You may truly find in them sermons in stones; sermons for rich and poor alike. They preach to the rich, these hospitals, that the sick-bed levels all alike; that they are the equals and brothers of the poor in the terrible liability to suffer. They preach to the poor that they are, through Christianity, the equals of the rich in their means and opportunities of cure. Whether the founders so intended or not, these hospitals bear direct witness for Christ. They do this, and would do it even ifwhich God forbid!the name of Christ was never mentioned within their walls. That may seem a paradox, but it is none; for it is a historic fact that hospitals are the creation of Christian times and of Christian men. The heathen knew them not. In the great city of ancient Rome, as far as I have been able to discover, there was not a single hospital, not even a single charitable institution. Fearful thought! A city of a million and a half inhabitants, the centre of human civilisation, and not an hospital there! The Roman Dives paid his physician; the Roman Lazarus literally lay at his gates full of sores, till he died the death of the street dogs which licked those sores, and was carried forth to be thrust under ground awhile, till the same dogs came to quarrel over his bones. The misery and helplessness of the lower classes in the great city of the Roman Empire, till the Church of Christ arose literally with healing in its wings, cannot, I believe, be exaggerated.C. Kingsley.
When you hear a man praising the good old times, ask him how the peasantry were then sheltered and fed.
The power of tears. A young lady once visited a lunatic asylum, and was led into a room where there was but one patient, a young girl of the same age as herself. She was standing in the corner of the room, her face almost touching the wall. In stony hopelessness she stood. She neither looked nor spoke. She might have been dead but that she still stood on. It was a pathetic sight. Will you speak to her? asked the doctor; we can do nothing with her. She has been thus for days; but one like yourself might move her. The young lady stepped forward, and, with an upward cry for Divine help, laid her hand gently on the shoulder of the listless form, and with tears in her eyes spoke one sentence of yearning sympathy and compassion. The spell was broken. The poor patient turned, gazed for a moment on the face of the weeping visitor, and then burst into tears! The doctor exclaimed, Thank God, she may now be saved! The visitor could never recall the words she had used; but, with the voice softened with tears, they had done their work. The still and cold indifference of the patient gave way before the warmth of a pitying heart and the magic touch of a hand stretched out to help. The eloquence of tears is irresistible.
The friends of youth: Where are they?
I sought you, friends of youth, in sun and shade,
By home and hearth; but no! ye were not there.
Where are ye gone, beloved ones, where? I said.
I listened, and an echo answered, Where?
Then silence fell around: upon a tomb
I sat me down, dismayed at death, and wept;
Over my senses fell a cloud of gloom;
They sank before the mystery, and I slept.
I slept, and then before my eyes there pressed
Faces that showed a bliss unknown before;
The loved whom I in life had once possessed
Came one by one, till all were there once more.
A light of nobler worlds was round their head;
A glow of better actions made them fair.
The dead are there, triumphantly I said;
Triumphantly the echo answered, There!
Clive.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A WIDOWED CITY
Lam. 1:1-22
Chapter one of Lamentations has two major divisions. In Lam. 1:1-11 the prophet laments the present condition of Zion. Twice in this unit the prophet alludes to his own personal agony over the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Lam. 1:9; Lam. 1:11). In Lam. 1:12-22 the city itself laments over its condition. Both units end in prayers which call upon God to take note of the plight of Zion and to execute vengeance upon the enemies of Zion. The entire chapter is written in acrostic style, every fourth line beginning with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
I. A LAMENT OVER THE CITY Lam. 1:1-11
The prophets lament over the condition of Jerusalem moves through three stages. Lam. 1:1-7 contain a lengthy description of the present condition of Jerusalem and of her former inhabitants. This description is followed by an explanation of the present condition in Lam. 1:8-9 b. The lament closes with a prayer which calls upon God to take note of the plight of His people.
A. Description of the Present condition Lam. 1:1-7
TRANSLATION
(1) How sad that the city, once filled with people, sits alone; that she who was great among the nations has become like a widow; that she who was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. (2) She weeps bitterly by night, tears on her cheek; she has no one to comfort her among all her lovers; all her friends have dealt treacherously against her, becoming her enemies. (3) Judah has gone captive out of affliction and great servitude; she dwells among the nations but finds no resting place; all her pursuers have overtaken her in the straits. (4) The roads to Zion mourn because no one comes to the appointed feasts; all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh continually, her maidens are sorrowful and she herself is in bitterness. (5) Her foes have become her head, her enemies are happy because the LORD has made her suffer because of the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone into captivity before the foe. (6) From the daughter of Zion all beauty has departed. Her princes have become like harts that cannot find a pasture; they have fled without strength before the pursuer. (7) In the days of her affliction and wanderings Jerusalem remembers all the precious things which were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe and there was no one to help her; the foe watched, gloating over her demise.
COMMENTS
Jeremiahs lament over Jerusalem begins with the exclamation how or how sad, a word frequently used to begin a funeral dirge.[440] Jerusalem is personified as a widowed princess who sits alone in the night weeping over the death of her husband and children. The loneliness of widowhood is emphasized in this lament. The once populous city is now empty. That city which had once enjoyed no small degree of notoriety among the nations is now obscure. The proud princess of provinces has been reduced to the state of abject poverty and slavery (Lam. 1:1). Every night the widowed city weeps over her plight but she has no one to wipe the tears from her cheek. Her lovers (political allies) and her friends (neighboring nations) have deserted her. Those who had once courted her assistance and who had so willingly offered themselves to her have now become her most bitter enemies (Lam. 1:2). The children of Zion have been carried away captive by the Chaldeans and now dwell on foreign soil. Even though this deportation was in a sense a relief from afflictionthe miseries of war, famine and pestilenceand servitudethe bitter bondage to cruel oppressors like Necho (2Ki. 23:33) and Nebuchadnezzarstill the children of Zion found no real rest. Living among Gentiles they find themselves plagued by worry and doubt, depressed by homesickness, surrounded by idolatry, tormented by the realization that their God has inflicted this great punishment upon them because of their spiritual rebellion. From this captivity there is no escape. This is the point of the figurative expression all her pursuers have overtaken her in the straits. Narrow mountain passes make it almost impossible for a fugitive to escape from those who would pursue him. So also is escape only a remote possibility for those living in foreign exile (Lam. 1:3).
[440] See Lam. 2:1; Lam. 4:1; Isa. 1:21 : Jer. 48:17.
In Lam. 1:4-5 Jeremiah points to the fact that Zion exists in a widowed state spiritually. The roads leading to Zion are said to weep because pilgrims no longer travel them. The solemn festivals of the law of Moses were no longer observed for the city had been destroyed. The city gates, which formerly had bustled with business, now lie desolate. The priests mourn because they can no longer sing their beautiful hymns or play their instruments (Psa. 68:24-25) in the Temple (Lam. 1:4). The enemies of Zion now have the upper hand. They mockingly rejoice over the misfortune which Jerusalem has experienced. Even little children have suffered at the hands of the cruel oppressor as they have been forced to walk that long, weary road to exile. Why does Zion suffer and her enemies prosper? Jerusalems troubles are due to the multitude of her transgressions. Zions God in righteous indignation has inflicted these penalties upon His people.
The widowed daughter of Zion is ugly, weak and helpless. All her beautythat which made her the envy of other nationsis gone. The princes of the nation are so destitute of strength that they are compared to wild harts which can find no pasture. Unable to withstand the pursuers the princes have fled (Lam. 1:6). The weakened and widowed condition of Jerusalem is aggravated by the bitter recollections of past privileges. She remembers the precious things, the gracious gifts which the Lord had bestowed upon her when she dwelt within her own land. Since Jerusalem had despised both the gifts and the Giver she was forced to enter into a period of affliction and wanderings. But no one commiserates with her in her agony. Her former friends, having become her foes, gloat over the demise and downfall of Zion (Lam. 1:7). One of the miseries of sin in this world and hell in the next will be the constant recollection of the days when one enjoyed the blessings and graces of God.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
I.
(1) How doth the city . . .The poem of twenty-two verses divides itself into two symmetrical halves, (1) Lam. 1:1-11, in which the prophet laments over Jerusalem; and (2) Lam. 1:12-22, more dramatic in its form, in which the daughter of Zion bewails her own miseries. Each verse is divided into three lines, each line beginning, in the Hebrew, with the same letter. The opening picture reminds us of the well-known Juda capta, a woman sitting under a palm-tree, on the Roman medals struck after the destruction of Jerusalem.
How is she become.Better, making one sentence instead of two, She is become a widow that was great among the nations, and so with the clause that follows.
Provinces.The word, used in Est. 1:1; Est. 1:22, and elsewhere, of the countries subject to Persia and Assyria and so in Ezr. 2:1; Neh. 7:6, of Judah itself, here indicates the neighbouring countries that had once, as in the reign of Hezekiah, been subject to Judah. Tributary, as used here, implies, as in Jos. 16:10, personal servitude, rather than the money payment, for which, at a later period, as in Est. 10:1, it was commuted.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE MISERIES DESCRIBED, Lam 1:1-11.
1. As a widow Jerusalem is personified as a desolate woman, deprived of children and husband, neglected by her lovers and betrayed by her friends. It is an interesting fact, that the image of this verse is the one chosen for the coin of Titus, struck to commemorate his triumph over Jerusalem, which shows a woman weeping under a palm tree, and the inscription, “Judea Capta.” The real structure of this first verse is disguised in the English Version, as also in the Masoretic pointing. The reading should be:
How sitteth she alone, the city full of people!
She has become like a widow (that was) great among the nations!
A princess among provinces, she has become a vassal.
The exclamation point in the English Version after “widow” should be removed to stand after nations, and the and introduced by the translators should be returned to the nothingness whence it sprung.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Prophet Pines Over What Jerusalem Has Lost ( Lam 1:1-7 ).
In these opening verses (Lam 1:1-7) Jerusalem is pictured by the writer in terms of how it now was, an empty city, a widow and forced-labourer (helpless people subject to the winds of fortune), one who was despised by the nations, her people in exile, her worship non-existent, ruled over by her enemies, her treasures all gone, and all because she had turned from the Lord and from His covenant, and had done it so often that in the end He had had enough.
The verses bring out a number of deliberate contrasts:
She had been full of people, a busy thriving city, but now she was empty (Lam 1:1 a).
She had been great among the nations, but now she had become a helpless and undefended widow (the most unheeded of people) grieving the loss of her husband, indeed even a forced-labourer, one of the riff-raff caught up by fate and respected by none (Lam 1:1 b).
She had had many friends and lovers among her allies, who had honoured and respected her, but now they despised her and have become her enemies (Lam 1:2).
She who had been at rest and well established as the capital of a nation had now been taken into captivity, scattered and dwelling among the nations, finding no rest (Lam 1:3).
She who had been a thriving worship centre, was now deserted. None came to her in order to enjoy her festivals (Lam 1:4).
Those who had been kept in check by her as her regional enemies, were now instead head over her (Lam 1:5).
She had been full of treasures (pleasant things), but now those treasures were but a memory. They had gone (Lam 1:7).
We can understand from this the cry from the prophet’s heart. Jerusalem had lost everything. Whilst the city would not be literally empty, and some of the poorest of the land would still be living there amidst its ruins, she was an empty, broken-down shell. The eternal city was no more. It is a picture of a city and nation which, because it had lost its soul, had therefore now lost everything.
We cannot fail to recognise in all this what can happen to the church of Jesus Christ (and has happened through the ages) when it falls short in its witness and life and becomes superficial. Its congregations can begin to dwindle. It can lose respect. It can find itself deserted. It can lose its spiritual riches and its first love. It has happened to much of the church in England (although thankfully with many exceptions). It is happening in the US. And it all arises through disobedience and neglect, through self-praise and self-gratification, through self-satisfaction, and through an attitude that worships other things than God. It is something that can also happen in the individual. It is a picture of the consequences when the world has crept in and has gradually taken over, it is a picture of the consequences of backsliding, of a spiritually bankrupt life.
Lam 1:1
(Aleph) How the city sits empty (solitary),
Which was full of people!
She is become as a widow,
She who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
Is become a slave-labourer!
As the writer surveys what remains of Jerusalem his heart is moved to cry out. He could remember how it had once been a teeming city, full of bustle and noise, its streets filled with people. But now it was empty. Those who did still dwell there were despondent and discouraged as they crept around its ruined streets, ruled over by outsiders. It was a city which had lost its heart.
It had become like a widow, one who wept because she had lost her protector and provider, one who often lived on the edge of poverty, who was ignored by all, and was an irrelevance to all, with no one to take up her cause. Life had passed her by. (Compare the vivid picture of the enforced widowhood of Babylon found in Isaiah 47, and Israel as a widow in Isa 54:4-5; See also the indications of a widow’s lot in Deu 24:19-21; 1Ki 17:9-24; Isa 10:2; Eze 22:7). Jerusalem/Judah had once been great among the local nations, highly regarded, and looked up to as a royal city, ‘a princess’. But now it had become a forced-labourer, one set to the task force, at the beck and call of its taskmasters.
‘A princess among the provinces.’ This is looking back to the times when surrounding nations had been subject to Jerusalem in the times of Hezekiah, and earlier. Then she had been like a princess among them. The word for ‘provinces’ indicates a nation or nations subject to another nation (compare Ezr 2:1; Neh 7:6; Est 1:1; Est 1:22)
We are reminded by this of the Ephesian church which had lost its first love and would eventually have its light of witness removed (Rev 2:2-5), which was eventually brought down to the depths, and of the Laodicean church, which had not yet realised that it was poor and wretched, miserable, blind and naked (Rev 3:17). The secret of the maintenance of true spirituality is eternal vigilance and remaining close to God.
Lam 1:2
(Beth) She weeps sore in the night,
And her tears are on her cheeks,
Among all her lovers
She has none to comfort her,
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
They are become her enemies.
Jerusalem in her desolation had become like a deserted lover, weeping bitterly in the night, tears running down her cheeks, her lovers no longer there to comfort her because they have treacherously entered into relationship with her enemies. She had been deserted. All the nations that she had relied on had turned from her, making terms with the Babylonians and acting against her (Psa 137:7; Eze 25:3; Eze 25:6; Oba 1:11-14; Jer 40:14). She has been left alone to face her destiny.
In the past she had looked to those others for sustenance instead of to her Lord (Hos 2:7; Hos 7:11; Hos 8:9-10; Jer 22:20-22; Eze 23:1-48; Isa 30:1-3; Isa 31:1-3; 1Ki 15:16-20; 2Ki 16:5-7), and now those others had failed her and she was left bereft. Not one could be relied on. It is a reminder that we also need to beware of too much reliance on people, instead of relying on our Lord. He is the only One Who will never let us down.
Lam 1:3
(Gimel) Judah is gone into captivity (exile),
Because of affliction, and because of great servitude,
She dwells among the nations,
She finds no rest,
All her persecutors overtook her,
In the midst of her distress.
One of the great promises to God’s people had been that they would find rest (see Deu 12:9-10; Deu 25:19; Jos 21:44; Jos 23:1; 2Sa 7:1 ; 2Sa 7:11; 1Ki 8:56). But from now on there would be no rest, for those who were the heart of the nation had been carried away into captivity. Some were suffering great affliction, others were facing great servitude. See the vivid picture in Deu 28:64-67. Like the Israelites who had wandered in the wilderness under Moses, they too would wander among the nations, unable to find rest (Psa 95:11). And of those who had not gone into captivity large numbers had sought refuge in Egypt, equally becoming exiles. For them the future was just as bleak as Jeremiah makes clear. Meanwhile her own land had been invaded and settled by other neighbouring nations (e.g. the Edomites in the south) who had acted against her in her abandoned state.
It is noteworthy that later in the book ‘the daughter of Zion’ is promised that she will no more be carried into captivity once the punishment of her iniquity is accomplished (Lam 4:22). The book is therefore an assurance that this is only a temporary experience.
This picture of a people unable to find rest is taken up by the writer to the Hebrews in Hebrews 3-4, as he warns a group of Jewish Christians of the dangers of falling back into Judaism. It is a warning to us also lest we fall back into apathy, or think that we can be ‘believers’ without making a genuine response in our lives.
Lam 1:4
(Daleth) The ways of Zion mourn,
Because none come to the solemn assembly,
All her gates are desolate,
Her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she herself is in bitterness.
In spite of its extravagant seeking after false gods Jerusalem had taken great pride in being the centre of Yahwism, the place to which people flocked at the times of the great feasts, singing as they came. It was the place where many gathered to worship the true God. But now the roads along which they had travelled mourned because no one travelled along them, no one came for the feasts. Jerusalem’s very gates were unused and desolate, no pilgrims flocked through them. Her priests sighed, either because no one made use of their services (the context may be seen as suggesting that these are minor priests left in Jerusalem), or because having been carried off into a far country they could no longer serve. Her virgins were afflicted, and no longer took part in the festivals (virgins/young women were regularly associated with festival worship – Psa 68:25; Jdg 21:19-25 Exo 15:20; Jer 31:13) partly because there were no prospects of marriage for them as a result of the slaughter, and partly possibly because they had been repeatedly raped by the invading forces and had lost their virginity. Meanwhile the whole of Jerusalem, instead of being festive, was in deep bitterness.
Many today can look back to the past and see what once was, remembering past days of blessing which have been lost. And it is all too often because of the sin of God’s people who have failed in their responsibility, indeed, bringing it closer to home, it is because of our sin. We have only to think of past revivals to ask ourselves, why have the places in which there was once such rejoicing and worship, become places which are spiritually barren and fruitless?
Lam 1:5
(He) Her adversaries are become the head,
Her enemies prosper,
For YHWH has afflicted her,
For the multitude of her transgressions,
Her young children are gone into captivity,
Before the adversary.
Grievous to the prophet was the sight of Jerusalem and Judah ruled over by foreigners. Babylon now ruled them by direct rule through her appointees, stationed elsewhere than Jerusalem. Initially it was by Gedaliah, no doubt watched over by Babylonian advisers, and then by whoever replaced him. But the authority to rule had been taken away from Jerusalem.
‘Her enemies prosper.’ The neighbouring nations were no longer subject to Judah’s hand upon them, and instead prospered at her expense. And all this was because YHWH had afflicted her. It was YHWH’s doing.
And that is why her people, and even her young children, had gone into exile, either forcefully or voluntarily. (‘Before the adversary’ could indicate that they had been driven as captors, or that they had fled from their vengeance). It was because of their transgressions against the covenant with YHWH, which included the ten words/commandments. So the message is that it is YHWH Who has done it because of their disobedience to His requirements. This is the explanation of the catastrophe. This emphasis on the fact that it was YHWH Who was responsible for what had happened, and Who had brought this catastrophe on them, is a theme of the book. See Lam 1:12-15; Lam 1:17; Lam 2:1-8; Lam 2:17; Lam 3:1; Lam 3:37-38, Lam 43-45: Lam 4:11. It was a message that enabled a broken and disheartened people to make sense of what had happened. It enabled them to recognise that if only they would respond to Him truly they were still His people. For we must remember that however deep our sin, God will always provide us with a way back through true repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lam 1:6
(Waw) And from the daughter of Zion,
All her majesty is departed,
Her princes are become like harts,
Which find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength,
Before the pursuer.
For the majesty that has departed from the daughter of Zion compare Eze 16:14. YHWH had made her majestic in the eyes of the nations, partly because of her unique faith and her unique God, but now that majesty has departed. Instead of standing proud among the nations her princes had become like deer without pasture which become weak and feeble, and lose their strength. ‘Before their pursuer’ suggests here a special reference to the way in which Zedekiah and his princes and advisers had fled ignominiously by night seeking to escape from those who surrounded Jerusalem. But they had lacked the strength and stamina to escape as a result of the starvation rations that they had been living on and had been overtaken at the Arabah (2Ki 25:5; Jer 39:5; Jer 52:7-8).
Lam 1:7
(Zayin) Jerusalem remembers,
In the days of her affliction and of her miseries,
All her pleasant things,
Which were from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary,
And none did help her,
The adversaries saw her,
They mocked at her desolations.
The prophet pictures Jerusalem in her poverty and desolation as remembering the treasures that she had lost, the treasures which had made her such a desirable city, and especially the treasures of the Temple removed by Nebuchadrezzar (Jer 52:17-23; 2Ki 24:13). Then she had been admired and honoured. But now her treasures were gone, for she had fallen into the hands of the adversary, and none had helped her. And indeed her adversaries now saw her desolations and mocked at her. She was a laughingstock among her neighbours.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The State Of The One-time Great City Of Jerusalem Is Described ( Lam 1:1-11 ).
The prophet here commences by bewailing the state of Jerusalem. He pines over what it has lost, and describes it in terms which bring out how much it has lost. From the political point of view it had lost its autonomy and was no longer semi-independently ruled, having become but part of a Babylonian province. From the religious point of view it had lost its status as the centre for the worship of YHWH.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
Lam 1:1
RWebster, “and princess among the provinces, how is she become a forced labourer!”
Lam 1:1 Comments In the midst of her destruction, Jerusalem first reflects upon her past glories, perhaps remembering the glorious years of King Solomon when Israel was the wealthiest nation on earth. When we sit down with someone who has lost much, we will quickly hear this person reflecting upon his most glorious years.
Lam 1:2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
Lam 1:2
Lam 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
Lam 1:4 Lam 1:4
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Description of the Shameful Lot which has come upon Jerusalem
v. 1. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! v. 2. She weepeth sore in the night, v. 3. Judah is gone into captivity, v. 4. The ways of Zion do mourn, v. 5. Her adversaries are the chief, v. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed, v. 7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, v. 8. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, v. 9. Her filthiness is in her skirts, v. 10. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things, v. 11. All her people sigh,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Lam 1:1-11
A WAIL OF DISTRESS FOR JERUSALEM.
Lam 1:1, Lam 1:2
The fate of Jerusalem is described in language which resembles here and there that used in Isaiah of fallen Babylon (Isa 47:1, Isa 47:8). It is probably the finest passage in the whole bock, and has inspired some grand lines in Mr. Swinburne’s picture of the republican mater dolorosa
“Who is she that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rust-stained garment, the robes of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall, sitting with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn, wet hair,” etc.?
Lam 1:1
How. The characteristic introductory word of an elegy (comp. Isa 1:21; Isa 14:4, Isa 14:12), and adopted by the early Jewish divines as the title of the Book of Lamentations. It is repeated at the opening of Lam 2:1-22 and Lam 4:1-22. Sit solitary. Jerusalem is poetically personified and distinguished from the persons who accidentally compose her population. She is “solitary,” not as having retired into solitude, but as deserted by her inhabitants (same word as in first clause of Isa 27:10). How is she become as a widow! etc. Rather, She is become a widow that was great among the nations; a princess among the provinces, she is become a vassal. The alteration greatly conduces to the effect of the verse, which consists of three parallel lines, like almost all the rest of the chapter. We are not to press the phrase, “a widow,” as if some. earthly or heavenly husband were alluded to; it is a kind of symbol of desolation and misery (comp. Isa 47:8). “The provinces” at once suggests the period of the writer, who must have been a subject of the Babylonian empire. The term is also frequently used of the countries under the Persian rule (e.g. Est 1:1, Est 1:22), and in Ezr 2:1 and Neh 7:6 is used of Judah itself. Here, however, the “provinces,” like the “nations,” must be the countries formerly subject to David and Solomon (comp. Ecc 2:8).
Lam 1:2
In the night. Not only by day, but even in the season of rest and unconsciousness. Her lovers her friends; i.e. the neighbouring peoples, with which Judah had formed alliances, such as Egypt (Jer 2:36), Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon (Jer 27:3). This is a favourite phrase of Jeremiah’s (comp. Jer 3:1; Jer 4:30; Jer 22:20, Jer 22:22; Jer 30:14), but also of Hosea (Hos 2:5, Hos 2:7, Hos 2:10, Hos 2:12, Hos 2:13; Hos 8:9) and Ezekiel (Eze 16:33, Eze 16:36, Eze 16:37; Eze 23:5, Eze 23:9, Eze 23:22). The national God was conceived of as the Husband of the nation; and the prophets retained this idea and elevated it, just as they did circumcision and many other Eastern traditions.
Lam 1:3
Is gone into captivity because of affliction; rather, is gone into exile, etc. The poet is not thinking of the deportation of the captives, but of those Jews who sought refuge for themselves in foreign lands (comp. Jer 40:11). An objection has been raised to this view that the number of fugitive Jews would not be large enough to warrant their being called “Judah.” But we might almost as well object on a similar ground to the application of the term “Judah” to the Jews who were carried to Babylon. The truth may, perhaps, be that, after the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish nation became split up into three parts:
(1) the Jews who succeeded in escaping into Egypt or elsewhere;
(2) those who were carried captive;
(3) the mass of the common people, who remained on their native soil, Keil, however, retains the view of the Authorized Version, only substituting “out of” for “because of.” “Out of” the misery into which the Jews had been brought by the invasions of Necho and Nebuchadnezzar they passed into the new misery of captivity. Among the heathen; rather, among the nations. Between the straits. The phrase is peculiar, and reminds us of Psa 118:5, “Out of the strait I called unto thee.” “A strait,” or narrow place, clearly means adversity, just as “a large place” (Psa 118:5) means prosperity.
Lam 1:4
The ways of Zion do mourn. The reads leading to Jerusalem, usually so thronged with pilgrims, are desolate and “mourn” (comp. Lam 2:8 and Isa 3:26; Isa 14:31). All her gates are desolate. No one goes in or out of Jerusalem, and there is no concourse of citizens in the shady recess of the gates. The virgins are afflicted. So Zep 3:18. The sorrow was on account of the cessation of the festival, in the music of which they took a leading part (comp. Psa 68:25).
Lam 1:5
Are the chief; rather, are become the head. Comp. Deu 28:44, where, as a part of the curse of Israel’s rebellion, it is foretold that “he [the stranger] shall become the head, and thou shalt become the tail.” Before the enemy. Like a herd of cattle.
Lam 1:6
Beauty; rather, glory. Like harts that find no pasture; and therefore have no strength left to flee. An allusion to the attempted flight of Zedekiah and his companions (Jer 39:4, Jer 39:5).
Lam 1:7
Remembered; rather, remembereth. Miseries. The Hebrew is difficult, and perhaps means wanderings. At her sabbaths; rather, at her extinguishment. The word has nothing to do with the sabbaths; indeed, a reference to these would have been rather misplaced; it was no subject of wonder to the Babylonians that the Jews celebrated a weekly day of rest, as they had one of their own (sabattu).
Lam 1:8
Therefore she is removed; rather, she is become an abomination (literally, an impurity; comp. Le 15:19). The poet leaves out the preliminary clause, “therefore she is grievously punished.” It was the humiliation of Jerusalem, rather than her sin, which brought upon her the contempt of her neighbours. The destruction of a city is often compared to the ill treatment of a defenceless woman (Isa 47:3; Nah 3:5).
Lam 1:9
She remembereth not, etc.; rather, she thought not upon, etc. An allusion to Isa 47:7. O Lord, behold, etc. This is the language in which the “sigh” (Isa 47:8) finds expression.
Lam 1:10
Her pleasant things; or, her precious things; that is, the treasures of the palaces of Jerusalem (2Ch 36:19), and still more those of the temple (2Ch 36:10); comp. Isa 64:11). For she hath seen; rather, yea, she hath seen. The heathen entered, etc. In Deu 23:3 only the Ammonites and Moabites are excluded from religious privileges; but in Eze 44:9 the prohibition is extended to all foreigners.
Lam 1:11
All her people sigh, etc. The sufferings of Jerusalem did not come to an end at the capture of the city. Some think that this verse relates solely to the miserable survivors. This is possible; at any rate, it includes the contemporaries of the writer. “Sigh” and “seek” are participles in the Hebrew. To relieve the soul; literally, to bring back the soul. The “soul,” i.e. the principle of life, is conceived of as having for a time deserted the fainting frame. See, O Lord, etc. Another piteous cry of Jerusalem, preparing the way for the second half of the elegy.
Lam 1:12-22
The same subject; Jerusalem the speaker.
Lam 1:12
Is it nothing to you? The Hebrew is very difficult, and the translation therefore insecure. Keil, however, adopts a rendering very near that of the Authorized Version “(Cometh it) not unto you?” i.e. “Do ye not heed it?” Ewald supposes the phrase to be abbreviated from “Do I not call unto you?” (comp. Pro 8:4); but this would be a very harsh construction. The Septuagint has ; the Targum, “I adjure you;” the Vulgate, O vos;all apparently pronouncing lu instead of lo. At any rate, the object of the words is to heighten the force of the appeal which follows.
Lam 1:13
Three figuresfire, a net, sickness, for the calamities which have come upon Jerusalem. From above; i.e. from heaven. Spread a net for my feet, as though I were a wild beast (comp. Jer 18:22). Turned me back. The consequence of being entangled in the net was that he could go no further, but fell into the hands of his pursuers.
Lam 1:14
Is bound are wreathed. The transgressions of Jerusalem are likened to a heavy yoke. So numerous are they that they are said to be “wreathed,” or twisted together, like ropes. Into their hands. The Hebrew has simply “into hands;” following a suggestion of the Septuagint. Budde would read, “Into the hands of adversaries.”
Lam 1:15
Hath trodden under foot; rather, hath rejected; i.e. hath punished. Comp. Psa 119:118, Psa 119:119, where “thou rejectest [same verb as here] all them that wander from thy statutes” is followed by “thou puttest away all the ungodly of the earth like dross,” Hath called an assembly; rather, hath proclaimed a festival. When Jehovah summons the instruments of his vengeance, the prophets describe it as the “proclaiming a festival.” The Persians or Chaldeans, as the case may be, obey the summons with a holy glee, and destroy the enemies of the true God (comp. Isa 13:3). Hath trodden, etc.; rather, hath trodden the winepress for (i.e. to the ruin of) the virgin daughter of Zion. The poet. carries on the figure of the festival. It is a vintage which is to be celebrated, such a vintage as is described in Isa 63:3 (comp. Joe 3:13). The choicest youth of Judah are to be cut off like grapes from the vine. “Virgin daughter” is a frequent figure to express inviolate security (so Jer 14:17).
Lam 1:16
For these things, etc. After the reflections of Lam 1:13-15, the poet gives vent anew to his hitter grief. Mine eye, mine eye. A repetition quite in Jeremiah’s manner; comp. Jer 4:19; Jer 6:14 (repeated Jer 8:11); Jer 22:29; Jer 23:25. The Septuagint and Vulgate, however, have “mine eye” only once. Relieve my soul (see on Jer 23:11).
Lam 1:17
Again the poet passes into the tone of reflection, thus relieving the strain upon the feelings of the reader. Spreadeth forth her hands. The gesture of supplication and entreaty (comp. Psa 28:2; Psa 63:4; Isa 65:2). That his adversaries, etc.; rather, those who are about him are his adversaries. The neighbouring peoples, who ought to be sympathetic and friendly, gloat over the spectacle of his calamities. They both hate and (comp. Lam 1:8) despise the fallen city.
Lam 1:18
People; render, peoples.
Lam 1:19
For my lovers; render, to my lovers (see on Lam 1:2).
Lam 1:20
My bowels. The vital parts, especially the heart, as the seat of the affections, like . Are troubled; literally, are made to boil. So Job 30:27, “My bowels boil” (a different word, however). Is turned; or, turns itself; i.e. palpitates violently. At home there is as death. So Jer 9:21, “For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces.” By “death,” when distinguished, as here, from “the sword,” pestilence is meant; so e.g. in Jer 15:2; Jer 43:11. But the poet says here, not that “there is death,” but merely “as death,” i.e. a mild form of pestilence, not the famine typhus itself. Or, perhaps, he means “every form of death” (Virgil’s “plurima mortis imago“).
Lam 1:21
Thou wilt bring. The Hebrew has, “Thou hast brought;” it is the perfect of prophetic certitude, which represents an event certainly foreseen as if it had already taken place. Ewald, however, takes this to be the precative, a variety of the perfect which certainly exists in Arabic, but has not been quite satisfactorily shown to exist in Hebrew. But very probably we should read, with the Septuagint,” Thou wilt bring the day; thou wilt call the fit time.”
Lam 1:22
For my sighs are many. This is not mentioned as the reason why God should punish Jerusalem’s enemies; we ought rather to understand, either from Lam 1:20, “Behold, my distress;” or simply, “Deliver me.”
HOMILETICS
Lam 1:1
The solitary city.
The first elegy on the desolation of Jerusalem opens with a lament over her solitariness, widowhood, and humiliation.
I. THE SOLITARINESS.
1. How it is to be measured.
(1) By the nature of the place. It is a city that is solitary. A deserted town strikes us as more lonely than the most dreary moor. We do not expect people in a wilderness; we look for them in a city. Streets which never echo to a footfall, windows which never brighten with a face, doors which are never opened, houses, palaces, shops, factories, markets, all silent and empty,this is indeed a picture of desolation. It is contrary to experience, expectation, and purpose.
(2) By the former condition of the place. It used to be populous. Jerusalem was no sleepy old provincial town, but a busy capital. Crowds would throng the streets, little children play, and old men stand gossiping at the corners, and hucksters set up their stalls, where now no live creature is to be seen, save, perhaps, a few lean dogs prowling after their unclean food. The contrast of the past thus aggravates the distress of the present.
2. Why it is most sad. The loss of men is the great trouble. Fine buildings have been thrown down, marble statues broken, gold and precious stones stolen. But these are not the worst evils. Had all remained untouched, still the trouble would have been heart rending. The people are gone! Chicago rises out of her ashes in greater splendour because her people remain. Jerusalem is most desolate because her citizens have been carried into captivity. The strength of a city is its population. The power of a nation is in its people. The vigour of a Church is in its membership. A splendid cathedral, with a rich full service, but no congregation, fails in comparison with the homeliest mission, if the latter gathers the people. Doctrine may be sound and “means of grace” abundant, yet we shall not advance except as we hold the people.
II. WIDOWHOOD. Unintentionally and perhaps unconsciously, the inspired poet uses an illustration to describe the desolate condition of Jerusalem, which may serve as a hint of her deeper distress. “She is become as a widow.” Who had been her husband? The favoured city used to be regarded as the mystic bride of the Eternal. She had often been accused of unfaithfulness to her marriage vows. Now the faithless wife is punished by becoming the miserable widow. Jerusalem loses the presence and favour of God. It is said that the Shechinah was seen there no more. The greatest loss is to be bereft of God. They who are unfaithful to God will find that he will forsake them. Many would retain the privilege of blessings from God, while renouncing the obligation of fidelity to God. The unfaithful wife is loth to lose the support and position contributed to her by her husband. But this inconsistency cannot be allowed. Christ the Bridegroom remains faithful. But if his bride, the Church, dishonours his Name, she will lose her Lord and become as a widow.
III. HUMILIATION. The city had been the princess among the provinces. She now not only loses her dependencies; she loses her own independence; she becomes a vassal to a strange city. Humiliation will be the peculiar punishment of the great who abuse their rank. The doom of pride will be shame. Few troubles are more galling than to have to come down openly in the sight of those over whom a certain superiority had been maintained.
1. Loss of position and character results in loss of influence. When the Church falls, her power over the world will disappear. Christian elevation of character is essential to Christian influence among men.
2. Loss of power entails loss of liberty. Jerusalem weakened and conquered becomes a vassal. Only the strong can be free. Spiritual failings lead to the loss of spiritual liberty.
3. When the Church ceases to influence the world she will become subject to the world. The fallen suzerain becomes a vassal. The Church can only retain her liberty by maintaining her supremacy. This is the great truth the abuse of which has led to the monstrous pretensions of Rome. The lawful supremacy of the Church must be spiritual, and this may be lost and the Church subject to the spirit of the world, even while she is greedily grasping after temporal power, perhaps just because she does hanker after this lower advantage.
Lam 1:2
Comfortless.
In her distress Jerusalem looks for comfort to those neighbouring nations which flattered her during her prosperity and behaved then as “lovers;” but she is disappointed in finding that they all desert her in the hour of her need.
I. IT IS NATURAL TO SEEK FOR COMFORT IN ADVERSITY FROM THE FRIENDSHIPS OF PROSPERITY. Jerusalem had her “lovers.” This fact throws a significant light on the statement that she had “become as a widow” (Lam 1:1). What shame that she, the wife of the Eternal, should have to be spoken to of “lovers”! But having them she must find her comfort in them. She dare not look to her husband for comfort. In plainer language, the Jews had adopted the idolatry of neighbouring nations as well as renounced the exclusive and retiring position which had been required of them by their God. It was fitting that they should find their consolation from the Babylonian invasion in these foreign connections and religions. If we let our business, our pleasure, our ambition, or any other earthly thing usurp the place of God in our hearts, the time will come when we shall have to try what help we can get in trouble from our idol.
II. UNWORTHY CONNECTIONS WILL AFFORD NO COMFORT IN TIMES OF TROUBLE. The lovers are for pleasure; adversity dismisses them. How bitter is the disappointment! how mortifying is the revelation! The true husband could have been depended on, but the bad lovers for whom he was forsaken coldly turn from the piteous pleading of the sufferer. Thus must it be with every one who forsakes the one Friend and Comforter. No other balm of Gilead will heal the broken heart. What can the pleasures of society say to one who has failed and disgraced himself? What consolation can a materialistic philosophy whisper in the ears of the mourner by the grave? How will the science of the history of religion smooth the pillow of the dying man?
III. THE LAST DROP OF THE BITTER CUP IS TO BE COMFORTLESS. Mere formal consoling is a weariness when it is not an insult to grief. But the comfort of sympathy, the soothing of love, and the cheering of congenial companionship are Divine remedies for sorrow. They are lights in the gloom, though they do not bring the day; gentle hands to wipe away the tears, the flowing of which they may not be able to stanch. The most desolate picture is that of one like Jerusalem in this elegy, weeping sore in the night, with no friendly ray to break the darkness, and no one to remove the tears that fall upon the cheeks unheeded and neglected, crying for comfort only to the pitiless silence.
1. Let us learn to dwell in faithfulness with God, that we may enjoy his unfailing sympathy.
2. Let us extend hands of brotherly compassion to the sorrowing, that, whatever be the grief, its last anguish may be spared; and then, through human comfort, we may lead up to the Divine consolations.
Lam 1:4
The abandoned feasts.
Jerusalem was the religious centre of the nation. Thither the tribes came up to present themselves before the Lord. Great assemblies and joyous feasts were held there for the benefit of all the Jews. But after the Babylonian destruction all this was suspended. None now came to the solemn feasts. The high roads which were wont to be thronged with pilgrims mourn for the lack of travellers; the gates through which they used to press are unused; priests sigh with weariness and distress, having no glad offerings to present; and the virgins who led the song and dance in honour of God are smitten with affliction.
I. IT IS A CALAMITY FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP TO CEASE. Some regard public worship as an onerous duty and others as a superfluous infliction. But they who enter into the privileges of it heartily and spiritually know that it is a boon to the worshipper. As the sabbath is made for man, so also is the institution of worship. To be deprived of it is to suffer loss.
1. The loss of the joy of worship. There is a gladness in expressing love to earthly friends which should be found in the outpouring of our devotion to God. To mingle with the song of the angels is to taste the joy of the angels.
2. The loss of the elevating influence of worship. The soul rises on the wings of its own prayer. Worship is aspiration, and aspiration elevates. If we never worship we stagnate in worldliness. True worship is spiritual and may be enjoyed moat in private. But public worship greatly helps this spiritual worship with most people.
3. The loss of the social influence of worship. Public worship affords mutual help in worship. Numbers give warmth and life to it.
II. IT IS A CALAMITY FOR JOYOUS FESTIVALS TO CEASE. The loss is twofold.
1. The loss of the joy itself. The gladness of worship is no small part of the brightness of a devout man’s life. Rob him of this, and you darken his sky. There are clouds enough; we cannot afford to lose the sunlight which pierces and sometimes illumines them.
2. The loss of the influence of the joy.
(1) This joy purifies. It keeps out unholy pleasures by satisfying the soul with its own blessedness.
(2) This joy strengthens. In gladness we can serve God most earnestly. If, then, the unavoidable loss of joyous exercises of religion is a calamity, how great is the error of those who voluntarily convert religion into a thing of gloom!
III. IT IS A CALAMITY FOR RELIGIOUS INTERCOURSE BETWEEN MEN TO CEASE. The festival was an occasion for the meeting of Jews from all quarters. Townsmen met countrymen. Herdsmen from the south met agriculturists from the north. When this assembly was interrupted, the people suffered in many respects.
1. The loss of brotherly association. We are tempted to forget our brethren if we cease to see them. Solitary Christians tend to become selfish Christians. Brotherly sympathy is fostered by brother fellowship.
2. The loss of mutual stimulus. The strong would urge on the weak, and the more spiritual inspire the less spiritual. There were prophets in these assemblies.
3. The loss of the breadth of variety. We become narrow by isolation. Intercourse broadens us. Christians should seek opportunities to meet with their fellow Christians, to gain width and liberality of view.
Lam 1:6
Her beauty departed from Zion.
I. ZION HAD A BEAUTY OF HER OWN. The dwellings of Zion shone splendid in cedar and gold. A softer beauty was shed over her from old memories and tender associations. The spiritual Zion has her beauty. It is not the magnificence of marble columns and gilded decorations. The beauty of Zion is the beauty of her worship and life.
1. The beauty of holiness. Purity is beautiful as impurity is ugly. This high spiritual loveliness is like the glory of God.
2. The beauty of love. Zion was the place where the tribes assembled. Here all jealousies were to be laid aside and all quarrels healed. What is more beautiful than concession and forgiveness? This beauty should characterize the Church of Christ. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” etc. (Psa 133:1-3.).
3. The beauty of joy. Zion was the centre of festive gatherings. The sacred hill used to echo with shouts of gladness; it was enlivened with the timbrel and song of happy maidens. The joy of Divine grace imparts a sweetness to the very countenance of the faithful servant of God.
II. ZION LOST HER BEAUTY. The fine city was sacked by ruthless soldiers; the splendid edifices rifled or fired; the pomp and pageantry dissipated by sword and axe. But the higher beauty of Zion was also lost, and lost before she was robbed of her external grandeur. Her holiness was corrupted. Sin destroys the spiritual beauty of the Christian. His white priestly garments are defiled when he descends into the mire of moral degradation. It is not only that sin will be visited with certain definite pains and penalties. Before that happens there is an indescribable loss in the tarnished character and marred beauty of the soul which, to one who is awake to the evil condition into which he has fallen, must be a shame and grief.
III. THE LOSS OF THE BEAUTY OF ZION WAS A MOURNFUL CALAMITY. This beauty is no idle ornament, to be put off and on at the caprice of the wearer and for objects of idle display. It is the pledge of her King’s favour, the inspiration of her own best life, and the secret of her influence.
1. Health is lost. As when the sunlight which flashes on silvery lakes and mountain snows fades away, the chills and mists of night creep over the valley, so, when the glory of God departs from a soul, coldness, darkness, and death take its place.
2. Influence is lost. Christians are to be the light of the world. Losing their brightness, they cease to draw others to Christ. The fair countenance of the bride of Christ wins many guests to the wedding feast. Let her see that it is not marred, lest her Lord be dishonoured.
Lam 1:7
Pleasant things in the days of old.
I. IN TIMES OF TROUBLE WE CALL TO MIND THE PLEASANT THINGS IN THE DAYS OF OLD.
1. There have been pleasant things in the days of old. Few lives, if any, are wholly joyless from cradle to grave. There are rifts in the clouds of the darkest lot. Indeed, for most of us, the pleasant things far outnumber the painful.
2. These pleasant things are too often undervalued when in our possession. The fact that they may become subjects of fond and sad regret should lead us to take more account of them while they are with us. Let us not add to the lamentations of the loss of them remorse for an ungrateful and depreciatory treatment of them.
3. Trouble calls up the recollection of these pleasant things.
(1) It does this because it leads to reflection. We may observe a great contrast between the intellectual effects of joy and sorrow. Joy is usually thoughtless, sorrow meditative. When joy does stimulate the intellect, it urges it to look forward and inspires hope; but sorrow turns its gaze backward and contemplates the past.
2. It does this by the force of contrast. One experience suggests the thought of its opposite. Darkness makes us dream of light, silence of music, pain of joy.
4. Such recollections are likely to exaggerate the pleasantness of the past. Memory is not an even mirror. It is warped by prejudice and emotion. When we regret the loss of past happiness, we exalt that happiness in memory above what it ever was in experience. Unconsciously we drop the vexations out of notice. We remember the fine view, and forget the weary climb that preceded the enjoyment of it. The roses of a regretful memory have no thorns. The soft evening lights spread a glamour over the past which gilds its plain features and softens its rugged form and hides its ugly defects in a delicious haze of dreamy melancholy.
II. RECOLLECTIONS OF PLEASANT THINGS IN THE DAYS OF OLD EXAGGERATE THE DISTRESS OF TIMES OF TROUBLE. On the whole, it may be, life is prosperous. The balance is in favour of the pleasant things. But we cannot take life in the lump. We consume it piecemeal; and that portion which is with us at each moment is for us the life itselfthe whole life. Our real living is in the present. It is true that “we look before and after,” and hope may greatly lighten the burden of the present, but only by coming into the present as the twilight of dawn enters the world Before sunrisea real light.
1. This fact helps us to see a more even equalizing of lots than is obvious at first. If man is born to trouble, he who seems at one time to have an unfair advantage will have to pay for it by the keener suffering of his adversity when that comes.
2. This fact should warn us against the folly of enjoying the present without preparing for the future. The more heartily we enjoy earthly treasures the worse will be our distress if we have no treasure in heaven to inherit.
3. It is foolish to yield to fond regrets of the pleasant things in the days of old. The past cannot be recalled. Let it die. The future is ours. The west will not brighten again with a return of the fading glow of sunset, but a new day will break in the east.
4. We may call to mind the happy things in days of old, not to increase our present distress, but to encourage hope. The sun did shine, then it may shine again. God is the same now as ever. If he blessed in the past he can bless in the future. Former mercies encourage us to hope for better things still to come.
Lam 1:12
Sorrow unequalled, yet unheeded.
Jerusalem sits alone in her unparalleled grief, and the bitterness of it is intensified by the pitiless disregard of spectators. Bedouins of the desert pitch their tents in sight of her ruined towers, and merchants passing north and south see her deserted streets, and yet all gaze unmoved at the heart-rending picture.
I. THE SORROW WAS UNEQUALLED.
1. Never was city more favoured than Jerusalem. She was the chosen scat of Divine grace. In her temple stood God’s mercy seat. High privileges of revelation and spiritual blessings descended on her sons and daughters. The loss of these privileges brought a distress that men who had never enjoyed them could not feel. They who have tasted of the heavenly gift will find the outer darkness more terrible than those who have had no anticipation of the joys of the wedding feast. Apostate Christians will suffer agonies which the heathen and godless will not have to endure.
2. Never was city more loved than Jerusalem. This city of sacred memories and tender associations was dear to the hearts of her inhabitants. Her overthrow brought a grief that was proportionate to this love. The most fatal wound is one aimed at the heart. We are pained most cruelly when we are wounded in affection. What grief can be greater than that of parents for ruined children, and especially when the parents’ sin has been the children’s temptation?
3. Never was city more visited by Divine wrath than Jerusalem. Here is the secret of her deepest trouble. She is afflicted in the day of God’s fierce anger. God is most angry with her because she has sinned against most light, most ungratefully, and most rebelliously.
II. THE SORROW WAS UNHEEDED. It would be thought that such unequalled grief would arrest the attention of the most hasty and strike pity into the hardest. But no; it seems that all will pass by with cold and stony indifference.
1. Note the causes of this indifference.
(1) Callousness. Men look with the eye who do not feel with the heart. The very sight of misery often encountered hardens men’s sensibilities.
(2) Selfishness. People are self-absorbed. Sympathy requires effort, attention, self-renunciation. It costs more than the selfish will give.
(3) Contempt. The worst trouble of Jerusalem was her humiliation. But humiliation leads to contempt. Now, it is hard to pity those who are despised.
2. Consider the exceptions to this indifference.
(1) Good Samaritans. Thank God, such exist, though no synagogue honours them. One such is worth scores of priests and Levites who “pass by on the other side.”
(2) The Divine compassion. The sufferer looks down and looks around him and sees no pity. If he will look up, he will see that the very Being who smote in righteous wrath is waiting to heal in merciful forgiveness (Hos 6:1).
In conclusion, a parallel may be drawn between the sorrow of Christ and that of Jerusalem. The text cannot be understood to be written of our Lord. But it may illustrate that sorrow which far surpassed all other human grief. To how many is it as nothing! They pass the cross as Arabs and Phoenicians passed Jerusalem in her ruin. Yet, is it nothing to them?
(1) Their sins caused Christ’s sorrow.
(2) Christ’s sorrow can save their souls.
(3) Christ’s sorrow calls, not for pity, but for gratitude and faith.
Lam 1:13, Lam 1:14
Fourfold trouble from God.
I. THE TROUBLE IS FROM GOD. This is the characteristic of it that the writer dwells upon with most concern.
1. We should recognize the Divine origin of trouble. We miss the meaning and purpose of it if we do not see the hand that sends it. Earthly means may be used, as the King of Babylon was the agent for the destruction of Jerusalem. But all punishment for sin is inflicted by the Judge of sin.
2. We should remember that trouble from God is most terrible trouble. It springs from that most fierce anger, the anger of outraged love. It is directed by almighty power and cannot be evaded or resisted. It stops the alleviation of the best consolations by flowing from the same source from which those consolations would come.
3. We should observe the purpose of trouble from God. He doth not willingly afflict. If he sends distress it is for an object. What is that object? It may be to punish sin; then let us search out the sin and repent of it, It may be to wean us from earth; then let us cease from the idolatry of carnal things. It may be to teach us our weakness; then let us learn humility in our trouble. It may be to train us in patience and faith and spirituality; then let these graces have their perfect work.
II. THE TROUBLE IS FOURFOLD. It is various in form, touching one in one way and another most in a different way. But for each it is complex.
1. It burns as fire. At once it is felt to be fierce, poignant, and consuming. Thus does God seek to burn the chaff out of us.
2. It catches our feet like a net. God arrests the headlong career of folly with the net of trouble. It flings the heedless man to the ground, entangles his feet, and vexes his feelings. But it saves him from rushing on to his ruin. We may thank God for the distresses which stop our course when that runs in a wrong direction.
3. It gives us pain and faintness like a sickness. Thus are we humbled and subdued. The faintness of heart that sorrow brings is the best remedy for headstrong self-will and pride.
4. It burdens like a yoke. The transgressions bound and wreathed by the hand of God press upon the neck of the guilty. Several points in the image of a yoke may be observed.
(1) It is a weight oppressing and wearying;
(2) it is a constraint, hindering free action and imposing irksome conditions of motion;
(3) it is connected with other impediments;
(4) it presses very close upon our person;
(5) it is carried about with us wherever we go, burdening us in all scenes and all circumstances; and
(6) it is so “bound” and” wreathed” that it cannot be shaken off. Nevertheless, this trouble is sent for our good. It will be removed in due time if we repent and seek the grace of God in Christ. After it has gone, the relief from the distress of it will heighten the enjoyment of forgiveness.
Lam 1:18
The righteousness of God confessed.
I. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD AS A FACT.
1. What it is. In its fulness and breadth it is the goodness of God, his sinlessness, his pure and holy character. But it has characteristics of more special importance. Righteousness in God is conformity with truth, justice, and honour. It means that God has no subtle double dealing, but acts in perfect integrity. He moves in straight lines. Further, it means that God is fair to all, doing, if not the same thing to each, which would often be unjust, that which is fitting forevery one. It also includes God’s regard for the standard of right in his government, his care to make his creatures righteous, and his determination to check all unrighteousness.
2. Why we are to believe in it. It is declared most forcibly by those who know God best. Sceptical strangers may doubt it; but they who have entered into the presence of God, whether in holiness or in inspiration, alike agree in testifying to the righteousness of God. The deeper our Christian experience the more shall we be brought to admit this great truth.
II. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD HIDDEN UNDER A CLOUD. There are times when it is hard to say from our hearts, “The Lord is righteous.” Doubts and difficulties should be boldly faced, for God cares for no lip service of unbelieving flatterers.
1. Trouble darkens our vision of the righteousness of God. We fail to see the object of the storm while the darkness of it lowers over us. It seems to be greater than it is, and more than just, because we cannot take a fair view of it.
2. Our own trouble seems to be out of proportion to that of other people. We feel the full weight of our own burden; our neighbour’s burden is seen at a distance, and then only seen, not felt. In her grief Jerusalem feels that she is visited with a strange pre-eminence of sorrow. Never was sorrow equal to hers (see Lam 1:12). This appears to be unjust.
3. Our trouble looks more than we deserve. So we think till we see our sin. To the impenitent God must often seem unjust.
4. God has many purposes in sorrow that are unknown to us. Therefore we fail to see the justice of the blow. But part of the discipline of trouble depends on our ignorance of its end. If we knew whither it was leading us we should not be led. Darkness is necessary for the training of faith.
III. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD CONFESSED. This is grand! In the midst of wailing and weeping Jerusalem confesses that the hand that dealt the blow was right.
1. Faith is requisite for this confession. The righteousness cannot be seen; it is still shrouded in darkness. But faith holds to it. Thus we must use in the darkness the knowledge which we have won in the light.
2. Penitence is also necessary for this confession. When we confess our guilt we are ready to confess God’s righteousness, but not till then. Even Job had to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes in order to see the righteousness of God (Job 42:6).
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Lam 1:1, Lam 1:2
The contrasts of adversity.
The keynote of this strain of sorrow, this poetical and pathetic dirge, is struck in the opening words of the composition. The heart of the prophet laments over the captured and ruined city. How natural that the present should recall the past! Jerusalem, now in the hands of the Chaldeans, was once, in the days of David and of Solomon, the scene of glory and the seat of empire, the joy of the whole earth. So much the sadder is the contrast, the deeper the fall, the bitterer the cup of woe..
I. THE ONCE POPULOUS CITY IS SOLITARY. Not the walls, the streets, the palaces, the temples, but the inhabitants, are the true strength and glory of a city. Formerly Jerusalem was thronged with citizens who took pride in her majesty, of sojourners who came to gaze with wonder and admiration upon her splendours. Now her population has been reduced by famine, by exile, by war; and silence is in her streets.
II. THE CITY ONCE A PRINCESS IS TRIBUTARY. The time was when other cities acknowledged her sway, paid her their tribute, sent her of their produce and of the labour of their sons. Now she is reduced to subjection, yields her treasure to the foe, and the toil of her children is for the profit of the alien.
III. THE CITY THAT ONCE WAS JOYFUL WEEPS. Mirth and music have given place to mourning, lamentation, and woe. No longer are the sound of the viol and the harp, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, heard in her dwellings. They resound with the cries of grief and anguish. She weepeth in the night, and her tears are on her cheek.
IV. THE CITY ONCE THE SPOUSE OF THE LORD IS WIDOWED. To Jerusalem it had been said, “Thy Maker is thy Husband!” But because of her unfaithfulness and apostasy the Lord has forsaken her; she is become as a widow, unprotected, deserted, solitary, and comfortless.
V. THE CITY ONCE RICH IN ALLIES AND HELPERS IS UNFRIENDED. Not only is she feeble within, she is friendless without. In prosperous days neighbouring nations sought her good will and alliance, and were forward with their offers of friendship and of help. All this is of the past; those who vowed faithfulness have proved treacherous, and have became the enemies of Judaea in the extremity of her desolation, forsaking, and woe.T.
Lam 1:4
The decline of national religion.
Nowhere has the great truth of the close dependence of national prosperity upon national religion been more plainly and emphatically taught than in the writings of the Hebrew prophets. Their spiritual insight detected the true cause of national degradation. Whoever looks below the surface may see that the decline and fall of nations may usually be traced to spiritual causes, to the loss of any hold upon eternal principles of righteousness and piety.
I. THE OPEN SYMPTOMS OF THE DECLINE OF A NATION‘S RELIGION. Those here mentioned are in circumstances and colour local and temporary; they were determined, as a matter of course, by what was peculiar to the religion of the country and of the day.
1. The roads of Zion are forsaken. There is no concourse upon the roads leading up to the metropolis, as was the case in the days of Judah’s prosperity.
2. The gates are deserted and unentered. There was a time when the busy population passed to and fro, when the people gathered together at the gates to discuss the news of the day, the affairs of the city, when the royal processions passed in splendour through the gates leading to the country. It is now so no longer.
3. The festivals are unfrequented. Formerly, when the great and sacred national feasts were being held, multitudes of Israelites attended these holy and welcome assemblies to share in the pious mirth, the cheering reminiscences, the fraternal fellowship, distinctive of such solemn and joyous occasions. But now there are none to celebrate the mercies of Jehovah, none to fulfil the sacred rites. To the religious heart the change is not only afflicting, it is crushing.
4. The ministers of religion are left to mourn. The priests who are left, if permitted to fulfil their office, do so under the most depressing influences; and no longer are there virgins to rejoice in the dance. The picture is painted in the darkest, saddest colours. We feel, as we enter into the prophet’s lamentations, how dreary and hopeless is the state of that nation which God gives over to its foes.
II. THE CAUSE OF THE DECLINE OF A NATION‘S RELIGION. This ever begins in spiritual unfaithfulness and defections. The external observances of religion may be kept up for a season, but this may be only from custom and tradition. The body does not at once decay when the spirit has forsaken it. To forget God, to deny his Word, to break his laws, to forsake his mercy seat,such are the steps by which a nation’s decline is most surely commenced, by which a nation’s ruin is most surely anticipated.
III. THE REMEDY FOR THE DECLINE OF A NATION‘S RELIGION.
1. Confession.
2. Repentance.
3. Prayer for pardon and acceptance.
4. Resolution to obey the Lord, and again to reverence what is holy and to do what is right.
5. The union of all classes, rulers and subjects, priests and people, old and young, in a national reformation.T.
Lam 1:7
Mournful memories.
The recollection of the past may be the occasion of the highest joy or of the profoundest sorrow. To remember former happiness is one of the great pleasures of human life, if that happiness did but lead on to its own continuance and increase. The first beginnings of a delightful friendship, the first steps of a distinguished career, are remembered by the prosperous and happy with satisfaction and joy. It is otherwise with the memory of a morning of brightness which soon clouded, and which was followed by storms and darkness. In the text the anguish of Jerusalem is pictured as intensified by the recollection of bygone felicity.
I. THE PRESENT CALAMITY EXCITES BY CONTRAST THE RECOLLECTION OF PROSPEROUS TIMES.
1. Affliction, homelessness, and misery are the present lot of Jerusalem. The city is in the hands of the enemy. The people have no longer a home which they can cling to, but face the prospect of exile, destitution, and vacancy.
2. Helplessness. In times of prosperity neighbours were eager to offer aid which was not needed; in these times of adversity no friendly proffer of help is beard.
3. Mockery. The Jews are a people from the first separated from surrounding nations by their laws, their customs, their religious observances. As an intensely religious people, they have ever set their hearts upon their revelation, upon the God of their fathers and his ordinances. Consequently they are most easily and most deeply wounded in their religious susceptibilities. Strange that a nation condemned to defeat and capture for its unfaithfulness to Jehovah should yet observe the appointed sabbaths, and keenly feel the ridicule and the contempt incurred by such observance! Her adversaries mocked her sabbaths.
II. THE RECOLLECTION OF PROSPEROUS TIMES ENHANCES THE ANGUISH OF PRESENT ADVERSITY. Time has been when Jerusalem, her monarch, citizens, and surrounding population have enjoyed peace, plenty, respect from other nations, liberty of worship, and joyful solemnities. The force of contrast makes the memory of such time bitter and distressing. Their “crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.”
APPLICATION. Let present privileges and prosperity be so used that the memory of them may never occasion bitter regret and misery.T.
Lam 1:10
Spoliation and profanation.
The presence of a foreign foe in its capital has always been regarded, and is still regarded, as among the heaviest calamities that can befall a nation. In our own times, a neighbouring nation has been required to endure this humiliation and indignity, shocking its patriotism and its pride. We can understand how bitter must have been the anguish of the Jews when the Chaldean hosts patrolled their city, quartered themselves upon its inhabitants, appropriated its wealth, and violated the sanctity of its temple.
I. THE POSSESSIONS OF THE JEWS WERE FORCIBLY APPROPRIATED BY THEIR ADVERSARIES. The greed of the conqueror has ever been the theme of satire and reproach. Voe victis! “Woe to the conquered!” is an old proverb, founded upon an older propensity of human nature in its military condition. The pleasant and desirable things of a city are the spoil of the conqueror. It was so when the Chaldeans entered Jerusalem, sacked the city, and laid their hands upon whatever pleased their fancy.
II. THE HOLY HOUSE OF JERUSALEM WAS SACRILEGIOUSLY ABUSED BY THE HEATHEN CONQUERORS. The temples of their gods are always the object of a nation’s reverence and sometimes of affection. But the Jews had especial reason for venerating their sanctuary; it was the scene of their sacrifices and offerings, the depository of their oracles, the spot where the Shechinah glory was displayed. The more sacred portion of the edifice was reserved for the priests; even the devout Jews were not suffered to enter these consecrated precincts. What, then, must have been the disgust, the horror, with which the pious contemporaries of Jeremiah, and especially the prophet himself, witnessed the profanation of the sanctuary, as the Chaldean soldiers polluted it with their heathen presence and speech! Their feelings were injured in the most susceptible part of their nature.
APPLICATION. Retribution is not an accident; neither is it the mere outworking of natural laws. There is Divine providence superintending it; it has a meaning, for it witnesses to human responsibility and sin; it has a purpose, for it summons to repentance and newness of life.T.
Lam 1:12
Unparalleled woe.
The prophecy here rises into poetry. The captured and afflicted city is personified. Like a woman bereaved and desolate and lonely, bewailing her misfortunes, and pouring out the anguish of her heart, Jerusalem sits in her solitary desolation and contempt, and calls upon bystanders to remark her sad condition, and to offer their sympathy to unequalled anguish..
I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS SORROW, DESOLATION, AND SHAME. How extreme is the distress and humiliation here depicted is apparent from the fact that this language has been attributed to our Divine Saviour when hanging upon the cross of Calvary. If a city never endured sorrow like that of Jerusalem, certainly no human being ever experienced agonies so piercing as those which the Captain of our salvation willingly bore for our sake when he gave his life a ransom for many.
“All ye that pass by,
To the Saviour draw nigh;
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
For sins not his own
He died to atone;
Was pain or was sorrow like his ever known?”
II. THE ADMISSION THAT AFFLICTION IS OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT, THAT IT IS CHASTISEMENT. When Jerusalem came to herself she could not fail to recognize a Divine hand in the miseries which befell her. The scourge was the army of the Chaldeans, but the hand was the righteous and retributive hand of the Eternal. It is too common for those who are in trouble to murmur against Providence, to exclaim against the injustice of providential appointments. Yet true wisdom points out that the path of submission and resignation is the right path. When once the mind is brought to acknowledge, “It is the Lord!” there is a prospect of spiritual improvement.
III. THE CRY FOR SYMPATHY. By a striking figure of speech, Jerusalem is presented as calling upon surrounding nations for interest and compassion. “Is it nothing to you? … Behold, and see!” Human sympathy is welcome in seasons of sorrow, Yet true help and deliverance must be from God, and from God alone, It is better to call upon the Lord than to call upon man; for he is both ready to sympathize and mighty to save.T.
Lam 1:18
The Lord is righteous
In nothing is the distinction more marked between religions of human origin and device and the religion which is the revelation of infinite Wisdom and Truth, than in the views they respectively afford of the moral character and attributes of Deity. Whilst the heathen freely attribute to their gods qualities which are detestable in man, the Scriptures represent the Supreme as perfectly righteous. The acknowledgment here made by Jeremiah was made by Moses, by Nehemiah, by Daniel, and indeed is virtually, if not verbally, made by the writer of every book of the Old Testament. And the new covenant is based upon the revelation of a righteous Ruler and Father.
I. GOD IS RIGHTEOUS IN HIS CHARACTER. It is certainly no progress, but a retrogression towards ignorance and barbarism, to represent the supreme Intelligence as destitute of moral attributes, exercised in the fulfilment of wise and benevolent purposes. Affliction and anguish sometimes obscure men’s judgment of the character and the dealings of God. It was not so with Jeremiah, who, in lamenting the troubles of his nation and of himself, did not distort the representation he gave to his countrymen of the attributes of the Most High.
II. GOD IS RIGHTEOUS IN HIS LAW. The theocratic government of the Hebrews was based upon the just character and the holy Law of the eternal King. To some minds the reflection might have seemed inappropriate and unwelcome in the depth of disaster. But a true prophet, a true religious teacher, feels bound to set forth the fact that the rule under which men live as individuals and as communities is a righteous rule; the justice of the Law abides although that Law be broken, and although its penalties be incurred and endured.
III. GOD IS RIGHTEOUS IN HIS RETRIBUTION. This is probably the thought most prominent in the text. The fate of Jerusalem was a hard fate, a lamentable fate, but it was not an unjust fate. The people reaped as they had sown. An onlooker might readily have acknowledged this, but it was a merit in a sufferer so to do. For the chastened to confess the justice of their chastisement is a proof that already the chastening is not in vain.T.
Lam 1:20
The cry of the contrite.
Trouble, when it leads to an inquiry into its cause, when it prompts to submission and to repentance, proves a means of grace. The cry of suffering and distress may have no moral significance; the cry of contrition and of supplication is a sign of spiritual impression, and is a step towards spiritual recovery.
I. THE OCCASION OF AFFLICTION AND CONTRITION. This is here specified, and the reality and severity are manifest. Within, i.e. in the homes and streets of the city, there is dearth; without, i.e. in the field, there is destruction by the sword. Thus in two strokes national calamity and disaster are depicted.
II. THE TOKENS OF AFFLICTION AND CONTRITION. Man’s bodily nature is expressive of his spiritual state. Severe suffering and distress display themselves in organic, physical disturbance: The prophet feels in his bodily frame the disturbing effects of the trials he has undergone, the lively sympathy he has experienced.
III. THE CONFESSION TO WHICH AFFLICTION AND CONTRITION LEAD. Identifying the nation with himself, the prophet exclaims, “I have grievously rebelled.” There is candour and justice, there is submissiveness, there is spiritual discernment, in this outspoken acknowledgment. No excuse, no extenuation, no complaint, is here, but a plain confession of ill desert. Rebels against a rightful authority, against a just, forbearing Sovereign, what could the Jews expect but such humiliation as they actually experienced? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive,”
IV. THE CRY OF AFFLICTION AND OF CONTRITION.
1. It is a cry unto the Lord. Judah had looked for earthly friends and helpers, and had learned by bitter experience the vanity of such expectations. And now Judah sought the Lord whom by sin and rebellion she had offended.
2. It is an entreaty for Divine regard and consideration. What had happened was indeed by permission of Heaven. But the regard implored was one of sympathy, commiseration, and kindness.
3. It is a cry for deliverance. It is dictated by the assurance that he and only he who wounded can heal and comfort and restore.T.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Lam 1:1
Widowhood-the emblem of loneliness.
I. THE FORCE OF THE EMBLEM. Another emblem might have been used. Or the statement as to loneliness might have been left in its simplicity without any comparison at all. Why, then, this particular emblem? Because it sets forth the separation between two parties to a peculiar connectiona connection intended to have all the permanence which anything in this earth can have. Of the husband and wife it is to be said that “they twain have become one flesh,” and when the wife becomes a widow she is left in a peculiar and irremediable loneliness, even though she be in the midst of kindred, neighbours, and friends. So also we may say that the inhabitants of Jerusalem, together with the place itself, its site, its houses, its streets, had become one great whole. The children of Israel wandered through the wilderness for forty years, but when at last they left it, it would not have been suitable to say that the wilderness had become as a widow.
II. A VIEW THUS SUGGESTED AS TO THE CAUSE OF SEPARATION. One kind of loneliness had come as a terrible visitation because another kind of loneliness had not been sought as an imperative condition of security. Had not Balaam said, “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations” (Num 23:9)? Israel was to dwell in safety alone. What could be expected if the people mixed again so recklessly with these from whom they had been separated by a course of Divine marvels? It may also be noticed that Jerusalem would not have been left as a widow if the people of Jerusalem and the country altogether had had in them the spirit which prompted to deal wisely and compassionately with every widow. The widow had been carefully provided for by Mosaic enactments, e.g. in the solemn feasts and in the time of harvest. Yet in the first chapter of Isaiah’s prophecies we find him denouncing the princes of the once faithful city because the cause of the widow did not come unto them.
III. A GROUND OF HOPE. Widowhood is evidently a state on which the loving God looks down with infinite tenderness and desire to help. Jerusalem became as a widow, yet the separation was not forever. Her exiled inhabitants returned. Yet this was a small matter compared with the greater truths taught alike by the separation and the restoration. Things nearest and dearest to us may have to be taken away for a time, but all that belongs to our real welfare and to our complete relation to even the whole universe will come back in due time. We must not mistake eclipse for destruction.Y.
Lam 1:2
Nights of weeping explained.
Nights of weeping and constant tears upon the cheeks. Thus the metaphor is kept up with which this first song of lamentation begins. The sensitiveness of the woman nature helps to bring out the prostration of Jerusalem. It is not only that her condition is lamentable, but she herself, in all the feelings of her heart, is a prey to the keenest anguish. People do not always see their own sad state as others see it. There is either a shallowness of nature or something has happened to deaden the sensibilities. But in this verse we have both the mention of tears and of most sufficient causes for tears.
I. FIRST CAUSE: WANT OF SYMPATHY AND SOLACE. Jerusalem has no comforters. Not even Job’s comforters. For, though Job’s comforters were sufficiently irritating and mistook blisters for salves, yet comfort was their errand. Bad as Job’s state was, it would have been worse still if in his time of sore trouble he had been left quite alone, especially if professed friends had not come near him. But here the widowed Jerusalem has no comforter; and yet she had had many lovers, many who had been drawn irresistibly by the charm of her attractions. Jerusalem was proud of these attractions, and yet they did not belong to the essence of her existence. The attractions perished, and with the perishing of them the lovers whom they drew became cold. The attractions perished, but Jerusalem herself remained with all her needs, and yet with none to minister. Where do we mean to look for comforters when our hour of deepest trouble comes? Many to whom we may look will be able to do nothing for us; some to whom we may look will not try to do anything: happy then shall we be if we have reason to say, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul” (Psa 94:19).
II. SECOND CAUSE: FRIENDS HAVE BECOME ENEMIES. When the attractions of Jerusalem faded away, not only did the lovers depart, but they had to seek new satisfactions elsewhere, and for many selfish reasons they would act in sympathy with the conquerors of Jerusalem. When she was a strong city, it suited surrounding peoples to be friendly; but when she became desolate and the whole land was lost, then it seemed the interest of these peoples to be hostile to Jerusalem. Indeed, their connection with Jerusalem was really hostile even when they meant friendship. Their open and strenuous hostility from the first would have been a better thing. Professed friends, without meaning it, may so mislead as to do more harm than the bitterest enemy could ever do. The real friend is he who, for the sake of truth and of the highest interests, is not afraid to be reckoned for the time an enemy.Y.
Lam 1:4
Zion forsaken as a religious centre.
I. THE PECULIAR GLORY OF ZION IN THE PAST. The ways of Zion mourned, now, but the very fact that such a thing should be said showed that they had once been filled with rejoicing. The gates had been crowded with worshippers from every district of the land. Zion was glorified as the site of the temple, and the temple was glorified as holding within its imposing walls the ark of the covenant. Zion was the city of solemnities. Things were done there not according to will worship or mere immemorial tradition, but according to Jehovah’s definite instructions given in the wilderness through Moses centuries before. Praise continually waited for God in Zion. Jehovah loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. There was no day without its morning and evening sacrifice, and every sabbath and new moon brought their peculiar additions. Nor must we forget the Feast of the Passover, of the first fruits, of the Pentecost, and the great feast of the seventh month. If as nothing more than times of mirth and relaxation, these would play a large part in the life of the people, and true prophets and whosoever among the priests had deep reverence for God would get much strength out of these services, finding in them, according to the measure of their faith, zeal, and diligence, constant means of grace.
II. THE PECULIAR HUMILIATION OF ZION IN THE PRESENT. The thought of Zion probably carried to the Israelite more associations than did the thought of any other place, The great periodic assemblies at Zion manifested the history, the privileges, the strength, the unity, of the nation. There may have been intervals of comparative neglect, but we know that in the time of Hezekiah there was a great keeping of the Passover. Thus, so far as outward observances were concerned, the machinery of Divine service must have been in good working order. But it is also very evident that the nation at large got no real good out of the numerous and elaborate rites which Jehovah had commanded. We may quote words of Hosed which, while they show the prominent position occupied by Zion in the national life, also explain the reason why God brought such desolation to Zion. “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts” (Hos 2:11). Religion had been turned into mere merry making. The house of prayer became a house of revelling. Jehovah had declared emphatically by his prophets that offerings had no value detached from righteousness and mercy. What wonder, then, that from condemning words he should advance to condemning deeds? Forsaken Zion itself spoke as if with a prophetic voice. It was when they remembered Zion that the exiles in Babylon wept, and when their masters wanted from them a song of Zion they could only reply that it was not possible to sing Jehovah’s song in a strange land. There is warning in all this desolation of Zion as to how great discernment is needed to make sure that the elements of our worship are acceptable to God, edifying to ourselves, and not merely for self-pleasure.
III. We must not forget that BRIGHTER DAYS ARE PROPHESIED FOR ZION. The same old Zion was again crowded, but of this we must not make too much. Jesus himself had to say that the rebuilt house of his Father had become a house of merchandise and even a den of thieves, There is the ideal Zion, part of the heavenly Jerusalem, where the holiest service will be the highest joy, where our religion will no longer be imperrilled by formality, superstition, or superficiality.Y.
Lam 1:11
The real need of the soul made manifest.
I. REAL NEED CAN ONLY BE MADE MANIFEST BY PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE. The greatest need of the natural life is bread, taking the word “bread” as representative of all food. Clothing and Shelter, while they may indeed be reckoned as needs, are not needs after the same imperative fashion as food; and every one, however easily his dally bread comes to him, will assent to this same general truth that food is the great need of natural life. But he will only really feel this in such circumstances as are indicated in this verse. For a long while throe people of Jerusalem had .found bread lying to their hands when they were hungry. They could buy it and have abundance of pleasant things beside. The feeling of their hearts was that they could not do without these pleasant things, and when at last they gave them up to keep body and soul together, it must have been with terrible pain they made the surrender. And what is true of bread for the natural life’s also true of the Bread coming down from heaven for the spiritual life. Christians, living in the midst of all manner of pleasant things of this world, with no lack of money to buy them and faculty to enjoy them, try to feel at the same time that more than all pleasant things are the grace, the life, the wisdom, the everflowing fulness of the Spirit, which come from Christ. But all the testimony of believers proves that the pleasant things need to be withdrawn before it can be apprehended that Christ is emphatically the Bread. It is when we lose relish of nature’s best contributions to our happiness that Christ comes forward, confident as ever in his power to satisfy us.
II. THE VALUE OF TREASURES CAN ONLY BE KNOWN BY WHAT THE OWNER IS WILLING TO DO TO RETAIN THEM. All the pleasant things belonging to the community were already gone. The Sanctuary had been desecrated and pillaged. Much private property had doubtless gone. But some the owners would be able to hidejewels and such like wealth as went into small compass. Among these pleasant things would be family heirlooms, loving gifts, possessions with respect to which the receiver had said to the giver, “I will keep this thing till I die.” But now the great pressure comes, and one pleasant thing after another goes for a few handfuls of corn. The soul is threatening to depart from the body and it must be turned back; “for what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” And now notice that there are treasures of the heart, such treasures as come from faith in Christ and fidelity to him, which are not given up even to preserve natural life. Multitudes have gone willingly to death that thereby they might testify to the truth as it is in Jesus. They have laid firm hold of his own word, Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it (Mat 16:25).Y.
Lam 1:12
The observation of suffering.
I. A SEEMINGLY UNREASONABLE COMPLAINT. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” So speaks Jerusalem, personified under the guise of the weeping widow, with the tears on her cheeks and the beauty faded, deprived of all her pleasant things, and left in solitude so far as her familiar supports and consolations are concerned. She sits, as it were, by the highway, and the crowd passes on, taking no notice. Why, indeed, should it take notice? The spectacle of a conquered nation and a pillaged capital was not a rare thing. The nations asked to sympathize had been through the same experience themselves. We are all prompted to say, “Surely no trouble has been like our trouble;” and yet, as our observation of human affairs enlarges, we see how human nature, in every individual instance, is made to know its extraordinary capacity for suffering. Nevertheless, the piteous appeal here is not a baseless one. The trouble of the children of Israel had not come upon them after the manner of a common nation. They were peculiar in constitution, privileges, and biscay. If only there had been eyes to see it, there was something very significant to demand attention. But the thing to be seen did not lie on the surface, nor was it to be discovered save by faculties specially illuminated. The downfall and the sufferings of Israel, as they are to be seen both in the Scriptures and subsequent history, belong to the things that are to be spiritually discerned. Therefore this complaint; while superficially it may be called unreasonable, is yet reasonable enough, if we only consider the position and mission of Israel, and the work which, even in her degradation, she has done for the world.
II. THE NEED THERE IS TO MARK JEHOVAH‘S SURE VISITATIONS ON THE DISOBEDIENT. This is the critical element in the appeal that widow like Jerusalem makes to the passers by: “Look at me as the greatest illustration of the certainty with which Jehovah punishes those who rebel against him.” We must, of course, beware of the conclusion that suffering always means punishment; but where we can see that it is punishment we must mark it as such, so that we ourselves may be admonished and may also mare effectually admonish others. Here was a nation that in obedience might have rested confidently and happily in Jehovah’s promise. The power behind that promise was more than all the armies of the great empires round about. But when the power was withdrawn it meant not merely suffering; the withdrawing had in it the nature of a judicial, solemn sentence from Jehovah himself.Y.
Lam 1:18
The acknowledgment that suffering is deserved.
I. THE CLEAR RECOGNITION ON THE PART OF THOSE VISITED THAT THE SUFFERING WAS OF JEHOVAH‘S BRINGING. Secondary causes were prominent, but behind them was a Divine cause most important to be perceived in all the intensity of its working. Those who desolated Jerusalem did so from the worst of motives, motives always to be condemned; and these motives, keenly inspiring as they were, would have ended in nothing save for the weakness in which Israel had been left by its apostasy from God. When we are suffering for our sin and folly it is good if we can recognize that the suffering is of God’s producing. Because that which God produces God can remove in the hour of repentance. Whereas what man produces he may not be able to put right again, even when he is so disposed.
II. A REASON IS GIVEN FOR DECLARING JEHOVAH RIGHTEOUS. He has done righteously to those who have rebelled against his commandments. God has made us so that we can distinguish between the right and the wrong. We need ever to be on our guard against saying that a thing is right because God does it. What is admitted here is that it is a right thing for God to inflict chastisement on the disobedient. The greater the disobedience the severer must be the chastisement. The commandment of God was always a right thing in itself; and the prophets had again and again illustrated the righteousness of particular commandments and the evident miseries that flowed from neglecting them. Recollect that this great blow upon Israel came after many lesser ones. It was not as if Israel could plead that the commandments were dubious or the warnings scanty.
III. It must not be forgotten that JEHOVAH‘S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS EQUALLY SHOWN IN HIS TREATMENT OF THE OBEDIENT. It is of the greatest importance to recollect this, because unfortunately the disobedient are more noticeable than the obedient, and the treatment of the disobedient, by consequence, more noticeable than the treatment of the obedient. The spirit of our life determines, by a most fixed law, the way in which God will treat us. It is perfectly impossible for the disobedient to escape suffering. But it is equally impossible for the obedient to lose their reward. Joy and blessedness, the exquisite peace and rapture of holiness, must come to them by the very nature of things.Y.
Lam 1:21
A wicked gladness.
I. THE WRONG FEELING WITH REGARD TO SUFFERING FOR SIN. People are here represented as rejoicing over the sufferings of others. Not that they take delight in suffering as suffering, but those who suffered were their enemies. Those now suffering had once inflicted suffering on others. They had been a source of danger, provoking jealousy, and producing humiliation. Hence, when Israel fell into all this solitude and misery, other peoples not only failed to pity, but even positively rejoiced. This was just what might be expected, and even if some of the heathen nations said, “This serves Israel right for neglecting Jehovah,” it was certainly nothing more than the simple truth. The wrong thing was the exultant feeling, the gladness of heart over all this suffering. There is no fear but what we shall sympathize with tile suffering of the innocent, the pain coming from some accident or disease; but when it is an evil doer who suffers, then we are only too easily betrayed into language expressing gladness of heart. And we should never be glad with respect to any suffering whatever. Let it be remembered, too, that gladness is only one out of several possible wrong attitudes with respect to suffering. If while others are suffering for their sins we allow ourselves to get into any of these wrong attitudes with respect to them, then our unchristian state of mind may prove a very serious obstacle in the way of their repentance and amendment. The censuring, lecturing spirit must be guarded against, and also the spirit that looks down as from a position of superior goodness. We must restore others in a spirit of meekness, considering ourselves, lest we also be tempted.
II. THE RIGHT FEELING WITH REGARD TO SUFFERING FOR SIN. The absence of the wrong feeling can only be secured by the presence of the right one. If selfish gladness, the gladness springing from envy and jealousy, is to be kept out, it must be by constantly cultivating pity for all suffering. Pity is to be the very first feeling with which all suffering is contemplated. Pity must, indeed, be well under control, and never allowed to open the way for a greater suffering by taking away a lesser one, but it must always be the prevailing feeling. Then also we must take care to rejoice with the rejoicing. It increases the happiness of others to know that we are glad because of their happiness Our work as Christians is only part done in removing the evil; our thoughts are to be chiefly fixed on producing and establishing the good with all its fruits so pleasant to the spiritual eye, so pleasant to the taste of the inner man. The enemies of Israel saw Israel fallen, and rejoiced that Jehovah had done this. When we see the fallen lifted up and walking along in the strength of Christ, let us rejoice exceedingly because of what the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has done. It is worth all our efforts to keep out of our hearts mean satisfaction because of the disappointments and confusion of others.Y.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Lam 1:1. How doth the city sit, &c. Houbigant renders the first part of this verse thus, How doth the city sit solitary! How is she become a widow, that was full of people! Cities are commonly described as the mothers of their inhabitants, and the kings and princes as their husbands and children. When therefore they are bereaved of these, they are said to be widows and childless. Under these affecting circumstances Jerusalem is described as sitting alone, and in a pensive condition, the multitude of her inhabitants being dispersed and destroyed. It is remarkable, that in times similar to this, that is to say, in the reign of the emperor Vespasian, a coin was struck, on which Judaea is represented under the image of a woman sitting in tears beneath a palm-tree. Jerusalem is said to have been great among the nations, as, in the time of her prosperity, she made conquests of various countries, and held them in subjection to her. See Isa 47:1. Calmet and Lowth.
Princess among the provinces She that was sovereign over provinces. See what is said of David’s conquests and sovereignty over the neighbouring states, 2Sa 8:1-14; 2Sa 10:6-19 of the extent of his son Solomon’s dominions, 1Ki 21:24 of the power of Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat, 2Ch 17:10-11 and also in that of Uzziah, 2Ch 26:6-8.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lamentation Of The Daughter Of Zion Over The Ruin Of Jerusalem And Judah [or Rather, The Lamentation Of The Daughter Of Jerusalem Over The Destruction Of The City, The Nation And The Temple.W. H. H.].
[The song is naturally divided into two parts of equal length. Lam 1:1-11 describe the wretched condition of the city. Lam 1:12-22 are, more strictly, the lamentation over this condition. In both sections the speaker is the ideal person of the genius or daughter of the city, who twice, Lam 1:9; Lam 1:11, interrupts the description of the first section, which is given in the third person, with an outcry of pain uttered in the first person.W. H. H.]
Part I
I. Lam 1:1-11
Lam 1:1. How sitteth solitary
The city that was full of people!
She is become as a widow!
She that was great among the nations,
A Princess over the Provinces,
Is become tributary.
Lam 1:2. Bitterly she weepeth in the night,
And her tears are [constantly] upon her cheeks.
She hath no comforter
From among all her lovers:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
They have become her enemies.
Lam 1:3. Judah is gone into exile,
From oppression and from heavy bondage.
She dwelleth among the heathen:
She hath not found rest:
All her pursuers have overtaken her
Amidst her straits.
Lam 1:4. The ways to Zion are mournful
Because none come to her appointed services.
All her gates are destroyed.
Her priests sigh:
Her virgins are sorrowful:
And she, herself,is in bitterness!
Lam 1:5. Her adversaries are exalted,
Her enemies prosper.
For Jehovah hath afflicted her
For the greatness of her sins.
Her young children are gone captives
Before the adversary.
Lam 1:6. And departed from the daughter of Zion
Is all her beauty.
Her princes have become like harts
That find no pasture,
And go, without strength,
Before the pursuer.
Lam 1:7. Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her tribulation and of her wanderings,
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old.
When her people fall by the hand of the adversary
And there is no helper for her,
Her adversaries behold her
They mock at her Sabbaths!
Lam 1:8. Jerusalem has grievously sinned;
Therefore is she become vile.
All, who honoured her, despise her,
For they see her nakedness.
Yea, she herself sigheth
And turneth backward.
Lam 1:9. Her filthiness is on her skirts.
She considered not her end,
Therefore she came down wonderfully
She has no comforter.
Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction,
For the enemy magnifieth himself.
Lam 1:10. His hand has the oppressor stretched out
Over all her precious things:
For she saw heathen
Come into her sanctuary:
Of whom Thou didst command
That they come not into Thy congregation.
Lam 1:11. All her people sigh,
Seeking for bread;
They give their precious things for food
To sustain life.
See, Jehovah, and consider
How wretched I am become!
ANALYSIS
The logical construction is preserved, although rendered difficult by the constraint of the alphabetical arrangement of the verses. From Lam 1:1 to the last clause of Lam 1:11, the poet speaks. [Rather the poet puts this language into the mouth of a third person, who is revealed to us in Lam 1:9; Lam 1:11, and still more plainly in the whole of the second part, Lam 1:12-22, as the ideal representative of the ruined city.W. H. H.] Lam 1:1-2 present to us the ideal person of Jerusalem, sharply defining the contrast between what she was and what she is now. Lam 1:3 personifies in like manner the tribe of Judah. Lam 1:4-6 depict the present condition of Jerusalem in ruins, in the midst of which description the ideal person in her grief is introduced; and also, by way of contrast, her successful foe: the forsaken roads of the city, the broken gates, the mourning priests and virgins, the exiled people, and especially the nobles plunged from splendor into the deepest misery, are the separate features which compose this picture. [The especial subject of this description is not the city, strictly speaking, but Zion, the crown and glory of the city. Around the ideal daughter of Zion all the accessories of the picture are drawn. Jerusalem, herself, is the immediate subject of the following verses.W. H. H.] Lam 1:7 relates again to the ideal Jerusalem and informs us how she remembers with pain her former estate, whilst now suffering bitter mockery from her foes. Lam 1:8-9 declare the cause of the judgment, already indicated in Lam 1:5, namely, the heinous sin of Israel: in consequence of which sin heathen, Lam 1:10, had intruded into the sanctuary of Zion, which was forbidden in the law. Finally, Lam 1:11, to the last clause, describes the distressing famine of the besieged people. From the last clause of Lam 1:11 to the end of the chapter, the Poet lets Zion herself speak, as she had already done parenthetically in Lam 1:9.
Lam 1:1-2
1How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, 2how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:1., subst., solitariness, is to be regarded as in the accusative. See Lam 3:28; Lev 13:46; Jer 15:17; Jer 49:31, , Num 23:9; Mic 7:14.. The is archaic. See Olsh., 123, d. [In also. The paragogic was, originally, perhaps, a mark of the genitive, as the corresponding letter in Arabic. Occurs in poetry and in compound names, as ,. Henderson.] The archaic , not infrequent in Jer 10:17 (Ktib); Jer 22:23; Jer 49:16; Jer 51:13. Yet this particular word occurs only here., great, in the qualitative sense, not merely multus, but also magnus, potens, great, powerful, occurs often; Psa 48:3; Isa 63:1; Isa 53:12; Jer 41:1. See , et sim., and , the metropolis of the Ammonites. The phrase occurs only here. [See Intr., Add. Rem. (1). p. 20.]The after indicates the object over which the Princess rules. See Fuerst. [Blayney, Boothroyd, translate over, instead of among.] is synonymous with , e. g., , Gen 37:36; Gen 39:1, et al., and , Dan 1:7; Dan 1:9, et al. are synonymous with and . The sing. excepting as the proper name Sarah, occurs only here. Plural in Jdg 5:29; Isa 49:23; 1Ki 11:3; Est 1:18, shows that it is an old word and in earlier times peculiar to poetry. [See Intr., Add. Rem. (2). p. 29.], province, satrapy, in sing. occurs only in books of Ezra (Ezr 2:1), Nehemiah (Neh 1:3; Neh 7:6; Neh 11:3), Ecclesiastes (Ecc 5:7), Daniel (Dan 8:2; Dan 11:24), and especially Esther (Est 1:1; Est 1:22; Est 3:12; Est 3:14, etc): in plu in Est 1:3; Est 8:9; Est 9:3-4; Est 9:16; Eze 19:8; 1Ki 20:14-15; 1Ki 20:17; 1Ki 20:19 [not 2Ki 20:19, a mistake of Fuerst copied by Naegelsb.], Ecc 2:8. Its use in Ezekiel and Kings shows that it was not unknown in the time of Jeremiah. [See Intr. Add. Rem. (2). p. 30.][. W. Robertson, Key to Heb. Bib., derives from , to melt, dissolve, a consuming of strength, virium dissolutio et confectio. Fuerst from same verb taken in a secondary signification, to split, divide, separate, sunder hence metuph. to number, measure, distribute. The only evidence of such a secondary signification of the verb is in the derivatives themselves, and . The old quaint idea seems better. from , because it doth melt and dissolve, as it were, the substance of those who are forced to be tributaries. Gesenius says this is not tolerable, and derives from to number. But there is a word already from that root, , meaning tribute in the strict sense, while means any sort of tribute-service or bond-service (see crit. notes below), having a sense that cannot be extracted from a verb, signifying to number.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:2.[ . The infinitive construct before a finite verb expresses intensity, after it continuity. She weepeth sore or sorely, Broughton, E. V., Blayney, Boothroyd, Henderson, or bitterly, Noyes, not continually, as old Eng. vers., Digdati, French vers., Wordsworth, and Naegelsbach.W. H. H.] never occurs in Jeremiah. [See Intr., Add. Rem. (2). p. 30.]Jeremiah uses the Piel , Jer 16:7; Jer 31:13; but not the phrase , occurring in this chapter four times, and elsewhere only in Ecc 4:1. [See Intr., Add. Rem. (3). p. 30.] Jeremiah uses, Jer 20:4; Jer 20:6; Jer 29:23; Jer 5:8; Jer 7:5. etc.; Jer 3:8; Jer 3:11; Jer 3:20; Jer 5:11; Jer 12:6, etc.; , frequently, Jer 6:25; Jer 15:11; Jer 18:17, etc. occurs elsewhere only in Psa 139:22.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:1. How, . The second and fourth chapters also begin with this word. It is used by Jeremiah (Jer 8:8; Jer 48:17), and not seldom in Deuteronomy (Deu 1:12; Deu 7:17; Deu 12:30; Deu 18:21). In Isaiah it occurs once, Isa 1:21, a passage which seems to have been in our Poets mind. There, as here, the ideal person of Jerusalem, i. e., of the city of Jerusalem (in distinction from the tribe of Judah, to which Lam 1:3 relates), is the subject. The personification is apparent: 1. From the expression, sits solitary. 2. From the words, as a widow. The comparison with a person shows that the subject of comparison is regarded as a person. 3. The singular forms in Lam 1:2, she weeps, her tears, her cheeks, etc., as certainly indicate a personification, as the plural forms would prove a reference to the concrete multitude of the exiles. The Poet then has in his eye, not, perhaps, the collective person of the exiled people, but the ideal person of the city of Jerusalem, now ruined. This person he sees in the spirit, sitting solitary amidst the devastated holy places.Doth the city sit solitary. Solitary, because she has lost her inhabitants, her children. This is evident from the antithesis,the city that was full of people. [Noyes: There are several Roman coins extant, representing on the one side the emperor Vespasian, and on the other a woman (the daughter of Zion) sitting upon the ground under a palm tree, in a mournful attitude, and having around her a heap, of arms, shields, etc. The legend is Juda CaptaJudea taken.]That was full of people! In regard to sense and construction, see Jer 51:13; 1Sa 2:5. [Henderson: It is impossible to determine what was the extent of the population of ancient Jerusalem. Before the revolt under Rehoboam it must have been very great, especially during the celebration of the three annual festivals, when the males congregated there from all parts of the country: and even after that event, there is reason to believe that, as the metropolis of the southern kingdom, the number of inhabitants was considerable. It not only continued to be the resort of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, but was one of the principal mercantile cities of the East.]How. [The repetition of the How in the second and the last clauses of the verse, as in our English version, is not only unnecessary, but mars the rhythmical construction and interrupts the consecutive flow of thought. There is no more propriety in its repetition in Lam 1:1, than there would be in Lam 1:2, which in form and matter is a continuation of Lam 1:1. The particle, as used in the beginning of the verse, is ejaculatory, not interrogative. It rouses and directs attention, with fine poetical effect, to the image of the ideal Jerusalem, once representing a city full of people, now seen as a dejected woman, sitting solitary, as in the deepest grief. The attention thus gained, the description goes on to the end of Lam 1:2, adding feature to feature, and circumstance to circumstance, with admirable art and graphic power, till the picture is complete.W. H. H.]Is sheshe isbecome as a widow! In Isa 1:21, the faithful city has become a harlot. Here, where we have a poem not of invective and denunciation, but of lamentation, the populous city has become as a widow. For she is no longer () a married one, since she no longer enjoys communion with Jehovah, her Husband (. See Delitzsch on Isa 54:1 sqq.). She is a woman forsaken (Isa 54:6), and the reproach of widowhood (Isa 54:6) rests upon her. The expression as a widow [, as one forsaken, widowed] implies that Jerusalem has not lost her husband utterly and forever, but she is only separated from him for a period. There is in the particle as a foreshadowing of reunion. See the expression as widows in Lam 5:3.She that was great among the nations. [Dr. Naegelsbachs punctuation, which is the punctuation also of the Sept., Vulg., and some more modern versions, requires us to connect these words with the preceding declaration. She is become as a widow, the great one (Die Grosse) among the nations. This is, however, in violation of the masoretic punctuation, and does not seem to strengthen the meaning that Dr. N. derives from the expression as a widow. See critical notes below. Nor is there a necessary antithesis between being as a widow and having been great among the nations. If we adopt the punctuation of the Sept. and Vulg., we should adopt the translation in full of one or the other of those versions, both of which do preserve an antithesis. The Sept. reads She is become as a widow, i. e., a lone, forsaken woman, who was filled with nations. The Vulg. reads, She the lady of nations became as a widow. The punctuation in our present Hebrew Bibles, which is retained by our English version, Broughton, Gattaker, Noyes, and Gerlach, certainly makes the sense clearer and the thoughts more copious. The city sits solitary that was full of people! She is become as a widow! She that was great among the nations. is become tributary.W. H. H.]And princess among the provinces. That not only Israelitish, but foreign provinces also, were at times governed by Jerusalem, is sufficiently established in history. [See Davids conquests and sovereignty over the neighboring states, 2Sa 8:1-4; 2Sa 10:6-19; the extent of Solomons dominions, 1Ki 4:21; 1Ki 4:24; 2Ch 9:23-24; the power of Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat, 2Ch 17:10-11, and in that of Uzziah, 2Ch 26:6-8. See also Ezr 4:20, There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, which have ruled over all countries beyond the river; and toll, tribute, and custom, was paid unto them.W. H. H.]How is she becomeis become. [See remarks on How above.]Tributary. [Obliged to pay tribute-service. This is the common meaning of the word. Noyes.]
, sitteth solitary. This cannot mean dwelleth alone. For the isolated location of the city could be no misfortune, since contact with heathen neighbors was forbidden as injurious. (See Num 23:9; Lev 20:24; Lev 20:26; Deu 33:28; Exo 23:31-33; Judges 2, 3.) Nor can have the sense of situation, place of location, for never has that sense in the Hebrew. See Gesen.,Thes. In Psa 122:5; Psa 125:1; Zec 2:8; Zec 12:6; Zec 14:10 it has either the active signification of inhabiting, or the passive of being inhabited (see Jer 17:6; Jer 17:25; Jer 30:18; Jer 50:13; Jer 50:39, et al). That this last named passive signification does not suit here is evident from the contradiction involved by the words solitary and as a widow. We can only translate How sits solitary the city. [Fuerst,Lex., , to sit, as an expression of being bowed down, struck down and forsaken, with , Isa 3:26; Job 2:13; , Isa 47:1; , Lam 1:1; Lam 3:28; , Ezr 9:3; , Gen 38:11; Isa 47:8.] . It is probable that the form , in the kindred passage, Isa 1:21, influenced the choice of the form of the word here., as a widow. In antithesis to , full of people, , bereaved of children, childless, would be first suggested: but this word occurs only once, Isa 49:21. , also, occurs once only (in connection with ), Jer 18:21. is the barren woman, or is abortum faciens, Exo 23:26; 2Ki 2:19; 2Ki 2:21, or infanticida, Eze 36:13. suits admirably, in that it involves the impossibility of bearing children in the future. And that is what the Poet would say. Jerusalem is placed in a condition in which it is impossible for her to become a mother of children, Psa 113:9. The other feature, that she is also a widow robbed of the children already born to her, is further brought out in what follows. I do not believe, therefore, that Jerusalem is here called a widow, because she is bereaved of king and princes, and the protection and guidance of rulers, as Vitringa and others after him (lately Engelhardt), appealing to Isa 47:8, have been inclined to think. Besides that, is not synonymous with , Raschi has already remarked. Compare at the close of this verse, and , Isa 1:21. The word is often found in Jer 7:6; Jer 15:8; Jer 18:21; Jer 22:3. [Henderson is too positive when he says, The in is simply that of comparison, and is not intended to express any hope that she would be restored from her widowed state, as Jarchi fancifully supposes. Comparison is not assertion: a thing is not what it is compared with. If then does simply indicate a comparison, yet it leaves a possibility, and hence a hope of restoration from a widowed state; and there is certainly more than a fanciful distinction between being a widow, , and being like one,.W. H. H.] , has become tributary. The expression is found in Genesis (Gen 49:15) and in Deuteronomy (Deu 20:11); and is especially frequent in 1 Kings (1 Kings 5:27, 28; 1Ki 9:15; 1Ki 9:21) and in Judges (Jdg 1:28; Jdg 1:30; Jdg 1:33; Jdg 1:35). It is also found in Isaiah (Isa 31:8). The etymology and fundamental meaning are not quite certain. At all the places cited the word indicates bond-service, or rather, collectively, services (see , Gen 49:15; Jos 16:10; 1Ki 9:21). It first occurs in the sense of tributum, a money tax, very late, Est 10:1. It is, however, unimportant whether we take the word in our text in the one sense or the other. Nor can we from this word determine the exact period of time, as J. D. Michaelis would do, when he says: Therefore she is still standing, but has become tributary. This first happened under the Egyptians (he has here in mind evidently 2Ki 23:33). To what time then is this to be referred,to that of the elegy on Josiah, or to that of a later period? If Jerusalem was no longer standing, and not a human soul dwelt there, yet the place on which the ruins of Jerusalem remained had become, with the whole land, a part of the territory subjected to the Chaldeans.
Lam 1:2. She weepeth sore in the night.She weeps and weeps the night throughout. [This translation is beautiful and expository, but for grammatical reasons the E. V. is to be preferred. See the Gramm. Notes.W. H. H.] The sorrowing widow weeps in the night. Not in the night-time only, in distinction from day-time,nor, as Ewald prefers, until the night. For why should she not weep during the night also? Precisely this is the meaning of the poet. She weeps in the night, but not only a part of the night, for that were nothing wonderful, but so that her weeping fills up the time which is usually spent otherwise. So is to be understood in Num 14:1, and the people wept that night. See Jer 6:5; Jer 36:30, et al. [Henderson: To express the more aggravated character of the weeping, it is represented as indulged even during the nightthe period of rest and quiet.]And her tears are on her cheeks. Tears, Jer. 8:23; 9:17, et al. The absence of a predicate index, which renders the supplement of the copula are necessary, gives the idea evidently that the tears on her cheeks are constantly there, have fixed there, as it were, their permanent place. [Henry: Nothing dries away sooner than a tear, yet fresh griefs extort fresh tears, so that her cheeks are never free from them.]Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her.She has no comforter.[That this phrase has an important meaning is to be inferred by its recurrence four times in this chapter (Lam 2:9; see also Lam 1:16), and from its being an unusual form, occurring elsewhere only in Ecc 4:1. It can have no common-place meaning. It refers indirectly to the loss of the Comfortertheir God.W. H. H.]All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. The words lovers and friends indicate the human supports on which Jerusalem foolishly and presumptuously believed she could rely, especially all those nations whose friendship she had so often preferred, instead of trusting in Jehovah. See Lam 1:19; Jer 2:13; Jer 2:18; Jer 2:33; Jer 2:36-37; Jer 22:20; Jer 22:22; Hos 2:7 sqq.; Ezekiel 23. These places show, in harmony with history, that the nations toward which Israel felt itself drawn in amorous love, but by which at last they were not only deserted, but treated with even positive hostility, were especially Assyria, Babylon and Egypt. With reference to Egypt, see particularly Eze 29:6-7; Eze 29:16. See Ewaldin loc. [Henderson: The lovers and friends were those neighboring states which were allies of the Hebrews,and their idol-gods, which they worshipped, and in which they trusted. Egypt especially was the object of their confidence, but not even she durst venture to come to their help against the Chaldeans. Those in the more immediate vicinity actually joined the northern enemy on his irruption into the country. 2Ki 24:2.]
Lam 1:3
3Judah is gone into captivity, because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:3., see Jer 1:3., found in Lam 1:3; Lam 1:7; Lam 1:9; Lam 3:1; Lam 3:19, does not occur in Jeremiah; yet Isaiah uses it Isa 48:10 : occurs also in Pentateuch; Gen 16:11; Gen 29:32; Gen 31:42; Exo 3:7; Deu 16:3; Deu 26:7, etc.; in Psa 9:14; Psa 25:18; Psa 31:8, and in other writings of earlier origin than Lam. is found in Isa 7:22; Isa 24:22; Nah 3:4, et al.: Jeremiah says , Jer 30:14-15, or , Jer 13:22. does not occur in Jeremiah, yet frequently in Pentateuch, and in Isa 14:3; Isa 32:17; Isa 28:21. occurs Gen 8:9; Deu 28:65; Isa 34:14, is not used by Jeremiah; he uses , Jer 45:3. [See Intr. Add. R. (4). p. 30. (6). p. 31.] occurs in Jer 42:16 (see also Jer 39:5; Jer 52:8 ).]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:3. The tribe of Judah is the subject here, as the city of Jerusalem was in Lam 1:1-2, and is conceived of similarly as an ideal person.Judah is gone into captivity, because of affliction and because of great servitude.Into exile is Judah gone from oppression and severe servitude. It has been correctly remarked that from oppression and from hard servitude cannot refer to the involuntary exile of Judah, since it is added she findeth no rest. For who may expect rest for a people carried into captivity? But voluntary fugitives might hope to find rest. Of such voluntary exiles, Jeremiah speaks in Jer 40:11-12, and from Jer 43:4-7 we learn that all these finally agreed together to seek rest in Egypt. That they found no rest there exactly agrees with what the prophet had declared, Jer 42:13-22, to the people stubbornly persisting in the flight to Egypt. When the Poet speaks here of Judah as a fugitive, seeking rest and finding none, the reason for his doing so may be surmised from the fact that he himself belonged to that part of the people that were living in exile. We may suppose, also, that he regarded this part of the nation as a representative of the whole nation, because they consisted of people who were at least free. It is much like saying,Judah is no longer with those who have become mixed with a foreign people as slaves. If it yet survive, it survives in a voluntary exile, where, notwithstanding its distressed state and reduced numbers, it still retains at least its personal liberty. [Blayney: Our translators, who have rendered, Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude, seem to have adopted the notion of the Chaldee Paraphrast, who represents the Jews to have been carried into captivity in retaliation of their having oppressed the widow and the fatherless among them, and prolonged illegally the bondage of their brethren who had been sold them for slaves. Henderson adopts this view, that Judah is here represented as suffering captivity on account of, or because of her oppressing and cruelly enslaving her own people, see Jeremiah 34. But the other view, that Judah sought by voluntary exile to escape the oppression and enslavement of the Chaldeans, is recommended by the reasons given above, and is adopted by Blayney, C. B. and J. D. Michaelis, Boothroyd and Noyes. Houbigant, quoted approvingly by Boothroyd in his Heb. Bib., connects the words from oppression and hard servitude with the words she findeth no rest, an obvious and awkward attempt to escape the difficulty of the supposed causal sense of . Hugh Broughton translates Judah leaveth country after affliction and much bondage.W. H. H.][She dwelleth among the heathen, lit., nations, i.e., the heathen nations. The word dwell conveys an idea of a settled permanent abode, not required by the Hebrew, . The German, sitzet, which Naegelsbach uses, is better (see Lam 1:1). The fugitive, fleeing before her pursuers, finds at last a place among the heathen, where she sits down in hoped-for security: but in vain; her pursuers overtake her, as the hart is found by the hunter, in the straits or defiles of the mountain, from which there is no escape. See Lam 1:6, they flee like harts before the pursuer.W. H. H.]She findeth no rest: all her persecutors, pursuers, in antithesis to all her lovers and all her friends in Lam 1:2 (see Lam 1:6; Lam 4:19; Jer 15:15; Jer 17:18; Jer 20:11) overtook her between the straits. (Sing. ) occurs, besides here, only Psa 116:3; Psa 118:5. It can mean neither (so Sept., which erroneously takes it for a participle), nor termini, (so Chald., Venitian Greek, et al.). It means angusti, narrow defiles from which there is no outlet. The figure is taken from the cbase. See the German phrase, in die Engen treiben, to drive one into straits. [W. Robertson: , a streight, or a streighting distress. Fuerst: to take one in the straits, i.e., to get one at last into our power, a proverbial phrase. The present use of the English word straits (as reduced to straits, in great straits) explains the sense here, but does not justify the translation, overtook her between the straits.W. H. H.] The fugitive Judah sits indeed in the midst of a heathenish people, but has found there no rest. She would flee still further, were it possible. But whither could the Jews, with their wives, their children, and all their goods, have fled beyond the desert-surrounded Egypt? They dwelt there, it is true, but they dwelt amidst straits. All their pursuers (and that there were enough of them in Egypt, old and new, is evident from Jer 44:12; Jer 44:18; Jer 44:26 sqq.) could reach them there.
Lam 1:4-6
4The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. 5Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity 6before the enemy. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture; and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:4., adj. mournful [not desert, waste, devastated, as Fuerst says, which destroys the beautiful personificationW. H. H.], occurs Gen 37:35; Isa 57:18, et al., never in Jeremiah. The verb he uses, in the same sense as the adjective here (Jer 4:28; Jer 12:4; Jer 12:11; Jer 14:2; Jer 23:10) [and also the noun , Jer 6:26, et al.W. H. H.] Isaiah uses the adjective, Isa 57:18; Isa 61:23., see Jer 2:15; Jer 9:10-11.The expression (see Gen 23:10; Gen 23:18) is not found in Jeremiah. is found in Jeremiah twice, Jer 8:7; Jer 46:17, both times in the sense of tempus fixum. In the Lamentations the word occurs six times, and always in the sense of a time of feast, a festival, Lam 1:4; Lam 1:15; Lam 2:6-7; Lam 2:22, or the place of a feast, Lam 2:6. [It may have here the sense of an appointed time. Ordinary services in the Temple are neglected. None flock to Zion at the usual times of service.W. H. H.]The part. is not in Jeremiah: he uses the part. Niph., Jer 33:10, and , Jer 12:11. The plur. ending (see Lam 4:3, Ktib), is not found in Jeremiah.The root Jeremiah does not use, either in a verbal or a substantive form (see Lam 1:8; Lam 1:11; Lam 1:21)., see below. Jeremiah does use, Lam 2:19; Lam 4:18.
Lam 1:5.As shown above, is a Deuteronomic, a Jeremiac expression. For grammatical form of latter, see Olsh., 233, b. never occurs in Jeremiah, but frequently in Lam 1:4; Lam 1:12; Lam 3:32-33 : elsewhere, Isa 51:23; Zep 3:18. [Vulgate derives it from , which sometimes means to speak; quia Dominus locutus est super eam; Douay, because the Lord hath spoken against her. But Sept., Syr. and Versions generally derive it from .W. H. H.] is entirely Jeremiac (see on , Lam 1:3). in Jeremiah only once, Lam 5:6., Jer 44:7; , Jer 6:11; Jer 9:20. is peculiar to this place. cannot well be an accusative, since to go into exile is always elsewhere expressed by , see Lam 1:18. [Henderson: her children are gone captives before the enemy.]The sing. , which is frequent in Lam. (Lam 1:7; Lam 1:10; Lam 2:4; Lam 4:12), never occurs in Jeremiah: he uses only the plural (Jer 30:16; Jer 46:10) and (Jer 4:31; Jer 6:24, et al.).
Lam 1:6. , for forsaken, lost, is peculiar. [Henderson: For the Kri and some MSS. read more correctly . The phrase is also thus quoted in the Rabboth. This best suits the rhythm.W. H. H.] is never found in Jeremiah; nor (yet see , Jer 14:5); nor (Jeremiah always says , Jer 10:21; Jer 23:1; Jer 25:36). We find expressions in Jeremiah analogous to , Lam 2:11, , Lam 5:7, is found in Jeremiah, but only with suffixes, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:18; Jer 20:11.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
These verses contain a description of the present condition of the city and people of Jerusalem [or, a new aspect of their condition is presented.We have here another of those changes which impart to these poems a highly dramatic character. A third personage is introduced,the daughter of Zion. The ideal person here is not that of the city of Jerusalem, formerly in outward splendor and estate a queen among the nations, now fallen and humbled (Lam 1:1-2), nor yet that of the tribe of Judah, or of the theocratic people, now a fugitive among the heathen (Lam 1:3),but of Zion, formerly the seat of the theocracy, the abode of God, the Temple where Judah and Jerusalem worshipped, now forsaken and despoiled. No longer do the people gather to her appointed solemnities. Silence reigns on Zion, broken only by the sobs of her priests and the moaning of her virgins, a higher evidence than either the ruined city or the exiled people, that the glory was departed from Israel.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:4. The ways of Zion,The way to Zion, those ways which lead to Zion: not the streets of the city, as Rosenmueller thinks, for the latter are called (see Hos 7:1 with Hos 6:9), do mourn,are mournful (Prosopopia, as, e. g.,Lam 2:19; Jer 14:2; Jer 23:10; Amo 1:2), because none come to the solemn feasts,forsaken by those who used to come to her feasts [because there are none coming to her appointed services. Appointed assemblies, including all occasions of stated worship, whether daily sacrifices or annual festivals, would more correctly interpret the sense than either feasts, solemn feasts, or festivals.W. H. H.]All her gates are desolate,destroyed. Concerning the city itself, its gates are destroyed. But ruined gates are the sign of a ruined city. [Destroyed, so Naegelsbach,zerstrt, Sept. = rezed to the ground, Vulg. destruct. E. V. and modern Versions generally read desolate. It is the gates of Zion, not the gates of the city of Jerusalem, that are here referred to. Those sacred barriers are removed. The holy place has lost its sanctity. It is open now to the intrusion of any who please to enter. See Lam 1:10 : She hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy congregation. What could more forcibly express, in accordance with Jewish ideas, the idea that the theocratic glory had departed from Israel?W. H. H.]Her priests sigh: her virgins are afflicted,sorrowful. Two classes of the inhabitants are named,the priests and the virgins: the former the nobility, the latter the flower and ornament of the nation. The former sigh under heavy oppression; the latter, who formerly rendered every festival attractive, with dances and pastimes (see Jer 31:13; Herz.Real. Encyc., XV., pp. 414, 415), are now sorrowful. It is thus intimated that every possibility of making a joyous festival is gone. See Jer 7:34; Jer 16:9; Jer 25:10; Jer 33:11; comp. Jer 30:19. The Sept. reads, instead of sorrowful,=led away; the translation evidently of , which either really stood in the text, or was erroneously substituted by the Alexandrian for the rare word . Ewald follows the Sept. Incorrectly, it seems to me. is sufficiently expressive, if it be taken as an indication of the prevailing grief and in antithesis to the indications of the public rejoicings that existed in former times. [The mention of the priests particularly shows that the sacred precincts of Zion, where they ministered, and where the virgins went up to the solemn feasts with joy and gladness, are before the Poets eye. To say that the priests are mentioned because they constituted the nobility of the inhabitants of the city, is not only awkward, but untrue. Noyes translates the last clause Her virgins wail: a meaning of the original word not licensed by authority.W. H. H.]And she is in bitterness. In these words the whole is summed up. [It is, perhaps, impossible to give in English the exquisite force of the original. Naegelsbach nearly reproduces it in German, Und ihrist wehe.W. H. H.] Here it is evident that the ideal person of Zion is the embodiment of all the particular members and ranks of the community (des volkslebens). [If this were indisputably evident, it would not militate with the fact that Zion represented the religious life as Judah did the political life of the people.W. H. H.]This relative conclusion shows that the Poet proposes to pass to something new. In fact, Lam 1:4 describes the positive sorrows and afflictions of the people: Lam 1:5, a. b., the good fortune of her enemies as the natural reciprocal effect of the misfortunes of Judah; Lam 1:5, c.,6, the negative side of the painful experience of the people, namely, the losses they sustained.
Lam 1:5. Her adversaries are the chief, lit., have become the head [i. e., her superiors.Blayney and Noyes: or, the head over her.Boothroyd.] In Deu 28:13 a promise is made to Israel, if obedient, and the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail, and in same chapter, Lam 1:44, the reverse is threatened, if disobedient. The Poet, without doubt, had these passages in his mind.Her enemies prosper. The darkness of Israels sorrows is deepened by the brilliant prosperity of her enemies. The expression occurs in same sense, Jer 12:1. See Psa 122:6; Job 12:6.For the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. This advantage on the part of their enemies had not happened by chance, nor by mere arbitrariness or unrighteousness on the side of God, but by an act of Divine rectitude in the punishment of Israel for their sins. What is professedly made conspicuous in Lam 1:8 is here anticipated. [Observe, in connection with Zion, as the representative of the religious element of the theocratic idea, in distinction from the national, the name Jehovah is first introduced, and the calamities suffered by the people are first distinctly ascribed to their sins;the sins especially of priests and ministers of religion, and of hypocrisy, formalism and idolatry on the part of the people.:W. H. H.]Her children are gone into captivity,her young children are gone captives. From here to end of Lam 1:6 the Poet describes what Judah has lost. And first, her children. are little children (see Lam 2:20; Lam 4:4; Jer 6:11; Jer 9:20). These are compelled as captives to go forth before the oppressor into foreign lands. See Joel 4:2, 3.Before the enemy. [The word adversary (so Broughton) is preferred to enemy, E. V., because the word in Hebrew is the same as that rendered adversaries in the first clause. Oppressor and oppressors might be well substituted.W. H. H.] What renders this more dreadful is the idea that the little children are torn away from parents and brothers and sisters, to be driven as merchandise by their purchasers, some to one place and some to another. [Henderson: In the representations which we find on ancient sculptures nothing is more affecting than to observe females and young children driven as captives before their conquerors. Observe, young children are mentioned in connection with Zion because they, in a peculiar sense, are the care of the church, of the religious rather than the political rulers, the lambs of the flock entrusted to the spiritual shepherds of Israel. Nothing could more forcibly express, in accordance with Jewish ideas, the fact that God had forsaken His people, than that the heathen were suffered, without Divine hindrance, to carry away these young children, the children of the covenant, into captivity and slavery. It is this thought that constitutes the poetic climax, showing how severely Jehovah afflicted Zion for her sins.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. Zion has lost, not only her dearest and most precious ones, her children, but also her beauty, her glory. This last feature is represented by the princes, with whom, and before them all, the king is to be classed. [What then was the beauty of Zionthe King and the Princes, or God Himself? The beauty of Zion was the presence of Jehovah and the maintenance of His worship on the Holy Mount. See Lam 2:1; Lam 2:6; 1Sa 4:21-22; Eze 7:20-22; Psa 1:2, Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined, Psa 96:9, Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, . Psa 132:13-14. The beauty of Zion departed when God forsook His people, suffered the Temple to be destroyed, Jer 52:13, and the ordinances of worship to be discontinued. The condition of her princes, like hunted harts, pursued and overtaken, is the consequence of the destruction of Zion, whence they are driven forth, deprived of all spiritual nourishment. God is no longer with them. No more are they fed with the bread of Heaven; and therefore, like starved and parched harts, they fall an easy prey to their pursuers.W. H. H.]Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture; and they are gone without strength before the enemy. These noble and fleet-footed animals lose, by hunger, their strength and the power of flight. They are caught and driven at pleasure. So the princes of Zion, formerly her pride and strength, are driven forth by the pursuer. The Sept. and Jerome have , arietes,=rams. They read or understood . But evidently is the stag or hart (see Deu 12:15; Deu 14:5; Deu 15:22): rams would not suit in this connection, since rams do not belong to those animals of the chase, which only suffer themselves to be taken by men, when hunger deprives them of power to escape.
Lam 1:7
7Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction, and of her miseries, all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:7. is not the object of , but indicates the time, as is evident from the absence of before . The accusative answers, as frequently, the question, When? See my Gr., 70, d. [Blayney: Houbigant supposes that we ought to read for : but I am inclined to think that it is not the , but the , which has been sunk before , by means of the preceding word having been terminated with the same letter,a mistake of which we find numberless instances originating from the same cause. signifies during the days, or since they began, as does presently after, in or during former days, Boothroyd quotes this note with approval in his Hebrew Bible. Henderson says, in there is an ellipsis of , of which there are numerous examples. But nouns may be used absolutely to express the relations of time, see Greens Gr., 274, 2.W. H. H.], not from , but from , dissipari, vagari (Hos 12:1; Jer 2:31), is vagatio, erratio, vita extorris et erratica (Fuerst). The word is found, besides here and Lam 3:19. only at Isa 58:7. [Dr J. A. Alexander translates , the afflicted, the homeless, and remarks, Lowths versionthe wandering pooris now commonly regarded as substantially correct. is properly an abstract, meaning wandering (from ), here used for the concrete wanderers. Accepting the opinion of Lowth and Alexander, I have put wanderings in the text. Fuerst, in his concordance, derives the word from , as above, but, in his Lexicon, from , and translates it expulsion, persecution, misery. W. Robertson says, , her mournings, her lamentations, her miseries or calamities, or her rebellions, for the word may be referred to the root , in Hiph., to mourn, to lament; or to the root , to rebel. Blayney says it comes from , to descend from a higher to a lower condition, and so translates it abatement. The variety of meanings put upon the word is indicated in the following English Versions: Broughton, vexation; Blayney, abasement; Boothroyd, misery; Henderson, persecution; Noyes. oppression. But wanderings is evidently best supported by its use and most natural derivation, and suits the meaning here, but in Lam 3:19 it seems to denote simply a condition of wretchedness.W. H. H.], only here and Lam 1:11, Ktib. Neither , nor , found in Jeremiah. He uses only (Jer 3:19; Jer 12:10; Jer 25:34). , in Jeremiah we have , Jer 46:26. could be into the hand [E. V., Blayney, Boothroyd, Henderson, Noyes] instead of by [Broughton]; the difference is not important.[Blayney: Instead of I propose to read . An ingenious, but unnecessary, unauthorized change.W. H. H.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:7. Jerusalem. [Here occurs another of those sudden changes which give to this poem its highly dramatic character. In the preceding verses, which may be properly regarded as introductory to all that follows, the city, the nation, and the church have been successively introduced. Now Jerusalem is named for the first time. Jerusalem, here, must be regarded as generic and comprehensive; the representative of the theocratic idea; the head of all the cities of Israel, the type of its nationality, the seat of its worship, where God dwelt in its consecrated Zion. The ideal persons who have already appeared,the ruined city, pictured as a sorrowing widow and dethroned and conquered queen, of Lam 1:1-2,the exile, fleeing from misery and bondage, seeking a home among heathen, but finding no rest, no escape from trouble and persecution, of Lam 1:3,the daughter of Zion, despoiled of her beauty, bewailing the absence of worshippers, the invasion of her sacred courts by heathen, the captivity of her infant children and the humiliation of her proud leaders and princes, of Lam 1:4-6,all now are embraced under the generic name of Jerusalem, which from this verse to the end of the chapter is personified as the representative of the theocratic idea.W. H. H.]remembered,remembers. The unfortunate cannot forbear recalling their former prosperity, the remembrance of which serves both to comport them and to increase their sorrow. Zion follows this propensity of nature.in the days of her affliction and of her miseries, all her pleasant things.All the glorious things, of a spiritual and of a temporal nature, which had fallen to the lot of the chosen people from the beginning of their history, are now the subject of painful remembrance.that she had in the days of old. See Lam 2:17; Isa 23:7; Isa 37:26; Mic 7:20. [Broughton: in the old time. Henderson: from ancient days.] Ewald regards the words, all the pleasant things she had from the days of old, as erroneously transplanted here out of Lam 1:10. His principal reason seems to be that they spoil the rhythm. Vaihinger supposes that this verse, as well as Lam 2:19, contains four members. I see no necessity for this. We are only to regard the two members of the first part of the verse as of greater length. There is apparently no exact measure for the number of syllables of the several members. The thought that Jerusalem in her misery remembers her present misery [which would be the sense according to Ewalds emendation] is unnatural; for [to call to mind, to remember] always suggests something distant, remote, in reference to space or time, and, in the latter relation, either past or future. Besides, the words, that she had in the days of old, so appropriate in Lam 1:7, would be altogether superfluous and confusing in Lam 1:10.when her people fell into the hand of the enemy,when her people fall by the hand of the oppressor.This is a more particular description of the days of her affliction. They were the days when her people fell by the hand of their enemies.and none did help her,and she has no helper. [So all the Eng. Versions, except E. V.]the adversaries saw her,her oppressors behold her. The construction is determined by what precedes, according to acknowledged usage. See. my Gr., 99.[ = to see, has here the sense of looking at in the way of inspection, beholding (Broughton), perhaps in the sense of looking at a person with satisfaction or joy, to feast the eyes upon one with malicious joy (see FuerstsLex.). The remark of Dr. J. A. Alexander on Isa 53:2, that means to view with pleasure only when followed by the preposition , needs qualification.W. H. H.]and did mockthey mockat her Sabbaths. is an . . The sense of the word itself is clear. It can only mean cessationes, excidia [cessations, destructions]. But the choice of a word else unused, seems to indicate that the scorn of their enemies was of an equivocal character; namely, they scoffed not only because Zion had come to its end, but likewise because now a general Sabbath, a day of rest for the land in a bad sense, had begun. We have then a proof that the Sabbath was to the heathen, even before the days of Rome (see Juv. Sat. XIV. 96106; Pers. V. 179184; Mart. IV. 4, 7), an occasion for mockery. [Hugh Broughton: This prophesieth how in Babel they will mourn for desire unto their feasts, which in their Land they would not keep aright. And the Chaldeans will scoff at their Sabbatisms, as did long after Horace, Ovid, and other Poets,and Tully, too, deserving to have his head cut off and his tongue pricked, as he had. The Psalms 137 commenteth upon this verse.]. This early mockery of the Jewish Sabbath would be more likely to happen, since it would naturally come to the ears of those who destroyed Jerusalem, that the commandment itself predicted to the disobedient people a time of desolation, as an involuntary Sabbath rest of the land. See Lev 26:34; Lev 26:43; 2Ch 36:21. I believe, therefore, that the old explanation of Vulg., Arab., Luther, L. Capelle, translating by Sabbaths, is right, so far as it allows an equivocal sense of this word. [This word has given the translators and commentators much trouble. The Sept. translates it by , and mocked at her captivity, deriving the noun from , captivum ducere. The other Versions vary. Blayney:discontinuance; Houbigant justly observes that is nowhere used for Sabbath, etc. But without taking the liberty which he does of substituting another word, , the use of the verb will justify giving to a sense well suited to the exigence of the passage, namely, her discontinuance, that is, the ceasing, or causing to cease, of her, or of her former prosperity. Boothroyd and Noyes: destruction. Henderson: they laughed at her ruin, , lit., her ruined circumstances; the state of the complete cessation of all the active businesses of life. Root, to cease; Hiph., to put an end to, cause to cease.Broughton: Sabbatisms; (which, as preserving the equivocal sense, is to be preferred).Blayney: Some critics have been willing to discard this line, Her oppressors behold herthey mock at her Sabbathsas well as the fourth in Lam 2:19, but for no better reason than because all the other periods in the two chapters consist, of three lines only. But I think this not a sufficient ground, in opposition to the authority of all the Hebrew copies and ancient Versions. Henderson, who makes four lines of this verse, and only three of the others, remarks, there is no reason to believe that Jeremiah considered himself so rigidly bound to adhere to his triple arrangement, as on no occasion to break through it in order to give utterance to a thought forcibly bearing on the statement which he had just made. Why then adopt an artificial style at all? But there is no necessity for making four members instead of three of this verse. Each member consists of two distinctly marked clauses; and in this verse the first member has two clauses of more than usual length. Naegelsbachs arrangement of the lines in sixes, instead of triplets, plainly disposes of this difficulty, and its correctness is vindicated by the accents.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:8-11.
8Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honored her, despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; yea, she sigheth, and9 turneth backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold10my afflictions; for the enemy hath magnified himself. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter 11into thy congregation. All her people sigh, they seek bread: they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:8. . See my Gr., 93, d, note. The form (frequent in Deu 15:9; Deu 21:22, etc., comp. Isa 31:7; Isa 53:12; Hos 12:9) is never found in Jeremiah, and in Lam. only here and Lam 3:39. Jeremiah uses only the form Jer 16:10; Jer 16:18; Jer 17:1; Jer 17:3; Jer 18:23, et al. The verb is frequent with him, Jer 2:35; Jer 3:25; Jer 8:14.[Blayney: For , which occurs nowhere else, nineteen MSS., and the first edition of the Hagiographa, read , as at Jer 1:17 and various other places.], not found in Jeremiah; 1Sa 2:30; 2Sa 10:3; Pro 14:31.The Hiphil form, (not to be confounded with from , Isa 48:21), occurs only here. See Olsh., 255, h, note. In Jer 15:19 we find , abjectum, vile. [The word is from , Chaldaic inflexion. See Benjamin Davidson; Analyt. Lex., 18,14; or from , see Fuerst, Lex.W. H. H.], not found in Jeremiah. See Isa 47:3; Eze 16:37. [Cranmer, Bishops B., filthiness; Broughton, Boothroyd, Noyes, shame.] is found in Jeremiah only with , Jer 15:6, and , Jer 38:22; Jer 46:5.
Lam 1:9.. Ewald, wholly unnecessarily, would read , she polluted ( 194, b). The word is not found in Jeremiah., acc. adverbial. See , Job 37:5; , Psa 65:6; , Psa 75:3; my Gr., 70, k. requires neither nor to complete the sense. The object lies in the verb itself. The direct causative is needed (see my Gr., 18, 3). It also means, to play the part of or to affect greatness; see Jer 48:26; Jer 48:42; comp. 1Sa 20:41. [Fuerst gives this verb an inchoative sense, to grow violent. This sense of the word seems to have induced the inaccurate translation of Blayney, Behold how an enemy hath aggravated mine affliction. Boothroyd gives same sense.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:10. (see Lam 1:13; Lam 1:17; Lam 4:4) is not strange to the vocabulary of Jer 4:31; Jer 16:7; Jer 48:40; Jer 49:22.Before supply .[Henderson: The in is merely the fuller form of the pronominal fragment for , the common form. It is omitted in some MSS.]
Lam 1:11., see Lam 1:7; Lam 1:10. [Henderson: the form is quite irregular. It is corrected in the Kri, which rejects the . The word is thus exhibited in a great number of MSS. and in eight printed editions.] . indicates something given in the way of price or wages; see Gen 29:18; Gen 30:26; Isa 7:23; my Gr., 112, 5, a. is not found in Jeremiah. He says , Jer 12:12; or , Jer 7:33; Jer 16:4; Jer 19:7; Jer 34:20. occurs Lam 1:16; Lam 1:19; Rth 4:15; Psa 19:8; Pro 25:13, never in Jeremiah. . These two imperatives are found together, only in the reverse order, in Job 35:5; Isa 63:15; Psa 80:15; Psa 142:5. In the Lamentations we also have , Lam 1:12; , Lam 1:1, and alone Lam 3:63. Jeremiah never uses the verb , which Isaiah uses constantly, Isa 5:12; Isa 5:30; Isa 8:22; Isa 18:4; Isa 42:18; Isa 63:15; Isa 20:5-6, etc. occurs once in Jer 15:19. See Lam 1:8. The word is used in a contemptuous sense; Zion [Jerusalem] has become a (Jer 22:28) when she ought to be (Jer 3:19). [ is properly the participle of , to shake to and fro, to totter, hence figuratively to be low, bad, contemptible, abject, mean, and then again figuratively to be miserable, unhappy, in which last sense it is used here. See Fuerst, Lex.W. H. H.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:8. It is sin that has made Jerusalem an object of abhorrence. Her uncleanness has become notorious: therefore those who might comfort her keep far from her, while her heathen oppressors, who, according to the law, should keep away from her, have free access to her.Jerusalem hath grievously sinned. [Lit., hath sinned a sin. This Hebraism suggests the idea, not only of a sin of a grievous character, but of sin persevered in, and its guilt aggravated by constant repetition. So Cranmer translates: Jerusalem hath sinned ever more and more. Naegelsbach, poetically, if not accurately: Gesndigt, gesndigt hat Jerusalem.Calvin: Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what he had briefly referred to, even that all the evils which the Jews suffered proceeded from Gods vengeance, and that they were worthy of such a punishment, because they had not lightly offended, but had heaped up for themselves a dreadful judgment, since they had in all manner of ways abandoned themselves to impiety. This is the substance of what is said.W. H. H.]Therefore she is removed. [Correctly, therefore she is become vile.Westminster Annotations: She is become as a woman separated for her uncleanness, Lev 15:19; Eze 22:10; Eze 36:17; or, an abominable thing, for so also is the word used in an abstract notion, Lev 20:21; 2Ch 29:5; Ezr 9:11. So Lam 1:17.W. H. H.]All that honoured her despise her. Those who formerly honored Jerusalem, her friends and allies, now despise her. [Calvin: This also did not a little increase the grievousness of her calamity; she had been repudiated by her friends, by whom she had before been valued and honored. The reason is mentioned.]Because they have seen her nakedness. By the discovery of her nakedness we are to understand, not merely that after the removal of all protecting covering (i. e., of all means of defence), men could see and even enter into the precincts of her innermost recesses, but especially that in this way the nakedness of Jerusalem, in a moral sense, has become notorious. In reference to her nakedness in this moral sense, Nebuzaradan said (Jer 40:3), because ye have sinned against Jehovah, and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come upon you. See Delitzsch on Isa 47:3 : The nakedness of Babylon is her shameful deeds, which are become manifest as such. The same figure of speech is found in Hos 2:10; Nah 3:5; Ezek. 13:37.Yea, she sigheth. [Yea, she herself, or, as for herself she sigheth, etc.W. H. H.]And turneth backward. The shame of Jerusalem is so manifest that she herself cannot deny it. There remains nothing for her to do, but groaning to hide herself. See Lam 1:13; Lam 2:3; Psa 9:4; Psa 44:11; Psa 56:10. [The sense seems to be that she herself is so self-convicted and stricken with grief and mortification, that she can only sigh and turn her back upon the spectators in the vain endeavor to hide her shame. This would be very natural in the case of a naked woman, and such is the disagreeable image employed by the poet. Naegelsbach:und wendete sich zruck, lit., and turned herself round. The only other sense that can be put upon the phrase is to regard it as expressive of despair. So Calvin, to turn backward means the same as to be deprived of all hope of restoration. But the correctness of such an interpretation is far from obvious. The other is more natural and probable. West. Annotations:Yea, she sigheth and turneth backward for shame; as those in such case would do, that have any shamefacedness, or spark of ingenuity at all in them, see Isa 47:5 : for they seem to swerve here from the genuine sense, who understand the term turning back as intimating a want of power to stand to it, or to rise and recover again, as Jer 46:5.W. H. H.]
, vile. The old translators derive the word from , vagari, errare, in the sense of agitatio, jactatio facta,i. e.,agitata jactata est. Others take it in the sense of (Psa 44:15), that at which men shake the head [as an expression of contemptuous pity.W. H. H.]. But the connection requires that the word be used in the sense of that which excites abhorrence: for, according to the following clause, Jerusalem is despised because men now see her nakedness and her uncleanness. Since the lengthening of a syllable, to compensate for the doubling of the following consonant, is not infrequent [see for , next clause, and GreensGr., 141, 3.W. H. H.], we may take as another form of (Lam 1:17). See Olsh., 82, c. But is that which one avoids, flings away from him as vile, abominates, that which is unclean, an object of abhorrence, and then the condition [or state, in the abstract] of uncleanness. It is especially used of the uncleanness of women (Lev 12:2; Lev 15:19, etc.). Here it would denote the person afflicted with such uncleanness, and become, on that account, an object of abhorrence, as Eze 18:6 speaks of a . Neither nor occur in Jeremiah. [The authorities for the translation of this word are about equally divided. Those that agree with our author are: the Syr., horror; Ital., a laughing-stock; Ger., ein unreines Weib;Blayney,one set apart for unclean;Henderson,unclean;Noyes,vile. On the other hand we have: Sept., fluctuation; Vulg., instable; Targ., vagrant;Cranmer and Bishops B., therefore she is come in decay; E. V. and Boothroyd,therefore she is removed.Calvin,therefore she is become a wanderer; the word ought properly to be applied to their exile, when the Jews became unfixed and vagrants: to which his English Editor, Rev. John Owen, adds this note, the reference here is evidently to banishment, and not to uncleanness, as some take it, because the noun is sometimes so taken, persons being removed from society on account, of uncleanness. Hugh Broughton,therefore came she into dispersion, such uncertainty of place as Cain had, Gen. iv., wandering from place to place. The argument derived from the connection seems to be decisive in favor of the first opinion, therefore is she become vile, or abominable,Naegelsbach,zum Abscheu.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:9. Her filthiness is in her skirts.Zion [Jerusalem] for a long time trifled with sin. She believed the evil she did would not become manifest to her injury. Now it is all become manifest. Her uncleanness has come to the surface: it is no longer hidden within her, but it is on her skirts (see Jer 13:22; Jer 13:26; Nah 3:5). [Wordsworth: It is visible to all; she cannot deny her uncleanness. Calvin refers this to the punishment, rather than the guilt of their sin; as Lowth remarks: she carries the marks of her sins in the greatness of her punishment. The idea of personal uncleanness, however, is stated with such revolting plainness that we cannot fail to see that the very punishment consists in the exposure of her moral pollution. See Jer 2:19; Jer 2:22; Jer 2:34.W. H. H.]She remembereth not her last end. She considered not what the end would be. She did not in the beginning reflect what the consequences of her sin must be. [Assem.Annot.: She remembered not. She considered not, when time was, what the issue of her wicked courses would be, what they would bring her to at last; see Deu 32:29. So was it with Babel, Isa 47:7, and with this people, though forewarned of it, Jer 2:25. Calvin understands this to mean, that the Jews were so overwhelmed with despair, that they did not raise up their thoughts to Gods promises;they were so demented by their sorrow, that they became stupified, and entertained no hope as to the future. This interpretation grows out of the view that the first clause refers to the punishment of sin and not to sin itself; and is inconsistent with the apparent sense, with the context and with the ordinary use of the phrase remembering the latter end.W. H. H.]Therefore she came down wonderfully.Lit. She considered not her latter end, and came down wonderfully. In consequence of her want of consideration she has fallen and is degraded from her high estate. See Deu 28:43; Jer 48:18.She hadhasno comforter. See ver.2.O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy hath magnified,doth magnifyhimself.A pious ejaculation, which is put in the mouth of Zion [Jerusalem] herself. Jehovah is implored to observe how proudly the enemy, to whom Zion [Jerusalem] is no match, exalts himself. [Henderson: After ascribing the fall of Jerusalem to heedless indulgence in sin, by a striking prosopopeia, he introduces her as imploring the compassionate regard of Jehovah. See, for a strikingly similar rhetorical construction, Gen 49:18.The idea in the last clause, for the enemy magnifies himself, is that the enemy increases his insolence and violence (see gram. note above), he is growing more and more vindictive. This may be considered, not only as a reason why Jerusalem utters a cry to God, but as an argument addressed to God for His interposition. So Calvin represents it: The Prophet, in order to obtain favor, says, that enemies had greatly exalted themselves. And this deserves a special notice; for what seems to occasion despair to us, ought, on the contrary, to encourage us to entertain good hope, that is, when enemies are insolent and carry themselves with great arrogance and insult us. The greater and the less tolerable their pride is, with more confidence may we call on God, for the Holy Spirit has not in vain taught us this truth, that God will be propitious to us when enemies thus greatly exalt themselves, that is, when they become beyond measure proud, and immoderately indulge themselves in every kind of contempt.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:10. Since Zion [Jerusalem] has not preserved the sanctuary of her heart from pollution by the enemy of her soul, but has suffered that enemy to rob her of her spiritual treasures, she must not wonder if her earthly enemies desecrate by their presence her earthly sanctuary, and stretch out the hand towards its precious things.The adversary hath spread out his hand [or rather, stretched it out, (so Fuerst, Naegelsbach, and Assem.Annot.), as about to seize and appropriate them.W. H. H.], upon all her pleasant things. Precious, or glorious things. The vessels and treasures of the Temple are intended (see 2Ch 36:10; Jer 52:17 ff.), as is evident from the explanatory conjunction for with which the next clause begins: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy congregation. In Deu 23:2-3, we find the command never to allow Ammonites and Moabites to come into the congregation of the Lord. This special command was afterwards applied to all the heathen: Eze 44:7; Eze 44:9; Neh 13:3. We are reminded also of the Porch of the heathen, violation of which, according to Josephus (Jewish Wars, VI., 2, 4; comp. Act 21:28), was forbidden on pain of death. [Observe the antithesis between sanctuary and congregation.Boothroyd expresses this in his translation, in which he says the sense is given and not the idiom: Surely she hath seen nations enter into her sanctuary, whom Thou didst forbid to enter even into Thy congregation. Those who were forbidden even to worship with the people, had intruded into the holy placeonly priests might enter. If even their entering to perform an act of worship would have been construed as a violation of the precept, how much more when it had for its object destruction and spoliation (Henderson).W. H. H.]
[Naegelsbach translates: For she saw heathen who came into her sanctuary. It would be better to translate, For she hath seen how heathen came, etc. I have tried to preserve the same form of the verb in both clauses by making heathen the object of one verb and subject of the other. If this is a fault, I share it in company with old Hugh Broughton and. with Blayney. The Cranmer and Bishops Bibles give the sense excellently: Yea, even before her eyes came the heathen in and out of the sanctuary; whom Thou (nevertheless) hast forbidden to come within Thy congregation.It is difficult to preserve the force of the final word , without putting the clause in quotation marks. The possessive pronoun in the English version thy congregation must refer to the people, not to God.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:11. To dreadful spiritual distress is added the greatest bodily want, hunger. The Israelites must part with their jewels in order to procure necessary food. See Lam 1:19. [All her people sigh. The distress is real and universal. In Lam 1:4 the priests sigh; in Lam 1:8 the ideal person, Jerusalem, sigheth: but here we have, not a poetical image, but the actual groaning of the people, suffering with hunger and searching for food.They seek bread, or rather seeking for bread. This expresses the reason for their sighing.They have given (they give) their pleasant things (precious things,Broughton, Cranmer, Bishops Bible, Henderson, Noyes;jewels,Naegelsbach, Wordsworth); for meat (food). By precious things are, doubtless, meant those ornaments which oriental women value so highly. A striking illustration of this is given by Mr. Roberts:the people of the East retain their little valuables, such as jewels and rich robes, to the last extremity. To part with that, which has perhaps been a kind of heirloom in the family, is like parting with life. Have they sold the last wreck of their other property; are they on the verge of death?the emaciated members of the family are called together, and some one undertakes the heartrending task of proposing such a bracelet, or armlet, or ear-ring, or the pendant of the forehead, to be sold. For a moment all are silent, till the mother or daughters burst into tears, and then the contending feelings of hunger, and love for their pleasant things alternately prevail. In general, the conclusion is to pledge, and not to sell their much-loved ornaments; but such is the rapacity of those who have money, and such the extreme penury of those who have once fallen, that they seldom regain them (Oriental Illustrations, p. 483). Under such circumstances, and particularly in times of public calamity, it often happens that jewels and other property of most valuable description, are disposed of for the merest trifle, that a little bread may be obtained to relieve the soul (Pictorial Bible, Lon. See also Comp. Comm.).W. H. H.]To relieve the soul [marg. E. V., to make the soul to come again]. The meaning is evident from 1Ki 17:21-22; 1Sa 30:12; Jdg 15:19. [To sustain life: lit., to cause the breath, or life to return. This mode of expression is founded on the idea, that when one is faint, the breath or life is as it were gone (Henderson). See Job 2:4, all that a man hath will he give for his life.W. H. H.] See, O Lord, and consider. See Lam 1:9; Lam 1:20; Lam 2:20; Lam 5:1; comp. Lam 3:63; Lam 4:16.[For I am become vile.How wretched I am become. There is certainly, as Henderson remarks, something incongruous in assigning her vileness as a reason why God should regard Jerusalem; what is here meant is, as Henderson acknowledges while he retains the word vile, not her moral pollution, but her abject and despised condition, which was exposed to all around her.Naegelsbach with the last clause of this verse begins an entirely new section. In all that follows, he says, down to Lam 1:16 Zion herself speaks. She entreats first Jehovah, then all passers-by to regard her misery. In fact, however, the address of Jerusalem to Jehovah begins with the last clause of Lam 1:9, and is continued down to end of this verse. The appeal to God in the last clause of Lam 1:10, which Thou commandest, etc., and again this prayer to God at the close Lam 1:11, shows that the whole is addressed to Him: the use of the third person instead of the first in the first two clauses both of Lam 1:10 and Lam 1:11, does not refute this, as the change from the first to the third person is so frequent in Hebrew descriptive poetry.W. H. H.]
PART II
Lam 1:12-22
Lam 1:12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
Behold and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,
Which is inflicted on me,
Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me
In the day of His fierce anger!
Lam 1:13. From on high hath He sent fire into my bones,
And it subdued them.
He hath spread a net for my feet,
He hath turned me back.
He hath made me desolate
All the day long sorrowful!
Lam 1:14. The yoke of my sins is bound fast to His hand.
They are twined together,
They rise up above my neck.
He hath caused my strength to fail.
The Lord hath delivered me into the hands of those
Whom I cannot resist.
Lam 1:15. The Lord hath made despicable all my mighty men
In the midst of me.
He hath proclaimed a set-time against me
To crush my young men.
The Lord hath trodden the wine-press
As to the virgin, Judahs daughter.
Lam 1:16. For these things I weep.
Mine eye, mine eyerunneth down with water,
Because the ComforterRestorer of my soul
Is far from me.
My children are perishing
Because the enemy prevails.
Lam 1:17. Zion stretches out her hands,
But there is no Comforter for her.
Jehovah has given charge concerning Jacob
That his neighbors be his enemies.
Jerusalem has become
An abomination in the midst of them.
Lam 1:18. JehovahHe is righteous:
For I have disobeyed His commandment.
Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples,
And behold my sorrow.
My virgins and my young men
Are gone into captivity.
Lam 1:19. I called to my lovers:
They deceived me.
My priests and my elders
Expired in the city,
For they sought food for themselves
To revive their souls.
Lam 1:20. Behold, O Jehovah, how I am distressed!
My bowels are greatly troubled.
My heart is turned within me,
For I have grievously rebelled;
Abroad the sword bereaveth,
At homeDeath!
Lam 1:21. They heard that I sigh,
That I have no Comforter.
All my enemies heard of my trouble.
They rejoiced that Thou hadst done it,
That Thou hast brought the day Thou hadst proclaimed.
But they shall be like me!
Lam 1:22. Let all their wickedness come before Thee;
And do unto them
As thou hast done unto me
For all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many
And my heart is faint.
ANALYSIS
From the last clause of verse 11, the Poet lets Zion [Jerusalem] herself speak, as she had done already, parenthetically, in Lam 1:9. This method of recital continues to the end of the chapter, with a single interruption, Lam 1:17, where the Poet himself throws in a word. [There is no necessity for supposing a change of speaker in Lam 1:17.W. H. H.] Zion [Jerusalem] invites all who pass by, Lam 1:12, to convince themselves by their own observation, that there is no sorrow like unto her sorrow; it streamed as fire through her bones, whilst at the same time a net had caught her feet, Lam 1:13. She was the victim of sins of her own sowing, in consequence of which she had been helplessly given up to mighty enemies, Lam 1:14; her heroes had proved themselves powerless, for her enemies had been called together against Judah as to a feast at the wine-press, Lam 1:15. It is most natural that Zions [Jerusalems] tears should flow without ceasing for such calamities, and all the more natural since after the catastrophe all hope failed her, Lam 1:16. By way of confirmation the Poet repeats, in his own words, the thoughts expressed by Zion [Jerusalem] in the preceding context, Lam 1:17 : that she stretches forth her hands for help in vain, that the Lord had called together all her foes against her, so that she now stood in the midst of them as an object of abhorrence. Lam 1:18-22, Zion [Jerusalem] speaks again. Once more she repeats, Lam 1:18-19, in the way of recapitulation, the acknowledgment of her sin, the invitation to consider her great distress, the description of the principal items of the same, the banishment of her efficient youth, the defection of human allies, the pitiable death by starvation of her venerable priests and elders. The last three verses are a prayer. May the Lord regard her misery; the hopeful heart is broken by the blows of the angel of death, Lam 1:20. May the Lord bring upon her malignant enemies such a day of vengeance as He had brought upon Zion [Jerusalem], Lam 1:21-22. The last two lines of Lam 1:22 are a final exclamation of pain, from which it is evident that the petitions offered to the Lord had not availed to allay the deeply-seated agony of mind.
Lam 1:12
12Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:12. . This phrase is found in Lam 2:15; Job 21:29; Psa 80:13; Psa 89:42; Pro 9:15., comp. Lam 1:18. These words, by brevity and simplicity, are highly poetical.. The Pual. conj. occurs only here; the active in Lam 1:22; Lam 2:20; Lam 3:51; Jer 6:9 in the sense of racemari [to glean; so Jerome renders it in our text, Who has gleaned me.W. H. H.], comp. Jer 38:19., see , Lam 1:4. . This expression is found only here and Isa 13:13. is an expression common with Jer 4:8; Jer 4:26; Jer 25:37-38; Jer 30:24; Jer 49:37.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:12. Zion [Jerusalem] addresses herself now to men, especially to all passers by, in order to gain their attention and stir up their sympathy for her sufferings. [This address, according to Naegelsbach, extends to Lam 1:16, but in fact, to the end of Lam 1:19, when Jerusalem again addresses herself to Jehovah.W. H. H.]Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? The Hebrew is very difficult and hardly capable of a satisfactory explanation. It seems to me that the only allowable explanation is this: not on yourselves (look), but look and see whether any sorrow is as my sorrow. [See crit. note below. There is a difficulty first in deciding whether the first word in the Hebrew is a mere particle of wishing: oh if, oh that, utinam, would that! Or whether it is the particle of negation. If the former, then we may adopt Blayneys translation, O that among you, all ye that pass by, ye would look and see, if there be a sorrow like unto my sorrow, etc. Thus our text is a call for sympathy. But there is little in favor of this interpretation. But if the word referred to is a particle of negation, then there are other difficulties: is it a simple negative, or a negative of interrogation? In either case, what is the meaning? If it is a simple negative, we may explain it in several ways. 1. We may, as Naegelsbach does, connect the negative with the following verbs, Look not on yourselves, but look and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. Or, 2. We may translate literally, it is not to you, and then we may explain it in two ways: either as an enunciation of the fact that what had befallen her had not befallen them; so Hugh Broughton,This hath not befallen you, O all that pass by the way. Consider ye and see if, etc; or it may be taken as a complaint that her sorrows were so slightedand then the sense is, It is nothing to you, i. e., you have no concern in it or care for it. Or, 3. We may translate it in the form of a wish or prayer, let not that befall you that hath befallen me. If we take the word interrogatively, then we may suppose a word omitted, Whether or no shall I call upon you, etc.; or we may render it as the English version has it, and in favor of which we have the weight of authority on the part of translators and commentators: Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?West. Annot.: Do ye make light of mine afflictions? or, do ye not regard them, and lay them to heart? as complaining that, her calamities were so slighted by others, and endeavoring to move them to some commiseration of her. See somewhat the like form of speech in the prayer of those holy men to God, Neh 9:32.Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me. West. Annot.: The manner of persons that sit weeping and wailing, as wandering outcasts, by the wayside, is wont to be no other than is here deciphered, in a proneness to acquaint others with their calamitous condition (so Lam 1:18), and to aggravate them in relation of them, as being such as had never the like been known or heard of before. See Lam 3:1; Lam 4:6.Wherewith the Lord (Jehovah) hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger. See Lam 1:5. By the transcendent greatness of mine affliction ye may easily perceive that there is a special hand and work of God in it. See Isa 10:5. West. Annot.W. H. H.]
. The Sept. reads , where without doubt we should read . . Vulgate: O vos omnes. Chald.: Adjuro vos omnes. Syr., very literally: Nihilne ad vos omnes viatores? Arab.: O quotquot viam transitis! That the Sept. read as is very probable. There is nothing that should prevent our pointing it so today, if any thing were to be gained by it. But (for which we have , 1Sa 14:30; Isa 48:18; Isa 63:19) never stands as a simple interjection, but is a conjunction, and always requires a verb after it. We could indeed supply such a verb (Oh, that my call might compel your attention, or the like); but it is difficult to supply the right word, and we cannot conceive why the Poet should leave the reader to supply it. If we read (which, according to the Masora, stands 35 times for , see Fuerst), then there are two ways of explaining it. Either it may be understood interrogatively: nonne ad vos? Then must be supplied, as Pro 8:4 reads, . But there is expressed. To supply it here, seems to me, were equally as difficult as the supply of a word after would necessarily be. Or, may be understood as a negation. In this sense Aben Ezra and Rosenmueller take it, whilst they supply the words , i. e., hucusque non tetigit vos, quod mihi accidit; vos tanta mala, quanta nos opprimunt, nondum estis experti. But this explanation is evidently very arbitrary. is to be regarded as dependent on , which is often construed with , Num 21:9; Psa 34:6; Psa 102:20; Isa 22:11, etc. This explanation is not, it is true, entirely satisfactory. But may not the forced construction arise from the constraint of the alphabetical arrangement of the text? [See remark above here is the same as , see Fuerst and 1Sa 14:30. The omission of the interrogation is accounted for by the desire to employ as the initial letter. Henderson: is a strong mode of expressing the negation , which has here all the force of a substantive put interrogatively, as it is in the common version: Is it nothing?W. H. H.]
Lam 1:13-16
13From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet; he hath turned me back; he hath made me desolate 14and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand; they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck; he hath made my strength to fall; the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. 15The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden 16the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me; my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:13. occurs often in Jer 17:12, etc.; , Jer 25:30., Jer 8:1, and elsewhere.. The word is obscure. It is the Imp. Kal. of . But signifies to tread upon, govern. The subject can be , since this word is also used as a masculine ( , Psa 104:4). The singular suffix refers to , since the bones are regarded as constituting one body. See Naegelsb. Gr., 105, 7, rem. 2. We translate, thererefore, and it subdued them. [Fuerst: for , and he caused it (the fire) to become master. Blayney, translates, and hath caused it to penetrate into my bones, and says. This is obviously the right construction, and it is that which is approved by the LXX. But the Sept. uses the verb ,and obviously neither that verb nor the Hebrew means to penetrate. All the other versions use the word prevail, subdue, or govern, except Boothroyd, who blindly follows Blayney.W. H. H.] , Jer 5:31. Comp. Lev 25:43; Lev 25:46; Lev 25:53.. See Lam 1:10. occurs not again in Lamentations and not at all in Jeremiah.[. The Hiphil form, caused me to turn. This favors the idea of the net as the instrument of preventing escape; see below.W. H. H.]. See , Lam 1:4.. This word does not occur in Jeremiah. It is found, besides here, Lam 5:17; Lev 15:33; Lev 20:18; Isa 30:22.
Lam 1:14. is . . The root , which reappears in , ligare (Gen 22:9), ,, Aram. , ligavit (see , nodus, Is. Iviii. 6) cat-ena, kettle (observe the change of the aspirate to the sibilant, comp. and sus, and silva, and super, and sal, and , Ges. Thes., p. 1318), seems to have the signification of binding, tieing. Ewald conjectures that may have been the common technical term for harnessing., frequent in Jer 2:20; Jer 5:5; Jer 28:2; Jer 28:4; Jer 28:11; Jer 28:14; Jer 30:8. In and the Poet seems to aim at a play upon words. occurs only Lam 1:5; Lam 1:14; Lam 1:22; Jer 5:6.The Hithpahel only here; elsewhere only the Pual, Job 40:7. [Boothroyd, translating as if it were , is compelled to translate in the sing., His yoke Be hath twisted on my neck.For a similar use of with , in the sense of rising above the object indicated, see Deu 28:43.W. H. H.]. Kal frequent in Jeremiah; Hiph., labare fecit, Jer 18:15; Hoph. Jer 18:23.. Construction as in Jer 2:8. See my Gr., 65, 2, f. [A noun is sometimes put in the construct before a succeeding clause with which it is already connected,particularly when the relation is itself omitted, , by the hand of him whom thou wilt send (Greens Gr.). This construction renders it necessary to take in a transitive sense; or else to introduce a word besides the relative; so E. V.: from whom I am not able to rise up. Noyes: against whom I cannot stand up. Whom I cannot withstand or resist. This seems to be the sense, and is not foreign to the use of .W. H. H.]
Lam 1:15.. Piel only here: Kal, Psa 119:118 : Pual, Job 28:16-17., often in Jer 8:16; Jer 46:15; Jer 47:3; Jer 50:11. In Lam. only here. , Lev 23:4. See Lam 1:4. Jeremiah generally uses the noun in the sense of tempus finum [and that is its meaning here. Owen: He hath brought on me the fixed time to destroy my young men.W. H. H.] . A peculiar expression, yet see Jer 51:22. . A peculiar use of [it seems to mean with relation to, as to, quoad.W. H. H.]. , not in Jeremiah, yet he uses of the treaders of the wine-press, Jer 25:30; Jer 48:33; Jer 51:33. , in Jeremiah once, of the Egyptians, Jer 46:11, and once in the connection , Jer 14:17; comp. Jer 18:13; Jer 31:4; Jer 31:21. In Lam., besides here, only in Lam 2:13, comp. Lam 2:10.
Lam 1:16. (see , Isa 17:6 and elsewhere; Olsh., 177, 6) occurs only here. Yet Jeremiah uses , Jer 41:6, and , Jer 31:15 : in the last place in connection with , as here: elsewhere is constructed with ace. Jer 8:23, , Jer 22:10, or , Jer 13:17. [ Green, Gr., 209, 1, and Pauli, Anal., p. 264, attribute the form to the fact that was originally the last radical of the verb. Pauli, in his Key, p. 63, n, informs ns that the Prophet uses the feminine gender for the purpose of expressing meekness and the intensity of his grief. A rather remarkable instance of a rule made to meet a supposed case. Fortunately we are not obliged to allow the Prophet to unsex himself, since not the Prophet himself, but the ideal and feminine Jerusalem is the speaker.The verb, properly intransitive, is used in a transitive sense: my eye runs damn water. A peculiar Hebrew idiom to express abundance, Joel 4:18, , the hills shall run milk. See Greens Gr.W. H. H.]The part. Jeremiah does not use., see Lam 1:4. is found Jer 9:2.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:13-16 contain a particular account of the various sufferings endured, together with their efficient causes.
Lam 1:13. The sufferings [of the city] appear under two images. The first image is derived from the fire that falls from Heaven (Gen 19:24; Deu 29:23; Psa 11:6). Heavenly fire burns more fiercely than earthly; it cannot be quenched. [The image of fire is suggested by the last words of the preceding verse, in the day of his fierce anger, which may be rendered in the day of His glowing or burning anger. So Calvin,in die excandescenti ir su.From above, lit., from on high. Calvin: the expression is emphatical, for the Prophet means that it was no common or human burning; because what is ascribed to God exceeds what is human or earthly.Hath he sent fire into my bones. Calvin: They who interpret bones of fortified places, weaken the meaning of the Prophet. I take bones in their proper sense, as though it were said, that Gods fire had penetrated into the inmost parts. This way of speaking often occurs in Scripture.David deplored that his bones were vexed or troubled, Psa 6:2. And Hezekiah said in his song, As a lion he hath broken my bones, Isa 38:13.W. H. H.]And it prevaileth against them. And it hath subdued them, or got the better of them. [Calvin: The Prophet says that fire had been sent by God, which ruled in his bones,that is, which not only burnt the skin and the flesh, but also consumed the bones. The Cranmer and Bishops Bibles translate very freely, but preserve the sense, From above hath He sent down fire into my bones, and it burneth them cruelly.W. H. H.]The second image is derived from the hunter, who lays nets for the wild beast.He hath spread a net for my feet. [Calvin: There is another similitude added, that God had spread a net before her feet,and thus He had taken away every means of escape. She had been ensnared by Gods judgments, so that she was bound over to ruin, as though she had fallen into toils or snares.]He hath turned me back. See Lam 1:8. This and the two following clauses contain ideas by means of which the poet seems to pass over from the image to the reality. [But is not this clause to be explained by the metaphor of the net, by which, when she sought to escape, she was turned back? So Calvin understands it: She had been turned back by the nets of God. Or we may explain it consistently with the metaphor, as the Westminster Annotations do: Cast me down backward; thrown me down and laid me on my back.He hath made me desolate, and faint all the day: or, better, sorrowful all the day: so Naegelsbach and Calvin. Cranmers B. and Bishops B. both render it, He hath made me desolate, so that I must ever be mourning. Calvin: It is stated in the third place, that she was desolate all the day, so that she sorrowed perpetually.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:14. A third metaphor, which indicates the cause of the ruin which has befallen Zion [Jerusalem].The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand, to His hand. Zion [Jerusalem] may not be relieved from her guilt, but rather it is tied fast upon her as a yoke. And truly this is done by Gods hand. But what God binds, that He holds fast; no mortal power can loosen it. [Henderson: The next metaphor is taken from agricultural life. As the hand of the ploughman firmly binds the yoke on the neck of the ox, so inseparably had the punishment of the iniquities of Jerusalem been connected with her rebellious conduct towards Jehovah.There is some uncertainty as to the verb in this clause. In the Keri or Masoretic reading and in several MSS. and printed editions of the Bible, the verb used means to be watched: and the verb is taken in the sense of watching in the Sept., Syr. and Vulgate, and the old versions generally. It is singular that Naegelsbach does not refer to this reading, since it is the one adopted in the text of the German Bible. Dr. Blayney and the Rev. John Owen, insist that this is the correct reading. All the versions and translators adopting this reading, except the Vulgate, take the word rendered yoke not as a noun, but as a preposition. Mr. Owen translates thus: He hath watched over my transgressions, by His hand they are twined. This gives a good sense. To watch over transgressions, is similar to watch upon (or over) the evil in Dan 9:14; it is to watch over them in order to punish them (J. Owen). But the grammatical objections to this rendering are nearly insuperable. See Crit. Note below.Another point of interest is whether we should translate by His Hand, or in, or to His hand. The former is adopted by Naegelsbach, Henderson and Boothroyd, and has the sanction of the English Version. The latter in His hand, is supported by Sept., Vulg., Bishops Bible, Calvin, Blayney, and Noyes, and is recommended by the sense, and also best expresses the primitive sense of the preposition. The Bishops Bible reads, the yoke of my transgressions is bound fast to His hand; and appends this note, The bondage through sin is most grievous, which therefore is called the yoke of sins, fastened in or to Gods hand because by no means it can be shaken off or remitted, but only of Gods grace and mercy. Noyes: The yoke of my transgressions is fastened in His hand. A metaphor drawn from the practice of a husbandman, who, after fastening the yoke upon the cattle, keeps the cords wound round his hand. So she says the yoke of her transgressions, i. e., the consequences of them, is fastened upon her neck, and the cords connected with it wound round the hand of God, so that she could not throw it off. Calvin has a long note to the same effect.W. H. H.].They are wreathed and, or, [leaving out the conjunction which is not in the original] theycome uprise up aboveupon my neck. Comp. Psa 38:5. As if the yoke were fastened by many cords, interwoven together, and forming, as it were, a heap or elevation upon the neck. The verbs being in the plural must have for their subject the word transgressions, hence it is evident that he regarded the sins themselves as the cords which fastened the yoke on the neck. And very certainly sins constitute the bond between the guilty one and his guilt. [Wordsworth: My sins are twined together, so as to fasten the yoke upon my neck. Comp. Deu 28:48. The reason of this comparison is that sins become punishments (peccati pna peccatum), and are a sore burden, too heavy for the sinner to bear (Psa 38:4). Henderson: To express more forcibly the complicated character of the iniquities of the Jews as entailing punishment upon them, they are said to entwine or interweave themselves, the idea being probably borrowed from the intertwining of withes for the purpose of binding the yoke with them. The expression, they come up upon my neck (variously rendered, they go over my neck (Broughton), come up about my neck (Bish. Bible), rise up on my neck (Henderson), are laid upon my neck (Noyes), may express the idea of a burden in addition to that of a yoke, that the sins wreathe themselves into a yoke that is heavy and burdensome on the neck, a yoke which is insupportable (Wordsworth, Noyes),or the idea may be, that the yoke is so wreathed together and knotted as it were upon the neck, that the head cannot be withdrawn from it. The last seems to be Naegelsbachs idea. So Calvin, we ought to bear in mind the two clausesthat Gods hand held the yoke tied, and also that the yoke was bound around the neck of Jerusalem, * * * it is tied, and so fastened, that it cannot be shaken off. So also Broughton, who translates, they plat themselves; they go over my neck, and in a treatise on Jeremies Lamentations explains this passage thus: The yoke of their sin was platted over their head. The state in Jeremies time was so entangled with the idolatry of the Egyptians and their other friends, that they could not get their head out of it.W. H. H.] In what follows the Poet as in Lam 1:13, drops the metaphorical style for the literal.He hath made my strength to fall. He has broken my strength. [The primitive meaning of the Hebrew verb suggests the idea of one tottering to and fro, staggering from weakness (see Isa 5:27), as, in the present instance, under a heavy yoke. Our E. V. vainly strives to preserve this idea in a phrase that is awkward and needs explanation, He has made my strength to fall. Blayney comes nearer the primitive meaning of the verb by using the word stumble instead of fall, hath caused my strength to stumble. But it is doubtful if the verb, in the form in which it is used, expresses more than the idea of weakening or exhausting the strength. Owen: He hath weakened my strength. Calvin:corruere fecit (vel, debilitavit) robur meum. Bishops Bible and Henderson: He hath caused my strength to fail.W. H. H.]The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up, whom I cannot resist.The Lord, Adonai. This name, Adonai, never occurs alone in the prophecies of Jeremiah, but is always followed by Jehovah (and that, too, according to the Masoretic punctuation ), Jer 1:6; Jer 2:19; Jer 2:22; Jer 4:10; Jer 7:20; Jer 14:13 : Jer 44:26, Jer 49:5; Jer 50:31. But in the Lamentations, Adonai is never followed by Jehovah, and stands alone in fourteen places, Lam 1:14-15 twice; Lam 2:1-2; Lam 2:5; Lam 2:7; Lam 2:18-20; Lam 3:31; Lam 3:36-37; Lam 3:58 [see Introduction, Add. Rem., p. 32. If Adonai is the correct reading, its significance is thus explained by Wordsworth: The prophet appears thus to intimate in the Lamentations, that now, in her captivity and humiliation, Jerusalem felt the lordship of Jehovah, the God of Israel; but by reason of her sins, no longer felt that lordship to be exercised by Him as Jehovah,i. e., as the God of His covenanted people, to protect them. A similar feeling made Solomon abstain in Ecclesiastes from the use of the name Jehovah altogether.]
[The argument of Owen for reading instead of , that where all the versions agree, there is a strong presumption that they are right, is offset by the difficulty of construction, in that case and the necessity it involves of changing yoke into upon in the first clause, and the verb they rise up into the noun and pronoun his yoke in the third clause. The difficulties of construction are evident in the translations of Blayney and Owen, the two advocates for this reading; Blayney gives the verb in the singular a plural noun for its subject, my transgressions have been closely watched; and Owen renders the verb, which is confessedly a passive verb and so rendered by the Sept. and all the old versions except the Vulgate, which Owen himself says hardly gives any meaning, in an active sense, He hath watched over my transgressions. A reading involving three changes in the Masoretic points, and even then incapable of correct grammatical construction, surely ought to be rejected.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:15. The Lord hath trodden under foot.Hath cast away, or rejected [despised or made despicableW. H. H.]. This verse begins in the literal style of speaking, and ends in the metaphorical. [If our English version is to be retained, trodden under foot, then the metaphor is begun in the first clause, and beautifully developed as the verse proceeds. But the E. V. cannot be sustained, see Critical Note below.W. H. H.] All my mighty men,Heroes, Ger. Helden [Fuerst:great men].In the midst of me;in meiner Mitte. [Calvin. She says, in the midst of me. And this ought to be observed, for if they had fallen on the field of battle, if they had been taken in the fields by their enemies, such a thing would not have been so grievous; but that they had thus been laid prostrateor rather, deprived of strength to resist and thus rendered contemptible,in the very bosom of the city, was indeed a token of vengeance from above.He hath called an assembly against meHe has proclaimed a solemn feast [a set time.W. H. H.] against me.to crush my young men,to break in pieces my young men. As to a festive gathering the Lord calls her enemies to Jerusalem. The purpose of this festive gathering is indicated in a general way by the words against me; but is more clearly indicated by the words to crush or break in pieces my young men. In this expression is already shadowed forth the following metaphor; for the wine-press breaks to pieces, crushes the berries. [Wordsworth: An oxymoron; the term to call an assembly signifies the gathering of a holy convocation for festal rejoicing, or other religious purposes. But now the religious festival of Jerusalem hath ceased (see Lam 1:4), and God has called an assembly of enemies to crush her. Compare the expression to sanctify war, or consecrate an army against a city. See on Isa 13:3; Jer 6:4; Jer 51:27-28; Joe 3:9.Though it may impair a beautiful figure, it seems better to take in its usual meaning of a set time. God appointed the time, as for a great solemnity, and it came according to His appointment the time to crush the young men.W. H. H.]The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press.The Lord trod the winepress of the virgin Judahs daughter. We find substantially the same image used, Joel 4:13; Isa 63:2-3; Rev 14:18-20; Rev 19:15. [Owen:The wine-press has the Lord trodden as to the virgin, the daughter of Judah.]
. The meaning is tollere, lpfen [to lift up, to remove a thing from its place, to cast it away, and thus to treat it with contempt, or to destroy it, as the case may be. The old lexicographers, tracing a remote analogy between this verb and , gave to it the sense of treading down, or treading under foot, which is adopted here by E. V., Broughton, Calvin, Blayney, Boothroyd and Noyes; but has not the sanction of the ancient versions. Cranmer and Bishops Bible translate it hath destroyed. Henderson:hath east away. So Naegelsbach:verworfen hat: so also the Sept., , and the Vulg., abstulit. So also Noyes in Psa 119:118, Thou castest off all who depart from Thy laws; which Alexander translates, Thou despisest all those straying from Thy statutes, in which he agrees with the Sept., , and with the Vulg., sprevisti. This sense, Thou hast despised, is very suitable to our text. It is still better to give the Piel the force of Hiphil, Thou hast caused to be despised, or rendered despicable, my mighty men in the midst of me. See Calvins note above on the words in the midst of me, and observe how admirably then the first clause of this verse follows the last clause of the preceding verse: She is given up into the hands of those she cannot resist, and thus her mighty men in the midst of her are made objects of contempt. On the other hand, to translate as Naegelsbach, Fuerst and Henderson, The Lord has rejected, or cast away, all my mighty men in the midst of me, is awkward and not very intelligible.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:16. For these things I weep.This refers back to Lam 1:12. Zion [Jerusalem] asserted in Lam 1:12 that no sorrow was like her sorrow. The correctness of this assertion is established, Lam 1:13-15, by matters of fact. Zion [Jerusalem] then, in Lam 1:16, refers in the words for these things I weep, back to the foregoing assertion, whilst she repeats the same with emphasis though in other words.Mine eye, mine eye. The emphatic repetition of the same word is not intrequent with Jer 4:19; Jer 6:14; Jer 8:11; Jer 23:25.Runneth down with water. See Lam 3:48; Jer 9:17; Jer 13:17; Jer 14:17.Because the comforter. See Lam 1:2.that should relieve (marg., bring back) my soul,the Reviver of my soul: see at. Lam 1:11 [the Restorer of my soul, more nearly expresses the original, which is purposely generic and pregnant.W. H. H.].Is far from me. [Five times in this poem we have an allusion to an absent comforter; Lam 1:2; Lam 1:9; Lam 1:16-17; Lam 1:21. That there is an allusion to God the Holy Ghost seems evident. The addition of the words Restorer of my soul, reminding us of Psa 23:3, makes this plain. Diodati: The comforter, namely, God by His Holy Spirit. It was the absence of God who comforts His people by His word and Spirit, that Jerusalem deplored, and she might have expressed her grief in the words of the Psalmist, Why standest Thou afar off, O Jehovah? Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble (Psa 10:1)? Noyes betrays the theologicum odium in his version, violating the grammar and changing the text, to destroy any possible reference to a Divine personality, Far from me are they that should comfort me, that should restore my strength. We may translate the comforter, or a comforter, the one comforting, one that comforts, but cannot make plurals of it and , or get the idea of strength out of .W. H. H.]My children are become desolate,perished, lit., have become perishing; same word as is used in Lam 1:4, her gates are desolate = destroyedW. H. H.]Because the enemy prevailedprevails [or has become more powerful. Some take this as if an explanation of the preceding,that Jerusalem is comfortless because the children, who should comfort her, are themselves helpless. But this is too broad a distinction between Jerusalem and her children, and destroys the unity of the ideal image of the mourning daughter of Jerusalem. We are to take the last words as stating a result, rather than a cause of the helpless Jerusalem, forsaken of her comforter, who could restore her life, and therefore unable to prevent her children from perishing under the superior power of the enemy.W. H. H.]
[ . Mine eye, mine eye. Blayney, Boothroyd and Noyes omit the repetition on the authority of the ancient versions and some Hebrew MSS. All the other modern versions retain it; even the Douay departs from the Vulgate so far as to read my eyes. We cannot agree with Blayney that the repetition incumbers the metre. It is more difficult to account for the repetition in so many MSS. than for its omission in a very few. Blayney feels this, when he taxes his ingenuity by suggesting that perhaps may originally have followed , and have been thus the ground of the transcribers mistake. Owen, the editor of Calvin, says: Though the Sept. and Vulg. do not repeat the eye, yet the Targ. has my two eyes [so the German, meine beiden Augen] and the Syr. mine eyes. All the ancient versions, therefore, do not omit the second , as has been asserted. Most of the Heb. MSS. contain it: and it is very emphatic, highly poetical, and quite in the style of Jeremiah.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:17
17Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:17.. The construction of Piel with follows the analogy of the Hiphil, then too Piel may have a direct causative signification. See my Gr., 18 , III., 2, 3; 69, 1, rem. 2. The Hiphil is found so construed in Jer 18:16. See Psa 22:8; Job 16:10. [As the object of an action may, in certain cases, be regarded as the instrument with which it is performed, some transitive verbs admit a construction with , with (Greens Gr., 272, 2, b). See Jdg 3:27, . . Blayney: Five MSS. read , and the Roman edition of the LXX. represents in the singular; but the Alexand and Complut. editions read .W. H. H.] here is not a sign of the dative, but a preposition of place. [Chaldus explains, as quoted by Rosenmueller, Jehovah imposed on the house of Jacob the commandments and law, that they should keep them; but they themselves transgressed the decree of his word. It is impossible to crowd so much meaning into three words. The obviously does not indicate a commandment given to Jacob, but a commandment given concerning Jacob. See , Lam 1:15.The ancient versions which give , Lam 1:8, the idea of wandering, all agree that in this verse has the sense of uncleanness. Yet Owen would insist on translating it here a wanderer or fugitive.W. H. H.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:17. The excited speech, begun with last clause of Lam 1:11, ends with Lam 1:16, as if from sheer exhaustion. We get the impression from Lam 1:16, that Zion [Jerusalem] can speak no more on account of pain and tears. Therefore the Poet allows her a pause. He speaks again himself, in order partly to corroborate what has been said, and partly to adduce new matter. [There is no necessity for assuming a change of speakers. See remarks on Lam 1:11-12.The three ideal persons successively introduced in Lam 1:1-6, representing the city, the nation, and the Temple,Jerusalem, Judah, and Zion,appear again, grouped together, in Lam 1:17, but in a reverse order,Zion, Jacob, and Jerusalem.The poetical effect of this separate stanza, following and preceding several connected stanzas, is very fine.W. H. H.]
Zion spreadeth forthstretches outher hands, and there is none to comfort her,but there is no Comforter for her. See Lam 1:2. The underlying thought is evidently this: Zion imploringly stretched out her hands for help, but finds none, neither from men nor from God, for Jehovah Himself commanded her neighbors, from whom first of all help was to be expected, to behave in an unfriendly way towards her. [Henderson: Spreading out the hands is a token of the greatest distress. The commentators generally agree in regarding this as a gesture indicating pain; some even regard it in the sense of wringing the hands; so Chaldus, quoted by Rosenmureller,expandit Zion manus suas pr angustia, sicut expandit mulier, qui sedet ad pariendum. (See Jer 4:31.) But holding up or stretching out the hands is a natural gesture of entreaty, and is constantly used in the Bible in connection with prayer to God. See especially Exo 9:29; Exo 9:33; 1Ki 8:38; Isa 1:15; Psa 44:21; Psa 143:6, where the same Hebrew verb is used as here. Naegelsbach, Adam Clark and Assemblys Annotations give it this sense in our text. And it is exceedingly appropriate as an act of Zion, the ideal representative of the religious element of the theocracy and the seat of worship. Zion stretches out her hands in prayer, seeking the Divine Comforter (see Lam 1:16), but finds Him not: while Jacob, the representative of the theocratic people, is surrounded with enemies, and the queenly city, the seat of the theocratic government, is become an object of abhorrence.The unusual occurrence in the Hebrew of the preposition with before the word hands led some of the Jews to adopt a singular translation, which Diodati adopted in the Italian version: Sion distributed bread to herself with her own hands. A description of the want of comfort, because that amongst the Jews, the kinsfolks and neighbors did use to bring food to them that mourned for the death of their nearest friends, inviting them to take food and to comfort themselves: see Deu 26:14; Jer 16:7; Eze 24:17; Hos 9:4. DiodatisAnnotations.W. H. H.]The Lord [Jehovah] hath commandedgiven a charge, see Num 27:19concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him,that his neighbors should be his enemies. The word translated in E. V. round about him does not indicate the place where his enemies were assembled, but is to be understood personally, as Jer 48:17; Jer 48:39 : Jehovah so ordered it that his neighbors became his oppressors. [The use of the masculine pronoun his, instead of the feminine her, shows that there is a distinction between the ideal persons described. When the same person is introduced in Lam 1:3, under the tribal name of Judah, the feminine particles are used: but the substitution of the name Jacob suggests with propriety the idea of a man, rather than of a woman.The use of masculine or feminine forms in Hebrew indicate often delicate shades of feeling or depths of thought. See PaulisAnalecta, Lect. 30.W. H. H.]Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among themJerusalem has become an object of abhor rence in the midst of them. The consequence is that Zion [Jerusalem] at last stands in the midst of her oppressors as a woman denied with blood and become an object of horror.
Lam 1:18-19
18The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone 19into captivity. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:18. . This phrase in full does not occur in Jeremiah. He uses alone, with an accusative following, Jer 4:7, comp. Jer 5:23.[Henderson: For read with the Keri in the vocative. All ye peoples; Broughton, Cranmer, Calvin, Blayney, Boothroyd, Henderson, Noyes.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:19.The Part. is found in Jer 22:20; Jer 22:22; Jer 30:14.He also uses , Jer 4:29, but not in Piel. is not found in Jeremiah.[The prefixed to has the force of in order that, as in Job 10:20, and the phrase is fully translated by our infinitive.The Sept and Syr add the wordsand found none.W. H. H.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Lam 1:18. Lam 1:18-19 contain nothing new. They only recapitulate. But it is noteworthy that Zion [Jerusalem], who is now again in a condition to speak [see remarks on preceding verse], begins with an acknowledgment of the righteousness of God and of her own unrighteousness.The Lord is righteousRighteous is He, Jehovah. [Owen: Righteous He Jehovah: the pronoun is used instead of the verb isa common thing in Hebrew.] This acknowledgment, that the Lord is righteous, is found in Jer 12:1. See Deu 32:4; 2Ch 12:6; Psa 119:137; Psa 129:4; Psa 145:17.For I have rebelled against His commandment. Better, disobeyed His commandment, lit., resisted His mouth. The same expression occurs in Num 20:24; Num 27:14; 1Ki 13:21; 1Ki 13:26.Hear, I pray you [the Heb. particle of entreaty, ], all people [lit., all peoples], and behold my sorrow. Although willing to confess her guilt, yet Zion [Jerusalem] feels the need of human sympathy. She summons, therefore, as in Lam 1:12, all peoples to observe her sorrow. [Since men of the acknowledged taste of Henderson and Noyes sanction the use of the reduplicated plural peoples, we may be allowed to retain it; especially since no other word in English is its exact equivalent.W. H. H.]Then she recounts, as in Lam 1:13-15. the principal causes of her sorrow. The first is the captivity of her young women and young men, who are her pride and strength.My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. See Lam 1:4-5; Lam 1:15.
Lam 1:19. The second particular feature of her sorrow is, that her friends and allies had deserted her.I called for my lovers, but they deceived meI called to my lovers, they deceived me. See Lam 1:2.The last and crowning cause of her sorrow is, that those who represented the dignity and honor of Zion [Jerusalem] are reduced to miserable extremities in order to preserve their lives.My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost = expired or perishedin the city. [Henderson: Elders, occurring as it here does in immediate connection with priests, is to be understood in an official sense, and not as simply indicative of old age. Both, without respect to dignity of office, were under the necessity of going in quest of food. They died in the citynot from the sword of the enemy on the battle field, but while hemmed in by surrounding enemies, and seeking food in vain within the walls; they perished from sheer starvation.W. H. H.]While they sought their meat to relieve their soulsfor they sought food for themselves in order to revive their souls. See Lam 1:6-11. [Words worth: for they (even the priests and elders) sought for meat (and sought in vain) to recover their fainting souls. For themselves, ; Rosenmueller explains the pronoun as used in a reflexive or reciprocal sense. It is certainly emphatic, and suggests the severity of the famine, when the nobility are forced to go themselves in search of food to preserve their own lives.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:20-22
20Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress; my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me: for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there 21is as death. They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring 22the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lam 1:20.The sing. never occurs in Jeremiah. See Lam 1:5. [Naegelsbach here, inadvertently (or else he would have cited this ver. at Lam 1:5), mistakes the noun or , used at Lam 1:5, for this , which Isaiah 3 d sing. perf. of , and is so given by Gesenius, Fuerst and Davidson, and is translated as a verb by nearly all the versions.W. H. H.] in Jer 4:19; Jer 31:20., to boil, move in an undulating manner; except here and Lam 2:11, only in Job 16:16.See Olsh., 252, b.The pause accent Aathenah belongs under . [An unnecessary change of punctuation.W. H. H.], See Lam 1:18. The Inf. is found only here.The Piel , in Jer 15:7. Comp. Lam 1:9; Lev 26:22; 1Sa 15:33., foris, Jer 21:4.
Lam 1:21.[. The Sept and Syr. improperly render it in the Imperative.W. H. H.], see Lam 1:4,, a very current word with Jeremiah., Jer 32:41. as the antithesis of speaking, as Jer 3:5. [If we take doing here as the antithesis of speaking, the absence of the affix is emphatical. Thou hast done, acted, as well as spoken. This verb often occurs without an object expressed. See Fuerst, Lex.W. H. H.], as Jer 6:19; Jer 11:11, and elsewhere., of prophetical proclamation, Jer 2:2; Jer 7:2; Jer 19:2.
Lam 1:22.. On account of the Imperative , we must understand this as stronger than a wish: let it come, which is grammatically allowable. See my Gr., 89, 3 c.The phrase is not found in Jeremiah.. See Lam 1:12. [Wordsworth says, the primary notion of this word seems to be that of plucking, and refers to Gesen., 633. So Cranmers B.: Thou shalt pluck them away even as thou hast plucked me. The Sept. gives it the sense of racemandi, gleaning; and substitutes 3d person plur. for 2d sing., and does not translate at all. , . The Vulg. takes it in the sense of gathering the vintage, and preserves the grammatical construction of the original: vindemia eos sicut vindemiasti me. Instead of the of the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Alexaudrinus has , which seems to mean reject them as vile. That our version is correct would appear from the use of for actions, doings, or deeds. See Jer 17:10; Pro 20:11. See Rosenmueller.W. H. H.] . See Lam 1:5; Lam 1:14., Lam 1:6. is found in Jer 8:18, comp. Isa 1:5.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The Poet closes with a prayer, which is composed of an exordium, Lam 1:20 a; two principal parts: 1. Lam 1:20 b, to Lam 1:21 c. 2. Lam 1:21 c, to Lam 1:22 c; and a conclusion, Lam 1:22 c.
Lam 1:20. Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress,Behold, O Jehovah, how I am distressed! With these words, Behold, O Jehovah, how badly it fares with me, first of all, the attention of Jehovah is directed to Zion. and her misfortune is in general terms commended to His consideration.The words Behold, O Jehovah, are the same as See, O Jehovah, of Lam 1:11.Then follows the first part of the prayer, which extends to Lam 1:21 c, in which are successively detailed the causes of her distress, proceeding from those of an internal to those of an external character. 1. We have her sufferings subjectively considered, in two particulars(a). My bowels are troubled. [Henderson:My bowels are made to boil. Naegelsbach:Meine Eingewide wallen siedend auf. The Hebrew word is strongly expressive of that violently excited state of the intestines which is occasioned by excessive grief (Henderson), or rather, which was employed as an image of mental perturbations and distress.W. H. H.] (b).Mine heart is turned within me. The expression is found in this sense, of the turning of the heart as a symptom of the most painful affection, only elsewhere in Hos 11:8. In another sense, Exo 14:5-12. We have a statement of the reason which has occasioned her chastisement.For I have grievously rebelled. Since I rebelliously have rebelled. These words belong evidently to what follows, and accordingly the particle at the beginning is not for, but since, or because. For the first and immediate result of disobedience was the punishment described in what follows, rather than the suffering caused by that punishment. Besides if this clause belongs to what precedes it, then the first half of the verse has four members, and the last only two. [The sense is not affected, whether we connect this with what precedes, or with what follows. The irregular division of the verses is too common to authorize here a change in the Masoretic punctuation, such as Naegelsbach proposes (see Gram. note above), merely for the sake of an equal division of this verse.W. H. H.]3. We have the punishment itself in declarations of concentrated meaning.Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death,Rages without the sword, as within Death. For the sense according to kindred places, we have Jer 14:18; Eze 7:15. By death in antithesis to the sword it is natural to understand, death wrought by hunger, or pestilence. See Jer 15:2; Jer 18:21. [Boothroyd: Death as it were acting in propria persona, and not by the instrumentality of another, as when a person is slain by the sword (Biblia Hebraica). See Jer 9:21; Hab 2:5. Adam Clark gives examples from the poets of similar personification of death.W. H. H.]
[ , impers. lit., it is strait to me, that is, I am in a strait, I am, distressed, I grieve. seems itself a cry of distress, the sharpness of which is lost in the E. V., for I am in distress.My bowels, etc. It seems impossible to reproduce this in an English form; at least our ideas of the commotions of the bowels have no association, with agitations of the mind. To say with Henderson, my bowels are made to boil, though it seems to be sanctioned by the meaning of the verb, yet does not really express the idea of violent motion, as witnessed in boiling water, or the surging of the ocean, which is the idea intended. To say with Noyes,My bowels boil, is worse yet, as the verb is strictly passive. If we might be allowed to ignore the figure, and say simply, my mind is greatly agitated, we would more correctly interpret the words to English ears, than by a figurative use of the word bowels, that never was ingrafted into English thoughts and feelings. If we could accept the opinion that in ancient usage the word bowels denoted the upper viscera and was not restricted as by modern usage to the lower viscera (see Alexander on Isa 16:11), we might substitute the word bosom with advantage. But accepting the usual signification of , we can give to no other English form than we have done, greatly troubled. Owen: Troubled, or disquieted, is the rendering of all the versions, and also of the Targ. As it is a reduplicate, the verb means greatly troubled or greatly disturbed, or violently agitated. . Rosenmueller refers to a similar phrase in Psa 38:11; , cor meum circumit, circumagitur:Alexander explains it of the palpitation of the heart, denoting violent agitation.W. H. H.]The reading , whatever may be urged against it, is very old, for the Sept. has . But it is impossible to attach to this (if it be understood here as a particle of comparison, or as a so-called Kaph veritatis), a pertinent sense. For stands here in antithesis to ; is their common predicate; and to fill out the sense there should be a subject indicated corresponding to , To supply again, or with Ewald the idea something similar before , would give us a construction in the highest degree forced and unnatural. Unless we suppose a mistake of the transcriber and read simply , as the Syriac has it, there is nothing left, but to transpose the words, and to read , which the text of the Sept. seems to sanction, for since the Sept. translates , its authors apparently read the Hebrew words in the order indicated. [Rosenmueller: Pareau regards the , placed before in this place, not is the particle of similitude, but what the Grammarians call the veritatis, which not seldom is used for the name of the thing or person referred to. But I prefer to suppose, with Lwe and Wolfssohn, that the words are to be transposed, as may be done; , without the sword bereaves, even as death within.Henderson has a curiously unsatisfactory remark, which his translation does not clear up, the Caph is the Caph veritatis expressing the reality of the thing. What thing? Famine or pestilence? We must either adopt Naegelsbachs opinion, with which Sept., Syr. and Arab, agree, and transpose the words, Abroad the sword has bereaved me, as death at home; or suppose an awkward prosopopia in the substitution of the word death for famine or pestilence, in which case the is strictly the veritatis; or we must translate as Henderson (though his translation is at variance with his explanation), Abroad the sword bereaveth, in the house, It isas death, and accept the suggestion of Calvin, that the is the of similitude, at homeit isas death, as if he would say, nothing met them at home but that which was like death itself. There is as little, if not less, difficulty in the first of these explanations, as in either of the others.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:21. 4. We have the rejoicing of her enemies at her misfortunes. This subject, now first alluded to, the Poet dwells upon at some length, whilst he only briefly indicated the matters that have been mentioned.They have heard that I sigh, there is none to comfort me,that I have no comforter.All mine enemies have heard of my trouble. What the enemies heard is described as if it came to them borne on successive waves of rumor, proceeding by degrees from the circumference to the very centre of their grief. At first they heard how Zion [Jerusalem] bitterly mourned, because left alone, without Comforter and Helper (see Lam 1:2), she was exposed to the violence of her enemies. Then they [her enemies] began to comprehend the nature and extent of her misfortune. But they rejoiced that Jehovah had done it, that is to say, He had actually brought about the day which He had before predicted.They are glad that Thou hast done it, Thou wilt bring the day that Thou hast called (Marg., proclaimed). They rejoiced because Thou hast done it, that Thou hast brought the day Thou hadst proclaimed. It will be observed that I take the last clause as epexegetical. This seems to me necessary. For, 1. To give a precatory sense to the last clause [as Luther,let the day come;Henderson:Bring the day which Thou hast announced;Notes:O bring the day which Thou hast appointed.W. H. H.] is very forced. 2. These words are a very suitable explanation of the preceding clause: the Lord has done it by bringing about in fact the day He had predicted or proclaimed, that is to say, He had not merely spoken, but acted [not merely threatened, but carried His threat into execution, by doing what He had said He would do]. Least of all can we say, Thou bringest, Thou proclaimest the day, for this would require a change in the order of the words in the Hebrew, and the text should read . Ewald, following the Sept. [ , ], supplies [an appointed time] after . This is unnecessary and arbitrary. [Calvin explains this clause as Naegelsbach does: and his English translator, Owen, remarks: Our version is wrong in rendering this clause in the future tense. The reference is not to the day of vengeance to the Babylonians, but to the day of vengeance which God had brought on His own people. The versions, except the Syr., give the verb in the past tense. So Wordsworth: They are glad that Thou hast done it; that Thou hast brought (upon me) the day (of sorrow) which Thou hadst proclaimed (by Thy prophets, who warned me of my impending destruction).W. H. H.]. That the Lord had threatened the people of Israel with eventual destruction, was well known to the heathen. See Jer 40:2-3.And they shall be like unto me. The second principal part of the prayer begins with this petition, that the Lord would visit her enemies with the same fate which had befallen her. [Wordsworth: The Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites, who exulted over the destruction of Jerusalem, will share the same fate, at the hand of the same enemy. See Lam 4:21; Jer 12:14; Jer 25:21; and Babylon herself also will be punished for her cruelty to Zion (Jer 1:9-10; Jer 51:35; Isa 47:6)].
It cannot be objected to the above interpretation, that then the adversative sentence should begin with , for the subject of the adversative sentence is the same as that of the preceding one, only viewed in a different light. Whilst what precedes shows what the enemies hitherto had done ( , ,), the adversative sentence shows what in the future will be done to them: therefore, from to , the perfect, only is used, from the imperfect only. If the sentence began with , the proper grammatical construction would be [. Rosenmueller: In the repetition of this word there is emphasis, as below, Lam 3:43-44; Psa 124:1-2. The introduction of this verb, at first, without a subject expressed, was doubtless an expedient suggested by the alphabetical arrangement of the verses which required an initial ; but its introduction in the next clause, with the subject expressed, and that in an intensified form,heard (have they) that I sigh, etc.Allmy enemies heard of my trouble,is one of those triumphs of the art of the true poet, by which he makes even the artificial and arbitrary laws of poetry contribute to the force and beauty of his sentiments.. Owen: There are here two instances of being carried on to the next clause,
Heard have they that I sigh, that I have no comforter:
All mine enemies have heard of my evil; they have rejoiced
That Thou hast done it, that Thou hast brought the day Thou hast announced.
It is better, however, to consider each as uniting the two clauses that follow it as in close apposition, in each case the latter clause being explanatory of the preceding one: They heard that I sigh, I have no comforter, i. e., I sigh because I have no comforter. They rejoiced that Thou hast done it, Thou hast brought the day, i. e., Thou hast done it by bringing the day.Thou hast done it. The gloss of the famous Jew, Jarchi, quoted by Rosenmueller, is singular, and shows what far-fetched interpretations of Scripture have been allowed: Thou hast afforded the occasion why my enemies have hated me and rejoiced in my misfortune, because Thou hast given us commandment not to eat and drink what they do, nor to enter into marriages with them. If only I had joined myself in
marriage with them, they would have been disposed to pity me and the children of their own daughters.W. H. H.]
Lam 1:22. Let all their wickedness come before Thee. The expression come before Thee is to be understood in the sense of becoming acquainted with. See Gen 37:2.And do unto them as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions [see gram, notes above]. For my sighs are many and my heart is faint. The conclusion of the prayer contains a declaration of fact. It is impossible to refer this to the thoughts immediately before expressed: for neither confession of sin (for all my transgressions), nor prayer for the retribution of the injustice done by her enemies (do unto them as they have done unto me), could suggest this concluding sentence. Rather, it relates generally to the prayer for help, which is contained as well under the second head, as in the first part of the prayer. This last clause, containing the evidence of her need of help, naturally recalls the prayer for help.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Lam 1:1-3. This change of fortune, befallen the holy city and holy people, may well clain our sympathy in the highest degree. But at the same time we should let it be to us a solemn warning. For if this was done to the green tree, what shall be done to the dry (Luk 23:31)? If God rejected the people whom He called the apple of His eye (Deu 32:10), if He exposed to destruction the city, in reference to which He said, that His fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem (Isa 31:9), what claim can the people, kingdoms and dynasties of the Gentiles have?what claim can the particular Christian churches even have?what claim can Rome, Geneva and Wirtemberg have to the privilege of eternal existence? Truly, since the Lord could destroy Jerusalem and entirely lay waste Canaan, without being unfaithful to His promise given to the Fathers, even so He can remove the candlestick of every particular Christian church, without breaking the promise given to the church at large, that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it (Mat 16:18).
2. Lam 1:1-11. From Jeremiahs passionate lamentation over the wretched condition of the Jewish land and people, we derive a lesson in reference to the manner in which one in great affliction and misery may be allowed to behave. There have been found, among the heathen, persons reputed for wisdom, some of whom have held the opinion, that a wise, intelligent man should be altogether emotionless, neither rejoicing in good fortune, nor cast down by bad fortune, but willing to let things be as they are. But we see the very opposite of this in pious, holy persons, especially here in Jeremiah, where he bitterly laments the misery of his people and fatherland. Could he have hoped for deliverance from that, misery, or any mitigation of it, how heartily would he have rejoiced! And such emotions, if properly controlled, are not obnoxious to God, since He Himself has implanted them in our human nature. As it would displease a faithful father, should his children laugh when he punished them, so it cannot please God when His people show no sign of grief on account of His chastisements. If we should, in the ordinary affairs of life, rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), and as the elect of God, holy and beloved, should manifest hearty commiseration towards the suffering (Col 3:12), much more should we, in times of general and national calamities, not then be joyful, but heartily mourn and lament on account of the losses and evils suffered by the public generally. Those who do not so, the Lord God reproves; because they eat and drink joyfully, and are not at all concerned for the calamity of Joseph, He threatens severely to punish their false security. Wuertem. Summ.
3. Lam 1:1. The Targum Jonathan compares the destruction of Jerusalem with the expulsion from Paradise: It was with Jerusalem as with Adam and Eve, when they were judged, who were ejected from the Paradise of pleasure, and then the Governor of the universe lamented over them.Origen conceives that under the image of Jerusalem, formerly noble and splendid, but now become widowed and servile, the human soul is represented: In a sublimer sense, Jerusalem, in the enjoyment of felicity, abounding in people and nations, and the head of provinces, is the (divina est anima) soul which is of divine origin. * * * Even as we are permitted to see Jerusalem, living in the greatest prosperity, with a large population, crowded with foreigners, and head of the provinces, but when virtue fails, desolate and widowed and enslaved, so that it becomes tributary to the enemy that conquered it, so it happens to the soul of him who has fallen from virtue. Ghisler., p. 11.So also Olympiodorus: She became as a widow, having been deprived of the bridegroomthe Logos.So also Rhaban Maurus: Lamentation is made for the faithful soul of man, which formerly was full of virtues and controlled its various passions, governing the appetites of the flesh; but afterwards inflamed by the fire of lust through the agency of malignant spirits, deprived of angelical consolation and wanting divine communion, it was given over to serve as many masters as it had vices. Ibid., p. 10.Hugo a Sancto Victore: When God reigning in our hearts governs us, then the flesh subjected serves Him in the outward life, and in proportion as we are inwardly more humbly submissive to Him, we have in a stronger degree the mastery over the outward life. Thus, therefore, our soul, when it had God for its King, was within full of people, i. e., of virtues, and without was also mistress of the nationsthat is, of carnal desires, and a princess of provincesthat is, of the bodily senses. But now she is solitary, because she has lost her king; she is a widow, because she is separated from her husband; she is tributary, because she serves the vices to which she is subject. Ibid.
4. Lam 1:1. Jerusalem, in this passage, is regarded by many as a type of the church. So says Paschasius Radbertus: The Prophet mourns, not only because she sitteth in garments soiled with dust and earthly deeds (sedet pulvereis et terrenis operibus sordidata), but especially because she sitteth solitary. Solitary, moreover, because as a widow. And widowed, because she has been deserted by her husband on account of the filthiness of her turpitude. But it should be observed that she is said to be as a widow, and not really a widow; since, although she is despised by her spouse, yet her rights of marriage remain, so that if she should reform and discharge the duties of her former love, she may at least receive her husband and immortality through her penitence. Ghisler., p. 9.Hugo a Sancto Victore allegorizes in another fashion: How is it that while we perceive so many people in the church, we see the church herself solitary? Because we can find hardly any one who may be esteemed as truly with the church. * * * As Christ remains untouched by the crowd pressing upon Him (Mar 5:24-34), so the church, the body of Christ, sitteth solitary amidst a multitude, because the Catholic faith has many professors, but few imitators. Ibid., pp. 9, 10.In another way still, the Abbot Rupert von Deutz: What city is it that was full of people, etc.? That holy city, Jerusalem, forsooth, the mother of us all, whose citizens we are, whosoever of us are believers. That city, before the creation of the world, was already full of people in the foreknowledge or predestination of God. * * * How has it come to pass that she should sit solitary, should become as a widow, should pay tribute? Forsooth by transgressing; namely, by one mans sinning, the first mans, for in him the whole multitude of his posterity sinned and suffered condemnation. Thus has it come to pass that the holy city should sit solitaryshould sit, as it were, as a widow, not having her husbandGod, a church holy through faith, though cast out of Paradise, a wanderer in this world, suffering through exile, death and an offended Lordthat is, paying penal tribute for sin. Ibid., p. 10.
[5. Lam 1:1-11. With regard to the allegorical and mystical interpretations of this song, we may adopt the language of Kitto on 1 Samuel 17 : Although we do not, with some, think that these things are an allegory, * * * it is impossible for the experienced Christian to read it without being reminded of eventful passages in his own spiritual history. There is no doubt some mysterious connection between even the external things of Scripture history, and the inner things of our spiritual life, which the wise are enabled, by the Spirits teaching, to discern, and which renders the seemingly least spiritual parts of the holy writ richly nourishing to their souls (Daily Bible Illustrations).Scott: The serious mind perceives abundant cause to meditate, with solemn awe and deep concern, on the tokens of His indignation at the sins of men. * * * How is it that so many populous cities now sit solitary? That so many flourishing empires are now become tributary and enslaved? Whence are the tears, with which vast multitudes wear away their restless nights and joyless days; whilst they mourn the loss of dear relatives, the treachery of professed friends, the cruelty of enemies, the oppression of the powerful, the fury of persecutors, grievous servitude and multiplied afflictions? Whence is it, that idolaters now occupy the places where flourishing churches once were? That the ways of Zion are deserted, her ordinances interrupted or profaned, her gates desolated, her priests and people in bitterness, or cut off? How is it that the adversaries of the church are the chief, and prosper, and that her children are in captivity? However we may vary our inquiries, the same answer recurs: the fierce anger of the Lord for mans transgressions hath filled the earth with sighs and groans, with tears, sickness and death. * * * Sin fills our consciences with remorse and our hearts with terror; deprives the soul of strength and confidence; perverts every pleasant thing and every good gift of God, and even His truths, Sabbaths and ordinances into occasions of deeper condemnation and misery. * * * Among the manifold evil effects of sin, the pious mind is peculiarly grieved, when, being committed by professors of true religion, it causes the enemies of God to blaspheme, and to mock and scoff at the truths and ordinances of His word and worship. We be to the world because of such offences: and we be to those by whom such offences come, except their repentance be as deep as their transgressions, are aggravated. We ought to prefer any of the other temporal effects of sin to this. Should any be wonderfully brought down from the height of affluence to the depth of penury; should their honor be changed for contempt; should they have no comforter in affliction, and be constrained to part with all their pleasant things for bread to sustain life; nay, should they have the prospect of dying by famine; yet all this ought to be considered as far less afflicting than that their sins should cause the name, truths and ordinances of God to be blasphemed; and men to stumble and fall and perish forever, through the increasing prejudice, hardness and impiety that they have excited. Even the profanation of sacred things, and the sacrilege of those who, in different ages, have laid their rapacious hands on the substance which was dedicated to the support of religion; and the contempt with which the clerical office hath been treated by profligates and infidels; have in great measure been chargeable upon the atrocious sins of professors and preachers of the gospel, who have rendered themselves vile, and exposed themselves to shame by their evident misconduct: and therefore the Lord hath made them vile and contemptible even to the most abandoned of mankind. (Practical Observations).W. H. H.]
6. Lam 1:1-3. If Gods chastisements begin, they come not once, twice, or thrice only, but they follow one after another, as one wave pursues another in a tempestuous ocean (Psa 42:8). For no misfortune comes alone, as is plainly seen in the present instance in the case of the Jews. Cramer according to Eg. Hunnius (Ser. 2, p. 28).
7. Lam 1:4. What an unspeakable blessing of God it is, when He gives public tranquility, so that people may come in crowds and regularly observe the holy rites of Divine worship, the world knows not, until God creates a famine of His Word and people seek for it over land and water without finding it. Let us be admonished to love the Word of God and the sanctuary where it is preached. Example: David, Psa 26:8; Psa 27:4. Cramer by Eg. Hunnius (Ser. 2, p. 19). O how many people there are who sigh after the precious gospel and have willingly gone in crowds over many miles to the places, where alone they could obtain and enjoy it. These will on that day stand up and condemn those, who have had it at their very doors, and yet have regarded it so disdainfully and treated it so carelessly. Eg. Hunnius, Ser. 2, p. 20.
8. Lam 1:5. God has, on account of Zions sins, set her enemies in authority over her. What does not this signify! The enemy governs at pleasure! Thus the church must be trodden under foot by the worldand this drives her anew to penitence and prayer. The youth must go bound into slavery. To be obliged to see this, breaks the heart. He who will not understand that it is the enemy of souls, who leads the children, bound by lusts and false doctrine, to hell, that person must regard every thing that he reflects upon in a gross and literal sense. Diedrich.
9. Lam 1:5. The devil is the author of our spiritual captivity (Col 1:13; 2Ti 2:26), Christ is our Redeemer (Joh 8:36), the means of redemption arein respect to the price paid (ratione acquisitionis) the blood of Christ (Zec 9:11; Col 1:14),but with regard to its actual application to us (respectu autem exhibitionis) the Word and Sacraments, especially Baptism which by St. Basil, in his Homily on Holy Baptism, is called the ransom for captives (Isa 61:1). Frster.
10. Lam 1:5. Frster here considers the question, how the participation of children in the sufferings of their parents for sins of which the children are innocent, may be explained. He refers in this connection to Luthers explanation of Exo 20:5, where it is said: This question, why the son suffers for the father, the prophet Ezekiel hath treated of and says (Eze 18:2), The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge; and Jeremiah says (Jer 31:29?), Our fathers have sinned and are gone, but we must suffer for their sins;and it is still so in our days; we sin and deserve what those who come after us must suffer. We are not to understand by this that the child is damned on account of the father, as if it referred to the [eternal] punishment of souls. All souls, says God by Ezekiel (Eze 18:4), are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth it shall die. But we should understand this of temporal punishment; He punishes children on account of the fathers, by letting them die who must yet at any rate die.
11. Lam 1:5. For the multitude of her transgressions.If thou fearest not sin, fear at least that which sin leads to. Augustin by Frster.
12. Lam 1:6. Her princes have become like harts, etc.The deer is an extremely timid animal, and on that account the heart of a deer is reproachfully imputed to the timid, as appears by this verse of Homer: O son of Atreus, having dogs eyes and the heart of a stag. And the Apothegm of Philip of Macedon from Stobus is well known: an army of stags with a lion for a leader, were better than an army of lions with a stag for a leader. Frster.
13. Lam 1:6. All her beauty is departed.Now they will consider well the mercies of the Lord they formerly possessed, and how little they had valued them. Such reflections God awakens by means of affliction, and herein again is mercy, though enjoyed only in the midst of tears. Diedrich.
14. Lam 1:7. And did mock at her Sabbaths.A corresponding punishment (pna ) answers, by the just judgment of God, to the sin of Sabbath profanation; viz., the derision of the Sabbath (comp. Gregor. Nazianz. The festivals of the people become the door of sins). Frster. [Adam Clarke: The Jews were despised by the heathen for keeping the Sabbath. Juvenal mocks them on that account:
Cui septima quque fuit lux
Ignava et partem vit non attigit ullam. Sat. V.
To whom every seventh day was a blank and formed not any part of their life. St. Augustin represents Seneca as doing the same:Inutiliter id eos facers affirmans, quod septimani ferm partem tatis su perdent vacando, et multa in tempore urgentia, non agendo ldantur. That they lost the seventh part of their life in keeping their Sabbaths; and injured themselves by abstaining from the performance of many necessary things in such times. He did not consider that the Roman calendar and customs gave them many more idle days than God had prescribed in Sabbaths to the Jews.]
15. Lam 1:7. Jerusalem remembered.Sinning first and remembering afterwards has brought many into great trouble.
16. Lam 1:8. Jerusalem hath grievously Binned.We, Jerusalem, must suffer on account of our sins, and this chiefly makes our sorrows so very bitter: sin is the sting of death and of every evil. Diedrich. [Calvin: Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what he had briefly referred to, even that all the evil which the Jews suffered proceeded from Gods vengeance, and that they were worthy of such a punishment, because they had not lightly offended, but had heaped up for themselves a dreadful judgment, since they had in all manner of ways abandoned themselves to impiety. It is common to all to mourn in adversities; but the end of the mourning of the unbelieving is perverseness, which at length breaks out into rage, when they feel their evils, and they do not in the meantime humble themselves before God. But the faithful do not harden themselves in their mourning, but reflect on themselves and examine their own life, and of their own accord prostrate themselves before God, and willingly submit to the sentence of condemnation, and confess that God is just.]
17. Lam 1:9. [Her filthiness is in her skirts.Much of the Jewish law is employed in discriminating between things clean and unclean; in removing and making atonement for things polluted or prescribed: and under these ceremonies, as under a veil or covering, a meaning the most important and sacred is concealed, as would be apparent from the nature of them, even if we had not, besides, other clear and explicit authority for this opinion. Among the rest are certain diseases and infirmities of the body. * * * The sacred poets sometimes have recourse to these topics for imagery, even on the most momentous occasions, when they display the general depravity inherent in the human mind (Isa 64:6), or exprobate the corrupt manners of their own people (Isa 1:5-6; Isa 1:16; Eze 36:17), or when they deplore the abject state of the virgin, the daughter of Sion, polluted and exposed (Lam 1:8-9; Lam 1:17; Lam 2:2). If we consider these metaphors without any reference to the religion of their authors, they will doubtless appear in some degree disgusting and inelegant; if we refer them to their genuine source, to the peculiar rites of the Hebrews, they will be found wanting neither in force nor in dignity. Lowth: Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, Lec. VIII.]
18. Lam 1:9. She remembereth not her last end.It is a peculiarity of sin, that while it may rest a long time in a mans heart without disturbing him, yet whenever God begins to show His wrath, it wakes up and stings as a serpent and makes a wound that no one can heal (Sir 21:2). It would be well for us to reflect, when the devil makes sin as sweet as honey, that there may be poison concealed in it. Cramer by Eg. Hunnius (Ser. III., p. 27). [My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but ask pardon for thy former sins. Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent; for if thou comest too near it, it will bite thee: the teeth thereof are as the teeth of a lion, slaying the souls of men. All iniquity is as a two-edged sword, the wounds whereof cannot be healed. Sir 21:1-3.]
19. Lam 1:10. If we have failed to keep diligently the gates of our heart and through some one of our senses lying open the old enemy have found entrance, he advances thence by means of depraved suggestions and illicit lusts into the very sanctuary of our soul, where the Holy Trinity used to dwell by means of true faith, and he despoils that sanctuary of the wisdom and virtues that beautify and embellish it, and we become miserable and most deserving of being overwhelmed with shame. Rhaban. Maurus by Ghisler. p. 36.
20. Lam 1:8-10. Not the person, but the doctrine sanctifies a place, much less can a place sanctify the person and the doctrine. To which is pertinent that saying of Jerome in his Epistle to Heliodorus,It is not easy to stand in the place of Paul and to hold the rank of Peter, both of whom reign with Christ. Whence it is said,They are not the sons of the saints who occupy the places of the saints, but those who do their works. Wherefore if Jerusalem, the holiest of all cities in the judgment of God Himself, is nevertheless declared in our text to be the wickedest of all cities, who will not rather say this of the city of Rome, which to-day, all the world knows, is the abyss of superstitions and of all possible abominations. Frster.
21. Lam 1:11. See, O Lord, and consider: for I am become vile.The righteous are oppressed in the church that they may cry out, they cry that they may be heard, they are heard that they may glorify God. Augustin by Frster. [Calvin: We said yesterday, that the complaints which humbled the faithful, and, at the same time, raised them to a good hope, and also opened the door to prayers, were dictated by the Spirit of God. Otherwise, when men indulge in grief, and torment themselves, they become exasperated; and then to be kindled by this irritation is a kind of madness. The Prophet, therefore, in order to moderate the intensity of sorrow, and the raging of impatience, recalls again the faithful to prayer. And when Jerusalem asks God to see and to look, there is an emphasis intended in using the two words; and the reason given does also more fully show this, because she had become vile; so that the church set nothing else before God, to turn Him to mercy, but her own miseries. She did not, then, bring forward her own services, but only deplored her own miseries, in order that she might obtain the favor of God.]
22. [Lam 1:12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto Me.Henry: She justly demands a share in the pity and compassion of spectators. How pathetically does she beg their compassion! Lam 1:18. This is like that of Job 19:21. Have pity, have pity upon me, O ye my friends! It helps to make a burden sit lighter, if our friends sympathize with us and mingle their tears with ours; for this evinces that, though in affliction, we are not in contempt, commonly as much dreaded as anything in an affliction.]
23. Lam 1:12. This is allegorically expounded to be the voice of Christ hanging on the cross, or of souls in Purgatory. * * * Or it is the voice of the church in tribulation. * * * Of the same nature is the anguish of the mother when in labor, or mourning her dead children, or dreading separation from her husband, or carried captive with her children among enemies. * * * It is the voice of the truly penitent soul, for there is no greater desolation than separation from God. Bonaventura by Ghisler. pp. 41, 42.
24. [Lam 1:12. Henderson: The words of this verse have been very generally applied, in the language of the pulpit, to the sufferings of our Saviour, and unquestionably they graphically describe the intensity of those sufferings; but considering the extent to which the original sense of the passage has been lost sight of, and the accommodated one substituted in its room, it would be well to notify that the secondary meaning is merely an accommodation of the words. Wordsworth: This sorrowful exclamation may, in a secondary and spiritual sense, be regarded as coming from the lips of Christ on the cross, bewailing the sins and miseries of the world, which caused Him that bitter anguish, of which alone it could be properly said, that no sorrow was like unto His sorrow. Thus George Herbert, in The Sacrifice:
Oh all ye, who pass by, whose eyes and mind
To worldly things are sharp, but to Me blind,
To Me, who took eyes that I might you find:
Was ever grief like Mine?
* * * * * * * * * * *
But now I die; now all is finished.
My wo, mans weal: and now I bow My head:
Only let others say, when I am dead,
Never was grief like Mine.W. H. H.]
25. Lam 1:12. Our Saviour could have used this apostrophe on the day of the preparation for the Passover, which might without impropriety be called, in the very words of this text, the day of the wrath and indignation of the Lord, inasmuch as on that day He poured out His wrath as if by a sudden impulse, on His own Son, in accordance with the testimony of Isaiah 53. Speaking briefly: the suffering of Christ was infinite and infernal in regard to its atrocity, though not with regard to its duration; and this should be urged in refutation of the frivolous, carping objection of the disciples of Photinus, who with most impious sophistry assert, that the passion of Christ, because not eternal, could not be expiatory of sins which are infinite in guilt. Preachers ought to and can, by means of this prophetical exhortation, stimulate their hearers to more attentive meditation on the Lords passion. Frster.
26. Lam 1:12. Zions sorrow exceeds all other sorrow, for Zion is fully sensible of the nature of her sin,which is the sin of a horrible rebellion against God Himself:and, at the same time, she feels for the lost sinners, who were called by her word and whom she could have wished to see not lost. Zions sorrow is fulfilled and completely realized in Jesus Christ, of Him have the prophets, and all saints, and all who are His, interpreted it,these know only Christ. He who inflicts the sorrow is God the Father, and He who bears it, in the fullest sense, is the Son of God Diedrich.
27. [Lam 1:13. Pool: The holy man owneth God as the first cause of all the evil they suffered, and entitles God to their various kinds of afflictions, both in captivity and during the siege, looking beyond the Babylonians, who were the proximate instrumental cause.]
28. Lam 1:14. Although it may have the appearance of wrath, that God should punish the Jewish people so severely with servitude, famine, disgrace and the contempt of their enemies, yet thereby God promoted their eternal benefit, since many of them were brought by these means to a knowledge of their sins they had not otherwise attained. Moreover, God does many a strange work (Isa 28:21), in reference to that which He esteems His own. Example, Manasseh. Cramer by Eg. Hunnius (Ser. III., pp. 28, 29).Oh! how salutary is the blow, when God punishes a man for his sins here in this life, and by such temporal punishment preserves him from the future eternal and terrible wrath of God and from unquenchable Hell fire! Thus that holy teacher Augustin speaks, in his Confessions: Lord, burn me here, saw me in pieces here, pierce me here, stone me here. Only spare me in that world. Eg. Hunnius, id. loc.
29. Lam 1:14. Punishment daily increases because guilt increases daily. Augustin. Sins because they excite the wrath of God, which is an intolerable burden (Prayer of Manass., Lam 1:5), are themselves well called, and are, a yoke and an intolerable burden (Psa 38:4; Psa 65:4). Frster. [My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied: My transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of Heaven, for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head, neither have any release: for I have provoked Thy wrath, and done evil before Thee; I did not Thy will, neither kept I Thy commandments: I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences. (The Prayer of Manasseh.)Henry: We never are entangled in any yoke, but what is framed out of our own transgressions. The yoke of Christs commands is an easy yoke, Mat 9:30; that of our own transgressions a heavy one: God is said to bind this yoke, and nothing but the hand of His pardoning mercy will unbind it.]
30. Lam 1:12-15. We should observe here, what is the real source of all tribulation and adversity on earth; namely, not blind chance, not celestial agencies, not men, who err in their opinions, or cause misfortunes through wantonness or malice: in these we may find a secondary cause, but the highest cause, which should be first and most considered, is God. The Lord, says Jeremiah, has filled me full of grief; He has sent from on high a fire into my bones; the Lord has so severely handled me that I am not able to rise up. The Lord Himself freely confesses all this and says, Is there evil in the city, which I, the Lord, have not done? (Amo 3:6). Therefore if we would escape evil, we must go to no one but God, and see to it that we are reconciled with Him in regard to our sins. Wrtemb.: Summar.[Scott: It may properly be inquired of all that pass by, whether the suffering of the people of God be nothing to them? If they have no thought of compassionating or attempting to alleviate their distresses, they may at least behold and be instructed: they may see in them the holiness of God, the evil of sin, the emptiness of forms, the fatal effects of hypocrisy and impiety: and they may take warning to flee from the wrath to come, by considering the temporal miseries to which sin exposes men in this world, For if the righteous scarcely are saved, where will the ungodly and profligate appear? If the rod of correction be so terrible, what will the sword of vengeance be?But whatever may be learned by viewing the desolations of Jerusalem, * * * far more may be learned from looking unto Jesus, and His sufferings and death. Does He not, as it were from the cross, call on every heedless mortal to attend to the scene? Does He not say. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me, in the day of His fierce anger against the sins of those whom I came to seek and save? Is it nothing to you that I am here a sinless sufferer? That I, the well-beloved Son of the Father, am consumed by the fire of His wrath, and that My heart in the midst of my bowels is even as melting wax, and all my bones out of joint, and that mine enemies stand staring on and insulting over Me? Is it nothing to you that the Father hath wreathed on My neck the yoke of mans transgressions, and laid on Me the iniquity of all His people? I say, doth not our suffering Immanuel seem thus to address us? And does it not behoove us to consider, who this Sufferer was, what He suffered, and why He suffered at all? Here we may see the evil of sin, the honor of the law, and the justice of God, more than in all the other scenes that we have been contemplating: here we may learn the worth of our souls, the importance of eternal things, the vanity of the world, and the misery of fallen man. Here we may see the only foundation of our hope, and the source of our comfort and happiness. Here we may learn gratitude and patience, meekness and mercy, from the brightest example and the most endearing motives. Let then all our sorrows lead us to contemplate the cross of Christ, and to mark the way He took through sufferings and death to His glory; that we may be comforted under our trials, and cheerfully follow our Fore-runner, that where He is, there we may be also.]
31. [Lam 1:16. Because the Comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me.The church suffering for her actual sins becomes a type of the Saviour suffering for the sins of the church imputatively. Here we have another cry from the cross. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Those who forsake God will be forsaken of Him, and those who are forsaken of God, will seek in vain for any other comforter, and will be left to cry out with tears and lamentations and spread forth their hands, Lam 1:17, in vain, because there is none to comfort them. The constant allusion to an absent Comforter in this Song, see Lam 1:2; Lam 1:9; Lam 1:16-17; Lam 1:21, is significant. There is nothing like it in the other Songs of Lamentation.W. H. H.]
32. Lam 1:17. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her.She receives compensatory punishment, in that, having refused to hear Him, who stretched out His hands (Isa 65:2), and to seek safety under His wings (Mat 23:37), she herself should afterwards stretch out her hands and not find a comforter. Ambrose by Ghisler. p. 53.The ancient church (Sion) spreadeth forth her hands, i. e., her legal works and carnal righteousnesses, but there is none to comfort her on account of those works, for the Lord does not justify her through them. But what [is the result of this exhibition of her good works]? If she expects to be justified by spreading out her hands after this fashion, God hath commanded that her adversaries, i. e., her sins, should be round about her, and her sins are much more numerous, nay without comparison, innumerable, and her thousand justifications are as if she were an unclean woman, as a prophet elsewhere testifies, when be says: But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isa 64:6). Rupertus Abbas by Ghisler. p. 54.
33. Lam 1:18. It is an ingenious and considerate method of discipline, when the good God would make us better and wiser, not by words, but by examples in other persons. Happy are they, who become wise thus by the misfortunes of others. Cramer.The Lord is righteous. Here recurs a common saying, to which the church bears her most illustrious testimony, in the same way as Mauritius the General, when about to be beheaded, is said to have pronounced publicly these words from Psalms 119.: Just art Thou, O Lord, and just are Thy judgments. Frster. [The Mauritius referred to is Mauritius Tiberius, sometimes called St. Maurice, though not the Saint usually so designated. Before he himself was beheaded, his five sons were massacred before his eyes; and Maurice, humbling himself under the hand of God, was heard to exclaim, Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy judgments are without partiality. (Encyc. Brit.)W. H. H.]
34. Lam 1:19. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me.Under Gods judgments we first learn, how foolish it was ever to have expected anything good from the world, to which we paid our earliest court, as Judah to Egypt, and from the Princes of the world. They have betrayed me, is ever said of all nations, whenever the church has relied upon the great ones of a nation as such. The world is the churchs field, which bears thistles and thorns. Those who trust to the world must come eventually to beggary, and thus miserably prolong their lives; whereby they may possibly recover their senses. Diedrich.
35. Lam 1:20-22. Here the question occurs, whether we may pray against our enemies, since Christ says, Love your enemies (Mat 5:44)? Answer: There are two kinds of enemies. Some, who bear ill-will towards us personally for private reasons, concern ourselves alone. When the matter extends no further than to our own person, then should we privately commend it to God, and pray for those who are ill-disposed towards us, that God would bring them to a sense of their sin; and, besides, we ought, according to the injunction of Christ, to do them good, and not return evil for evil, but rather overcome evil with good (Rom 12:17; Rom 12:21). But if our enemies are of that sort, that they bear ill-will to wards us, not for any private cause, but on account of matters of faith; and are also opposed, not only to us, but especially to God in Heaven, are fighting against His holy Word and are striving with eager impiety to destroy the Christian church;then indeed should we pray that God would convert those who may be converted, but as for those who continue ever to rage, stubbornly and maliciously, against God and His church, that God would execute upon them according to His own sentence judgment and righteousness (Psa 139:19). Cramer by Eg. Hunnius (Ser. III., p. 36).
36. Lam 1:20. [Behold, O Lord.Calvin: The people turn again to pray to God: and what has been before said ought to be remembered, that these lamentations of Jeremiah differ from the complaints of the ungodly; because the faithful first acknowledge that they are justly chastised by Gods hand, and secondly, they trust in His mercy and implore His aid. For by these two marks the church is distinguished from the unbelieving, even by repentance and faith.]For I am in distress. Such is the distress which arises from a disturbed conscience, of which Ambrosius says (Lib. I., ep. 18), There is no greater pain than that which wounds the conscience with the sting of sin. Frster.[Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. Hugh Broughton: Deuteronomy 32. They shall be brent with hunger and eaten up with burning and bitter destruction: without, the sword shall rot; within shall be fear. St. Paul, 2Co 7:5, calleth Moses and Jeremy both into mind, saying when we came into Macedonia my flesh had no rest, we were always in distress, without was fighting, within was fear. Thus divinely honoreth he the Songs of Moses and Jeremy, as having their words still before him, joining Moses prophecy with Jeremys story, and showing how the Apostles were vexed in the world, as Jerusalem of the Chaldeans.]
37. Lam 1:21. Thou hast done it.It is most worthy of observation, that the church in this prayer having turned towards God openly declares, Thou hast done it. Whence it is plainly to be inferred that all calamities are sent by God (). Frster.
38. Lam 1:21-22. O that God would let this day come soon, in which the discipline of His children has an end and the flames of Gods wrath shall consume the rods of His chastisement forever! Then, in truth, our sins and the Devil will be once for all under our feet, and the whole world, which now vexes us, will descend into the abyss with howling and shrieks. In the heart of the Prophet, speaks also the Christ, who judges the world and will make it His footstool: and if we are really Christians, then we have, at the same time and in full measure, both sorrows and confidence; yet often the sense of sorrow exceeds, so that we say, my sighs are many and my heart is faint. But these sighs will be turned into joy (Joh 16:20-22), for they are the birth throes of the new life and of the eternal world. Happy is he who has a part therein. Diedrich.
39. Lam 1:22. Although our prayer is not a work of merit on account of which God should hear us, yet it is a means by which we are heard (Mat 7:7). Cramer.[Calvin: We, in short, see that the faithful lay humbly their prayers before God, and at the same time confess that what they had deserved was rendered to them, only they set before God their extreme sorrow, straits, griefs, tears, and sighs. Then the way of pacifying God is, sincerely to confess that we are justly visited by His judgment, and also to lie down as it were confounded, and at the same time to venture to look up to Him, and to rely on His mercy with confidence.Hugh Broughton: The first alphabet row is ended in the prophecy of ending the wicked kingdoms which should be brought under Babels yoke, to show that all these troubles are in Gods Providence settled in the most exquisite order for His judgments.]
40. [Prayer. Grant, Almighty God, that as Thou hast hitherto dealt so mercifully with us, we may anticipate Thy dreadful judgment; and that if Thou shouldest more severely chastise us, we may not yet fail, but that being humbled under Thy mighty, hand, we may flee to Thy mercy and cherish this hope in our hearts, that Thou wilt, be a Father to us, and not hesitate to call continually on Thee, until, being freed from all evils, we shall at length be gathered into Thy celestial kingdom, which Thine only-begotten Son has procured for us by His own blood. Amen. Calvin.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. Lam 1:1-11. On a fast-day, a church consecration, a festival in commemoration of the Reformation, at a Synod, or on similar occasions prompting to earnest warning, the congregation could be instructed, on the ground of this text, that the judgment which befell the Old Testament Zion by means of the Chaldeans is a warning example to the New Testament Zion. In doing so, it would be proper to consider: 1. The original glory of the Old Testament Zion, Lam 1:7 a. 2. Her presumptuous security and temerity, Lam 1:9 a. 3. The wickedness that became prevalent in consequence thereof, Lam 1:5 b, Lam 1:8 a. 4. The judgment of God, for that wickedness, in its details; intrusion of enemies, Lam 1:10, desolation of the city, Lam 1:1, captivity of the people and of the Priests and Princes, Lam 1:3-6, discontinuance of public worship, Lam 1:10, famine, Lam 1:11, triumph of enemies, Lam 1:5; Lam 1:7; Lam 1:9, disgrace and misery of the people, Lam 1:1-3; Lam 1:5; Lam 1:8-9. 5. The inference to be drawn from all this for our benefit; how that which happened to them may also happen to us, (Luk 23:31; Rom 11:21-23; Rev 2:5).
2. Lam 1:12. A sermon of consolation, on the occasion of a death, or other great misfortune. Our text suggests remedies for great pain. These areI. Of a natural kind. 1. The sympathy of all men: I say to you all, etc., look and see, etc. 2. Comparison with the pain of others: see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,where we are warned against the error of supposing our pain the greatest that ever was, and are reminded that some are more unfortunate than ourselves. II. Of a spiritual kind. 1. The Lord has inflicted the wounds. 2. The Lord will heal them. [Consider, here, especially the active sympathy of Christ. To the question Was ever any sorrow like unto my sorrow! we may answer, Yes, Christs, and greater, too? If His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. it was because, more than any man. He was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He bore the whole burden of our guilt and He suffered its full penalty. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. Why? Not only in the way of atonement, but that He might be a merciful High Priest, to sympathize with us and to help us. See Heb 2:17-18; Heb 4:15-16.W. H. H.]
3. Lam 1:12-22. A sermon on penitence; when a calamity, that may properly be considered as a Divine chastisement, calls for repentance. Subject: The calamity, which has befallen us, considered in the light of Divine righteousness and love. I. It proceeds from Divine righteousness. 1. Not another, but the Lord, has ordained it against us, Lam 1:14-15. 2. It corresponds exactly to what we have deserved, Lam 1:14; Lam 1:18. II. It proceeds from Divine love. 1. It admonishes us to sincere repentance. 2. It dissuades us from confiding in any false hope or support, Lam 1:13-16; Lam 1:21. 3. It incites us to seek help from God in a believing spirit, Lam 1:20.
4. Lam 1:20. FloreyBiblical Guide for spiritual funeral discourses, Leipzig, 1861, No. Lam 385: Well is it for a distressed widow, in her agony, to look to the Lord. For1. The Lord knows thy pain, which He Himself has inflicted. 2. The Lord soothes thy pain, for He is the best Comforter. 3. The Lord changes thy pain, sooner or later, into a blessed experience of good.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS.
In twenty-two verses, corresponding to the number of the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, the Prophet mourns the desolations of his people, and his beloved city Jerusalem. He confesseth sin, and acknowledgeth the justice of the divine judgments.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
I pause after reading this last verse, just to remark what a devout vein of real sorrow for sin, as well as a sincere affliction for the miseries which arise out of sin run through this whole scripture. The Holy Ghost hath caused to be recorded several instances of sacred poetry, of the mournful kind, 2Sa 1:19 ; Eze 2:10 but here is blended with sorrow a sense of sin and unworthiness. I do not presume decidedly to speak upon the subject, but I confess I rather think, that the whole is not only historical, but typical of the Church, in her real captive state under sin and Satan , , and the Holy ghost’s preparing the soul by his gracious corrections of sin for the cordial reception of Jesus. Joh 16:8-33 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Civic Apathy (a Sermon for Women)
Lam 1:12
I. The Home-Side of Patriotism. Is it not a serious matter to find such multitudes in all our large towns and cities who have little or no sense of what it means to belong to a great community, who have little or no idea of the life in common and of the responsibility and duty which all share? There are many around us who do not care anything for the problems of a great city; do not indeed realize that there are any problems at all, except how to get more money, or more amusement in and from the city. It is only the few here and everywhere who care enough to give thought and time and toil to the things on which depend the public good.
II. The Cause of Indifference. The causes of this indifference are many. ( a ) The love of ease and personal indulgence tempts many who might be rendering noble service to the community to be content with the conditions of citizens of the lowest class. ( b ) There is now, as there ever has been, a large number of men who are kept from all public work by their eagerness for the accumulation of worldly interests. It is nothing to them that thousands and thousands around them are at a woeful disadvantage in the struggle for existence and the attainment of good. Business dominates; they are men of business and nothing more.
III. The Citizenship of Women. Though the women of Today in our country as compared with the women of yesterday are more awake to the ideals and duties of citizenship, have wider interests and sympathies, and are not untouched by that new sense of social responsibility which is the centre of the times; yet the common lot of women still fails to develop in them a social spirit, a public soul. The selfish pride and vanity of men has much to do with the circumscribing of the sympathies and activities of our women. Man has for long claimed exclusively for himself the capacity to carry on all the higher work of the world. Though equality does not mean identity each sex has its peculiarity of capacity of character, and therefore of service yet there is no reason in the nature of things why women should not share with men on more equal terms all the largest aims of life and be able in spite of different gifts to do much in common. The womanly qualities are needed not only in the home but in the community, and just as they find expression and scope will the best life of the community be nourished and strengthened.
IV. What Women can do. It is often asked what can women do in the way of social service without losing their womanliness? There is very little I think which they cannot do. Give the women of London and England the sense that they belong to a people; give them the feeling that they owe something to their city and country, that the uplifting of the community is part of their work, and you will not degrade but ennoble them, their life will not lose one particle of its real beauty and charm, but will gain immeasurably in depth and breadth and power.
V. Sacrifice for Citizenship. We have been hearing much in recent days about revivals. One revival we sorely need, and we need it all over the country, is a genuine revival of civic patriotism, a national awakening of home patriotism. The command to seek first the kingdom of God, translated into the language of this generation, includes as one of its first implications the subordination of all private, party, and class aims and interests to the common good, the diligent and conscientious discharge of our civic duties.
J. Hunter, Christian World Pulpit. vol. lxviii. 1905, p. 273.
For Good Friday
Lam 1:12
I. Good Friday a melancholy day. Our attention held against Christ’s suffering.
II. What can we make of all this.
a. Ordinarily we are repelled by human pain.
b. The emotion which contemplation of pain produces is precluded. Pity for the suffering of Christ is an impertinence!
c. Yet men are strangely drawn by the story. It is so free from repulsiveness. Dignity of the succinct narrative. Instead of being dragged down by His agony He exalted pain.
III. Christ by His ‘sorrow’ let Himself into Humanity’s tragic economy.
IV. He sanctified suffering. Not made evil good, but gave it a meaning.
V. Chiefly; He bore our sins.
S. D. McConnell, Sermon Stuff, p. 51.
Is It Nothing To You?
Lam 1:12
Go back six hundred years in thought before the Crucifixion, and there you will see a city which, in spite of warning after warning, has got slack and careless, has endured a sixteen months’ siege, gone through incredible hardships, and at last has given itself over into the hands of the conqueror. And there they pass by, this triumphant host, as it enters the conquered city. They jeer at those who are sitting on the roadside, and at last, as they come to a man we know his name, this Jeremiah who is making his great lamentation they wring from him who has warned the city, year after year, the cry of a wounded heart: ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, you who jeer at us in our defeat, you who see these men and these women so cruelly emaciated, and our little children suffering so after the siege?’ Who shall tell what that wounded cry of that great patriot was as they wrung from him that pathetic appeal, ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?’
The story is a parable of Passion time. Time passes, and the world is taken captive by the great arch-enemy. Warning after warning has been neglected by humanity, the great Captain is dying and nailed to the Cross, and, as the passers by go to and fro in front of Him, there come the words the Church has ever loved to put into His mouth, ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? You have conquered, you have gained a temporary victory, what use are you going to make of it?’ And there still Today, as we are in sight of Good Friday, that same cry rings out.
From the throne of His Cross, the King of grief
Cries out to a world of unbelief:
Oh! men and women, afar and nigh,
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?’
And what is our answer Today to be?
If I were a great painter I would paint a picture of the Crucifixion, with a great Christ in the centre, and I would there place three different groups of passers by, as they listened to that great antiphon as it comes from the Redeemer’s lips. I would place a group that was there those to whom He was nothing; a group of those who did care; and a group of those who had learnt to care. That picture would sum up the state of humanity Today.
I. The Appeal to Those who Care. Look first at that large and ever-growing group that does care, when the appeal from the Cross is made ‘Is it nothing to you?’ and who have seen the vision, and throw back the answer, ‘Yes, it is something to us, nay it is everything to us as we pass by’. ‘There stood by the cross of Jesus His mother.’ She cared; it was something to that mother; and when I see the hundreds and thousands of mothers and fathers Today who do care that their children should receive and pass on the old, old faith of Jesus and Him crucified, I am filled with hope for the state of the world. It is so easy to throw a cheap sneer or a nasty thrust at it, and never to see those thousands of men and women who, from their very hearts, like the Blessed Mother, are caring when they see the crucified Sufferer.
II. The Appeal to Those who do not Care. There are still those, God help them! to whom it is nothing as they pass by. They will find themselves in company with those of whom it is said that they who passed by wagged their heads and reviled Him: not so many as there were, but you know, if you have ever tried for a fortnight to live the Christ life in the middle of the world, that you will come across that group of whom it can be said, ‘It is nothing to them what went on for them on the first Good Friday’. And you may find yourselves standing with that group of soldiers who, sitting down, watched Him in cold, callous indifference, gambling, seizing as their perquisites the very clothes of the dear Lord as they jeer at Him in His dying moments. Do you mean to tell me that the world is no better now than it was when the soldiers, unrebuked by public opinion, could do that? Nineteen centuries of Christianity have left their mark upon the world, and though there are those to whom the appeal from the Cross is a matter of sheer indifference, I dare to say that their number is decreasing, and not increasing. There they are, just those few, and to them with all a man’s pathos the Christ appeals.
III. The Appeal to Those who have Learnt to Care. You must have something to tell them, before you can tell it, in your own hearts, and perhaps you have not got it Then you will be standing in our third group, and be amongst those who did not care but who have learnt to care, those who find themselves in that group where there is the well-known figure of the dying thief, the one to whom it was nothing at first and then to whom it became something. As you look back upon life and know the sin that has got to be surrendered, then as you learn to care, the appeal from the Cross will get right homo to you. You will say, ‘I have learnt to care. I am like the centurion, like the soldier who little thought as he donned his uniform on the morning of the first Good Friday whose army he was going to belong to before Friday’s evening shades were to fall. God saw humanity wandering, God at the Incarnation came down. At the Crucifixion He placed His picture, the express image of His Person, where all wanderers can see it, and there, won by His love, many and many a wanderer this week will see it, and yield themselves up to the claims of Jesus the Crucified.
In View of the Passion
Lam 1:12
The plain fact from the Hill of Calvary is this: that God has opened out Himself in this story of the Passion, for the regarding of them that pass by.
I. It may mean Much, or it may mean Little to You and Me.
a. We can ignore the Passion, the story of Calvary, if we will. It is easy to hide it under the drift of the things that we are doing day by day. It is easy to forget, it is easy to leave it out, it is easy to go our own way and to leave it unregarded.
b. Or we may belittle it. There are those who look upon the Passion as just one of the events of ancient history that, perhaps, has had its share once in moulding men and creatures long ago, but which we may leave, noticed or unnoticed, with the dust of the forgotten past.
c. Or we may resent it. I saw once a bitter wail of resentment against the preaching of Lent and of the Passiontide, as a false presentment of religion in the face of the growing spring, when all things bid a man renew himself and rejoice. It is a thing, this Passion of the Lord, it is a thing resented by the rich, and by the comfortable, and by the selfish, as a thing that is interfering with the enjoyment of the pleasures of the world.
II. Whatever you Think about it, it is There, it is here, immovable, confronting us. We have to do with it. No man can escape from it. It cannot be taken from you. You cannot take the Passion of the Lord out of the world’s book, you cannot take the Passion of the Lord out of the world’s imagination. It has coloured our imagination, it has set its mark in our literature, it has given the ideals which every one of you are pursuing, even those of you who, maybe, reject the name of Christ. It has coloured our ideals, it has set our tone, it has left its mark, it is there.
III. Nor can it be taken out of Christian Experience. There are some of us, perhaps most of us who have come prepared to get its message, prepared to get its meaning. Long enough it may be with some of us here, long enough our consciences have been stirring blindly under the touch of God. My conscience is my spiritual faculty which is capable of perceiving the spiritual touch of God. Long enough we have been filled have we not, or why are we here? we have been filled with the desire for some assurance of His reality. To us, then, the Passion of the Lord is the sign, which witnesses to God’s high seriousness. It is the sign of His earnest intention to stand by the man who is struggling, to stand by the girl who is afraid, to stand by the life that is daunted. It is the sign and mark of high seriousness that God Himself has come down to share in, not merely the glory of the world’s achievement, but the Passion and the struggle of its people. Is it nothing, then, to you, all ye that pass by? It is a serious matter to God; it is a serious matter to you and me.
IV. What Means it to go Home and to Ignore this? Shall I tell you what it means to go home and leave the Passion, and the Crucifixion, and the Cross, and the seriousness of God, and the sympathy of His Spirit, and the history of His Son? Shall I tell you what it means to leave all these things out of your life? It means this, that you will go home to bear and to take upon yourselves alone the burden and the judgment of your own life. This is the attempt of God to share with us, and if we will not join Him, if we will leave Him all to Himself, then, you and I, with our conscience, and our load, and our burdens, and our mixed motives, and our stained life, and our past history, and our sense of guilt, and the wrong we have done in the world, we, with all we have done, must stand the eternal judgment by ourselves; and what man will stand the judgment by himself? Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, that the Lord desires to share judgment with us? Is it nothing to us, that God has taken a place which He opens out to every man who cares to join Him?
References. I. 12. J. Keble, Sermons for the Holy Week, p. 183. E. M. Geldert, Faith and Freedom, p. 80. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1620. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, pp. 280, 288. Ibid. Readings for the Aged (4th Series), pp. 71, 82. E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation (2nd Series), p. 205.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” Lam 1:1
An old Roman medal represents Judaea as a woman sitting under a palm tree in the deepest consciousness of desolation. The picture in this verse is strong by contrasts: solitary, and full of people; a widow, once a queen great among the nations; a princess receiving homage, now stooping in the act of paying tribute to a higher power. A picture so graphic is full of suggestion to those who are in great strength, who are, in fact, in possession of royal riches and imperial dominion. No nest is built so high that God’s lightning may not strike it. Men build huge towers in the hope of finding in them an asylum from judgment and death, not knowing that the higher they build they are, according to the senses, the more nearly approaching the centre of criticism and the tribunal of assize. Who has not seen the greatest inversions of human fortune? Who does not know how true it is that pride cometh before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall? To human vision, it certainly does appear impossible that certain estates can ever be turned to desolation; the owners are so full of health and high spirits, and they apparently have so much reason to congratulate themselves upon the exercise of their own sagacity and strength, that it would really appear as if no bolt could shatter the castle of their greatness. Yet that castle we have seen torn down, until there was not one stone left upon another. In every sense of the words, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall: riches take to themselves wings and flee away. We are only strong in proportion as we spend our strength for others, and only rich in proportion as we invest our gold in the cause of human beneficence. The ruins of history ought to be monitors and guides to those who take a large view of human life. Is not the whole of human history a succession of ruins? Where is Greece? where is Rome? where is proud Babylon? where the Seven Churches of Asia? where is classic culture? Yet although these have all been buried in ruin, there remains today the spirit of progress which testifies to the presence of God in the development of human life. We do not despair when we look at the ruins which strew antiquity; we rather reason that certain institutions have served their day, and what was good in them has been transferred into surviving activities. In the text, however, we have no question of ruin that comes by the mere lapse of time. Such ruin as is here depicted expresses a great moral catastrophe. The tears shed by the holy city are tears of remorse over sin. Judah did not go into captivity because of her excellency or faithfulness; she was driven into servitude because of her disobedience to her Lord. What was true of Judah will be true of every man amongst us. No man can sin, and prosper. The inviolable fortresses were never built by wicked hands. One sanctuary alone there is which never can be invaded or overthrown, or even temporarily injured, and that is the sanctuary of simple, earnest rectitude. “I have seen the wicked in great power;… yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not.”
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XIII
JEREMIAH’S LAMENTATIONS
Lamentations 1-5
We will now take up a brief survey of the book of Lamentations. This book belongs to the third division of the Old Testament, known as the Writings, the Greek Hagiographa. The book of Lamentations is grouped with four other small books and these five are known by the Jews as the Meghilloth. These five books are Songs of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. They are read at special seasons of the year by the Jews, and the book of Lamentations was read, and is still read, on the anniversary of the fall of Jerusalem, which occurred on the ninth day of the fourth month of their year, corresponding to about our August 9. For 2,200 or 2,300 years this book has been read in their assemblies at this time. Not only has it been read, but it has also been quoted by thousands and tens of thousands of Jews who tarry at the Jewish wailing place in Jerusalem. It has voiced the sorrow of the Jewish people over the destruction of their city and its Temple for more than 2,000 years. It will continue to do so until the Jews are brought to Christ and realize that there is no need for the Temple and the ritual; that these were done away by Jesus Christ.
Tradition says that shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, when Jeremiah was partly free, he sat down in a quarry, a few miles north of Jerusalem near the road to Damascus, and there composed these lamentations. The authorship of Jeremiah has been questioned by the critical school, but this tradition goes back as early as the third century before Christ, and the Septuagint Version says at the beginning of this book that Jeremiah wrote these words. The book itself is an elegy on the fall of the city of Jerusalem. Its theme is the destruction of the city and it voices the dismay and sorrow that fell upon the nation at that awful event.
A fine example of an elegy in modern literature is Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard. Lamentations is also an elegy but composed by a prophet, and as such it has been rather unpopular, is seldom read, seldom used, and seldom preached from.
The form of the book which is not brought out in the translation, is that of an acrostic poem, except the last chapter. The first letter of the first Hebrew word in each verse begins with a corresponding letter in the Hebrew alphabet. There are twenty-two verses each in Lamentations 1-2. In Lam 3 , sixty-six verses, a multiple of twenty-two. In the fourth, twenty-two. In the fifth, twenty-two.
Now, in Lam 1:1 , the first word begins with the first Hebrew letter of the alphabet. In Lam 1:2 the first letter of the first word is the second Hebrew letter, and so on through the alphabet. Lam 2 is the same. In Lam 3 , the three first lines begin with the first letter, and the second group of three lines begins with the second letter, and so on to the end of that chapter.
The writer chose the word which contained the right letter at the beginning of that word. In many cases it was doubtless a difficult task. Some can hardly imagine Jeremiah taking the time to do that, and yet it is the tradition that he did. It seems to them that his state of mind would hardly lend itself to such a mechanical arrangement of his verse and his thought, but the book is before us, and the tradition is that Jeremiah wrote it, and we must take it as it is. Lam 5 is not written in the acrostic form. The first four chapters only are thus arranged.
Now, the style, or form of the verse, is peculiar. The Hebrews had a form of verse, or stanza, which they used to express sorrow and which is called “the lament,” or “the dirge.” The form of the stanza is this: The first line is of average length, the second line a little shorter; also the next verse, or stanza, has the first line longer than the second, and so on all through the poem, which gives a peculiar funeral dirge effect to their song with a pathetic and melancholy cadence as they repeat it.
I call attention here to a few of these. Notice in Lam 1:1 : How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations) She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
Thus, a large part of the poem has that peculiar, pathetic, melancholy, dirge like cadence which expresses, perhaps more accurately than any other form of poetry could express, the feeling that animated the hearts of those people.
The following is an outline of the contents:
I. The desolation and misery of Jerusalem (Lam 1Lam 1Lam 1 ).
1. The poem bewails the solitude and desertion of the city; her people are in exile, the enemy has seized her treasures, her glory is departed (Lam 1:1-11 ). Almost every point of view from which one can look at it is given; almost every possible expression of feeling and emotion are brought out here.
2. The city herself declares the severity of the affliction (Lam 1:12-16 ). Lam 1:12 is regarded as a messianic expression in Handel’s Messiah, and may be likened unto the suffering of Jesus Christ. It is the voice of the city expressing itself through the prophet, calling attention to the unparalleled sorrow through which it has passed.
3. She acknowledges Jehovah’s righteousness and prays for retribution upon her foes (Lam 1:17-22 ).
II. Jehovah’s anger with his people (Lam 2Lam 2Lam 2 ).
1. The stress is laid on the causes of the suffering. Jehovah is her enemy; he has cast off his people, his land, and his sanctuary. That is brought out in Lam 2:3 and others. As in other verses of the poem, he turns the kaleidoscope of his imagination upon the awful event and presents it in almost every phase (Lam 2:1-9 ).
2. The agony of the people in the capital, the contempt of the passers-by, and the malicious triumph of her foes (Lam 2:10-17 ). Here is doubtless one of the most terrible pictures of a siege to be found in all literature. He speaks about the virgins of Jerusalem; then he speaks about his own sorrow, then about the young children, the babes starving and crying to their mothers for bread and wine.
3. The nations are invited by the prophet to entreat Jehovah on behalf of its dying children. It responds in the prayer of Lam 2:18-22 .
III. The nation’s complaint and its ground of consolation (Lam 3Lam 3Lam 3 ).
1. They bewail their calamities (Lam 3:1-20 ). Here he seems to call up every phase of it, and uses almost very figure to describe suffering. This section is paralleled in almost every line with some statement of Job where he describes his sufferings. I call attention to Lam 3:19 : “Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.” This is the origin of that expression, Sinners whose love can ne’er forget, The wormwood and the gall.
2. They console themselves by the thought of God’s compassion and the grace he may have in the visitation (Lam 3:21-39 ). Here we have some jewels in this poem. Lam 3:22 is one: “It is of Jehovah’s loving-kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” That means that they are not totally consumed because of the mercy of Jehovah. Jeremiah had said that he would not make a full end, because “his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” A man who could write that after going through the horrors through which Jeremiah passed, while he was looking upon the deserted city, his own loved capital, has achieved one of the greatest victories of faith that man can possibly achieve.
Everything had been taken away from Jeremiah except his life and God. He had nothing. Then he said, “The Lord is my portion,” i.e., “He is enough for me.” Another beautiful expression is Lam 3:27 : “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” This is a fine saying and contains a fine philosophy.
3. The people are invited to confess their guilt and turn to God in penitence (Lam 3:40-54 ). Here we seem to be reading out of Jeremiah’s own experience. This passage expresses how Jeremiah felt when he was put down into that dungeon, but they did not cut off his life.
4. He becomes more hopeful (Lam 3:55-57 ).
5. A confidential appeal for vengeance on the nation’s foes (Lam 3:58-66 ). That is Jeremiah still. Almost every time he is under persecution and affliction he calls for vengeance.
IV. Zion’s past and present contrasted (Lam 4Lam 4Lam 4 ).
1. The former splendor, and present humiliation of Zion and its inhabitants (Lam 4:1-11 ). He contrasts first, the gold that has become dim, the pure gold that is changed. Then the precious sons of Zion are mentioned. Their condition at present is contrasted with their condition in the past. “The daughter of my people” is also mentioned and her condition in the past contrasted with the present. “Become cruel like an ostrich in the wilderness.” The infant, the nursing child, is different now. “Its tongue cleaveth to the roof of its mouth for thirst.” They that have been reared up in scarlet, now embrace the dunghills, searching for some morsel to appease the pangs of hunger. Her mothers are also contrasted with their past condition.
2. Priests and prophets are so stained by guilt that they find no resting place even among the heathen (Lam 4:12-16 ). Lam 4:13 : “Because of the sins of her prophets and iniquities of her priests that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.” As a result of that they wander as blind men in the streets; they are polluted with blood. Men cannot touch their garments; they say, “Depart ye, unclean, depart! depart! touch not.” When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They shall no more sojourn here.” They were so vile that even the heathen nations spurned them.
3. The people cannot escape their pursuers. Egypt has disappointed them, and Zedekiah, the anointed of Jehovah, has failed (Lam 4:17-20 ). Zedekiah, the anointed of the Lord, was captured by the Chaldeans and treated as if he were little more than an animal.
4. Though Edom may triumph for awhile, Israel’s punishment will be completed and the cup will be passed to the foes (Lam 4:21-22 ). There is sarcasm here: “The cup shall pass through unto thee also; thou shall be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.”
V. The nation’s appeal for Jehovah’s Compassionate Regard (Lam 5Lam 5Lam 5 ).
(As we said, this chapter of the poem is not acrostic; is a little different from the other chapters; and may have been written later, a few years after the people had been in exile.)
1. He calls upon Jehovah to consider the affliction of the people, indicating the nature and severity of that affliction (Lam 5:1-18 ). Here, again, over and over in a great many different ways and fashions and forms and figures he reiterates the same sad truths and presents the same great sorrows. In Lam 5:7 he voices the sentiments of the people that are suffering, both those in the city and those in exile. The complaint was heard by Ezekiel away off in Babylonia! Our fathers sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities. That cry and complaint both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had to meet and answer. It was the cry that the people had to suffer for the sins of their fathers, and of which they were innocent. See Eze 18 .
2. Zion’s desolation brings to his mind, by way of contrast, the thought of Jehovah’s abiding power, and on the ground of this he repeats his appeal for help (Lam 5:19-22 ).
This is the greatest elegy ever written, though it begins in the greatest heights of confidence at the end.
Jeremiah was an ardent patriot, one of the greatest patriots of history. The Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, was worldfamed, but no Kossuth loved his country and suffered more for it than Jeremiah, no Garibaldi ever fought and bled for his nation with truer heart than did this prophet, and no George Washington ever fought and prayed and worked and toiled more than did Jeremiah for his land. But even Jeremiah could not stay the inevitable; he could not save Jerusalem. Savonarola could not save Florence, nor could Kossuth save his country.
Jeremiah was a statesman-prophet, a prophet to the other nations as well as to Israel. He did not confine himself to the narrow realm of his own little nation and country; he saw what was going on throughout all the world and saw God’s hand in history. He was bigger than his people. He took in all the known world in his horizon. He foresaw what was coming and he gave advice to all the nations.
His nature was deeply emotional. No man had greater tenderness of heart than Jeremiah; no man could sympathize more with his people. No man could be more overpowered with sorrow over their sins and their destruction. He even prayed that his eyes might be a fountain of tears, pouring forth their grief and sorrow and if possible wash away the sins of the people. Some of the greatest depths to be found in all human experiences are to be found in Jeremiah. He was the most human and most outspoken of all the prophets. He was not afraid to lay bare his heart. He allows us to see down into its very depths. He laments, he complains, he even complains to Jehovah, and writes his complaints in the inspired Word. He calls for vengeance upon his foes. He feels like accusing God for having called him into the prophetic work. When in the depths of despondence, he curses the day he was born, and actually censures his mother for having brought him forth. He even considers the question of quitting the ministry altogether. He was like a weaned child that has its struggle and cries, but by and by it rests upon its mother’s bosom. So in the latter part of Jeremiah’s life he is at rest, calm and patient. He has had his fight and is quiet. How human he was!
His nature was one of surpassing strength. It is generally considered that one of the fundamental things in Jeremiah’s character was weakness. The fact that when he was called to the ministry he said, “I cannot speak, I am a boy, I am only a youth,” does not mean that he was fundamentally weak. It is not a sign of weakness, that a man has a sense of weakness when called to such a work. The keener our sense of weakness, the stronger we are, because it makes us feel our dependence upon God, and we go to him for strength and he is with us and helps us by his Spirit.
Jeremiah was a strong man, one of the strongest the world has ever known from the moral point of view. He never shrank from his duty, even when it brought him face to face with death. There was a fire within him which burned, and when it burned Jeremiah spoke forth, no matter what it cost. The word of God was the very essence of his being. He even tried to prevent the inevitable, and fought for forty years against it the inevitable, that Judah should perish. He has been described as “a figure cast in brass, dissolved in tears,” which expresses better, perhaps, than any other statement, his character. Though all the world was against him he never flinched, he never shrank, he maintained a consistent attitude all that period of nearly fifty years, and never failed.
His prophetic insight was of the profoundest kind. No man saw deeper into humanity than Jeremiah. He was the first man to say, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” He got a vision of the higher moral truths of the new dispensation of Jesus Christ, and in his prophecy of the new covenant he reaches greater heights than any other prophet. He saw true religion as no other man had seen it. His grasp of truth was so deep that he became absolutely dependent upon God, and was satisfied to lean on him alone because his people were against him. He was a sublime optimist. His prophecy of the restoration is sufficient comment upon that. He saw the better age clearer than any other prophet; he pictured a better covenant, a new dispensation.
His emotional nature is shown in his literary style, which is free from many adornments, has a great many common figures in it and does not compare with the beauty of Isaiah, nor with the finished and literary elegance of Ezekiel. It expresses his emotional nature. He repeats, he has many favorite phrases. At times he is poetic and there are in the book of Jeremiah a great many passages that are classic and immortal. His style resembles that of the book of Deuteronomy, the highest type of hortatory eloquence, for Jeremiah was influenced mightily by the Book which was discovered in the early part of his career.
From being the most despised of all the prophets, he came to be considered the greatest of all. In the book of 2 Maccabees where Judah is in doubt and difficulty, there appeared to him in vision a man, resplendent in beauty, magnificent in physique, with excellent glory beaming from his countenance. He gives to Judah a golden sword with which to smite his foes. It was Jeremiah. This is only a legend, but it shows the estimation in which he was held. When Jesus Christ came preaching and teaching, the people knew not who he was; some said he was John the Baptist, some said he was Elijah, some said he was Jeremiah. They never mistook him for Ezekiel, Isaiah, or Daniel.
He, in several respects, resembled Jesus Christ:
1. Both appeared at a similar crisis in the history of Israel forty years before the end of the nation and the Temple.
2. Both were persecuted for predicting the fall of the ceremonial institutions and the ritual.
3. Both were at variance with the accepted orthodoxy of the time, and were regarded as heretical and dangerous.
4. Both showed that there could be a religion without a Temple and ritual, and thus saved religion in the downfall of these institutions.
5. Both made the way open for a positive statement of new doctrine.
6. Both suffered most at the hands of the religious leaders of the time.
7. Both lived lives of seeming failure, and died at the hands of their countrymen.
8. Both might have the words of Isaiah applied to them (Isa 53:3 ): “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not.” Also to both may be applied Lam 1:2 : “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me.”
QUESTIONS
1. To what division of the Old Testament does this book of Lamentations belong, how is it grouped, and what its special uses by the Jews?
2. What the testimony of tradition and the Septuagint concerning its authorship, what its theme, what its character as literature, and what its artistic features?
3. What can you say of its style, or form of verse? Illustrate.
4. Give the outline of the book.
5. What can you say of Jeremiah as a patriot?
6. What of him as a statesman?
7. What of his emotional nature?
8. What of him as human?
9. What of his strength of nature?
10. What of his prophetic insight?
11. What of his optimism?
12. What of his style?
13. What of his rank among the prophets? Illustrate.
14. What of his resemblances to Christ?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the nations, [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she become tributary!
Ver. 1. How doth the city sit solitary. ] Some a tell us of Jeremiah’s cave, near to Aceldama, where he sat in sight of the city now destroyed, and made her this epitaph – not altogether unlike that which David once made for his dear Jonathan. 2Sa 1:17 There he hath his Echa admirantis et commiserantis, his wondering and condoling. How once, and again, and a third time. 2Sa 1:19 ; 2Sa 1:25 ; 2Sa 1:27 And our prophet hath the self-same, in sense at least, three different times in this one verse; whence the Hebrews call the whole book by the name of Echa (How), which is the first word in it, and beginneth with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. For it must be observed here that, for memory’s sake especially, this piece of Holy Writ is most of it made up in order of alphabet, viz., the four first chapters, and all of it with singular artifice in a poetic strain. Take that one passage for a taste, Lam 5:16 : Oi na lanu, chi chattanu, which soundeth rhythmically, i.e., woe to us that we have sinned. And whereas other poetry is the luxury of such learning as is in words restrained, in matter usually loose, here it is altogether otherwise; for the prophet or poet, whether id sibi negotii credidit solum dari, maketh it his whole business to set forth his people’s misery in the cause thereof, their sins and excesses, pressing therefore to patience, to repentance, to earnest prayer, and to a confident expectation of a gracious issue, together with a sanctified use of all their sufferings. He had himself been a man of many sorrows all along; and now had his share as deep as any in the common calamity. Besides which he could truly say with Cyprian, Cum singulis pectus meum copulo, maeroris et funeris pondera luctuosa participo: cum plangentibus plango, cum deflentibus defleo, i.e., in St Paul’s words, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? grieved, and I grieve not? offended, and I burn not?” 2Co 11:29 And this he expresseth in a stately style and figurative terms, full of passion and compassion, as to show his love to his country, so to work upon his hard hearted countrymen, and to excite them to repentance and better obedience.
How doth the city.
Sit solitary.
“How sits this city, late most populous,
Thus solitary! like a widow thus!
Empress of nations, queen of provinces
She was, that now thus tributary is.”
That was full of people.
How is she become as a widow
She that was great among the nations.
And princess among the provinces.
How is she become tributary!
a Adrichom. ex Niceph.
b Serm. de Tempore, 204.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Lamentations Chapter 1
The prophet presents a graphic view of Jerusalem once abounding with people now sitting alone, and as a widow; she that was mighty among nations, a princess among the provinces, now become tributary. She is seen weeping sore, and this in the night when darkness and sleep bring respite to others, to her only a renewal of that grief, less restrained, which covers her cheeks with tears. Now is proved the folly as well as the sin that forsook Jehovah for others; but there is for her no comforter out of her lovers. All her friends, the allies she counted on, deal treacherously by her, and are but enemies. (Ver. 1, 2.)
The last hope of the nation was gone. Israel had been long a prey to the Assyrian. But now in the captivity of Judah mourning overspreads Zion where once were crowded feasts. And there is no exception to the rule of affliction: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, herself as a whole in bitterness. On the other hand her adversaries are in power and command over her. How bitter was all this to a Jew! and in a sense most bitter where the Jew was godly. For besides the grief of nature he might share with his countrymen, there was the added and poignant sorrow that the normal witnesses of Jehovah on earth had proved false, and he could not see how glory would be brought to God in spite of and through Israel’s unfaithfulness.
It is necessary to bear in mind the peculiar place of Israel and Jerusalem: otherwise we can never appreciate such a book as this, and many of the Psalms, as well as much of the Prophets. The patriotism of a Jew was bound up as that of no other people or country was with the honour of Jehovah. Providence governs everywhere: no raid of Red Indians, no manoeuvre of the greatest military power in the West, no movement or struggle in Asia, without His eye and hand. But He had set up a direct government in His own land and people, modified from Samuel’s days by kingly power, which had blessing guaranteed on obedience. But who could guarantee the obedience? Israel pledged it indeed, but in vain. The people disobeyed, the priests disobeyed, the kings disobeyed. We see too that in Jeremiah’s days false prophets imitated the true, and supplanted them in the heed of a court and nation which desired a delusive sanction from God on their own wilfulness, prophesying what pleased the people in flattery and deceit. Hence the corruption only lent an immense impetus to those who were already hastening down the steep of ruin. But this did not lesson the agony of such as Jeremiah. They realized the inevitable ruin; and he, not in moral sense only but by divine inspiration, gives expression to his feelings here. The blessed Lord Jesus Himself is the perfect pattern of similar grief over Jerusalem, in Him absolutely unselfish and in every way pure, but so much the more deeply felt. Unless the relation of that city to God be understood, one cannot enter into this; and there is danger of either explaining it away into care for their souls, or of perverting it into a ground for similar feelings, each for his own country. But it is clear that a man’s soul is the same in Pekin or London, in Jerusalem or Baltimore. The Lord does show us the immeasurable value of a soul elsewhere; but this is not the key to His tears over Jerusalem. The impending judgment of God in this world, the dismal consequences yet in the womb of the future, because of the rejection of the Messiah as well as all other evil against God, made the Saviour weep. We cannot wonder therefore that the Spirit of Christ which was in Jeremiah, and guided him in this Book of Lamentations, gave the prophet communion with his Master before He Himself proved its worst against His own person.
God might raise up a fresh testimony, as we know He has done; but, while bowing to His sovereign will, the utter ruin of the old witness justly filled the heart of every pious God-fearing Israelite with sorrow unceasing; and surely not the less “because Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions.” Grief is not less over God’s people because they have dishonoured God and are righteously chastised. “Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are as harts which find no pasture and go powerless before the pursuer.”
There was the bitter aggravation, ever present, of what the city of the great King had lost, which He, when He came and was refused, told out in His broken words of weeping over it. “Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Jehovah, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself, The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O Jehovah, and consider: for I am become vile.” (Ver. 7-11.) Faith however sees in the prostration of the guilty city under the relentless adversary a plea for Jehovah’s compassion and interposition on its behalf.
Then the prophet personifies the downtrodden Zion turning to the passing strangers for their pity. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.” (Ver. 12-16.) Still all is traced to Jehovah’s dealing because of Jerusalem’s rebellious sins; and hence He is morally vindicated. “Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.” (Ver. 17-19.)
Finally, Jehovah is called to behold, because Jerusalem was thus troubled, and this too inwardly, because of its own grievous rebellion; and He is besought to requite the enemy who took pleasure in their abject shame and deep suffering. “Behold, O Jehovah; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble, they are glad that thou hast done it; thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.” (Ver. 20-22.)
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
How = Alas! or, O how! Hebrew. ‘eykah = an exclamation of pain and grief, a wailing cry (preserved in Eng. “jackal”). The Massorah (App-30) points out that this exclamation is used by three prophets, concerning Israel:
(1) by Moses in her multiplication (Deu 1:12. Compare Lam 1:11);
(2) by Isaiah in her dissipation (Isa 1:21);
(3) by Jeremiah in her desolation (Lam 1:1).
This word “How” is to be supplied at the beginning of verses: Lam 1:2-3 by Figure of speech Ellipsis (App-6). Compare also Lam 2:1; Lam 4:1; and Isa 14:12.
solitary: i.e. empty; referring to the houses and streets.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Shall we turn now in our Bibles to the book of Lamentations.
The book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible does not appear in the same place that it appears in our Bibles. In the Hebrew Bible it appears with a group of books: Esther, and Ruth, Job, and Ezra. It was written by Jeremiah, and that is why in our Bibles they inserted it after the book of Jeremiah, because it is almost sort of an epilogue to the book of Jeremiah, in that it follows the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.
There is on the site of Golgotha a cave that is called Jeremiah’s Grotto. This cave known as Jeremiah’s Grotto comprises a part of the face of the skull; hence the name Golgotha. Because as you look at the cliff, with these caves that are there in the cliff, they take the appearance of a skull. One of these caves is called Jeremiah’s Grotto. It is interesting that from those caves there on the site of Golgotha, you have a tremendous view of the city of Jerusalem, for Golgotha is actually the top of what was once Mount Moriah. And it looks down over the city of Jerusalem.
Tradition declares that Jeremiah sat in this grotto when he wrote the book of Lamentations, and there he wept and cried over the desolation of the city of Jerusalem as he saw its ruins, as he saw the walls destroyed, as he saw the buildings leveled. And from this vantage, he wrote this book.
In the Septuagint, which is a translation of the scriptures into Greek that was done by seventy Hebrew scholars about 200 B.C., they prefaced the book of Lamentations with these words, “And it came to pass, that after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented this lament over Jerusalem and said, ‘How doth the city sit solitary.'” So, they have that as a prologue to the book of Lamentations, and it was picked up and put in the Vulgate.
The book of Lamentations is a favorite style of Hebrew poetry in four of the chapters. They are as known as an acrostic, and they were written in order to facilitate the memorization, in that you’ll notice that in the first three chapters there are twenty two verses in each chapter. In the original Hebrew poetry, these twenty two verses were actually twenty two lines of the poem, and each line began with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So the first line began with Aleph, and then with Beth, and then with Gimel, and then with Daleth, and on through the Hebrew alphabet, each line with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet in the first three chapters…in the first two chapters.
In the third chapter, you’ll notice that there are sixty six verses. The first three lines begin with Aleph, the next three with Beth, the next three with Gimel. And so it was in triplets, actually, thus the sixty six verses. The fourth chapter, again each line beginning with the succeeding letter of the Greek alphabet. And even though the fifth chapter has twenty two verses, it is not in an acrostic. It doesn’t follow this same pattern of each line beginning with the successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But they would often write their poems that way in order to help you in memorizing the poem, because you knew that the next line began with the next letter of the alphabet in succeeding order.
This is a funeral dirge. It is a lament of Jeremiah over Jerusalem after the destruction. And the book of Lamentations is read each year in the synagogue on the fourth day of the ninth month. So, around August the fourth, this particular lament or book is read in the Jewish synagogues as they commemorate the anniversary of the destruction of Solomon’s temple in 586 B.C.
With that as a background, let us go into the first chapter, as Jeremiah declares,
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and the princess among the providences, how is she become a tributary! ( Lam 1:1 )
The city is empty. It is now sitting solitary. The inhabitants have either been slain or carried away captive. There is a weird silence over this once prosperous, beautiful city, as it lies there now in rubble.
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies ( Lam 1:2 ).
Jerusalem was once as a princess. Actually, tribute was paid to Solomon and to his kingdom, but now Jerusalem has become a tributary paying tribute to others. Those that she trusted in, Egypt and others have now become her enemies.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwells among the heathen, she finds no rest: in all of her persecutors overtook her between the straits. The ways [or the paths] on the way to Zion do mourn, because none come to her solemn feasts ( Lam 1:3-4 ):
It must be a weird, awesome feeling to look over the ruins of a once great and prosperous city. Can you imagine, say sitting on Mount Wilson and overlooking the Los Angeles basin and nobody living there? No freeways jammed with cars. No industries belching out their smoke, just everything with a deathly silence. Imagine how you would feel, you know, having seen all of the activities and all, that go on in that great basin, and suddenly to look at it and see the whole thing silent and empty. It must be an awesome kind of a feeling to see such a thing.
That’s what Jeremiah… he had grown up in this city. He had seen the streets full of people. He had watched the worshippers at the temple and all. He had seen the pilgrims gather for their feasts, but now it’s all silent. Now it’s empty and the ways or the paths on the way to Jerusalem are mourning because no one is coming to the solemn feasts anymore.
all of her gates are desolate ( Lam 1:4 ):
The gates of Jerusalem are interesting places because there is always so many people passing in and out of the gates. A lot of times in Jerusalem just… if you don’t have anything to do, it’s interesting just to go at the gates of the city and just watch the people come and go through the gates. They’re always just bustling with activity, and now it’s silent. The gates are desolate.
her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, she is in bitterness. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper, for the LORD hath afflicted her ( Lam 1:4-5 )
And then he gives the reason:
for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. And from the daughter of Zion all of her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, they are gone without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and her miseries all of her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her and did mock at her sabbaths. Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is removed ( Lam 1:5-8 ):
Again, not blaming God, which is so often our mistake when calamity comes. “Why did God allow this to happen to us?” But recognizing that the blame was upon the people because of their transgression and because they had grievously sinned against God. “Therefore she is removed.”
all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sighed, and turned backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembered not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy has magnified himself. The adversary has spread out his hand upon all of her pleasant things: for she has seen the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation ( Lam 1:8-10 ).
And so the heathen came right into the temple, into the Holy of Holies and they destroyed the temple of God. A stranger wasn’t to come within the sanctuary, and yet they have seen them come in and destroy it.
All of her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile ( Lam 1:11 ).
They spent all of their money, actually, and given all of their treasures for bread.
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From above hath he set fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: and he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as a winepress. For these things I weep ( Lam 1:12-16 );
Thus, the lamentation, the weeping of Jeremiah as he sees the destruction that has come, the mighty men destroyed, the virgins ravished by the enemy, the young men crushed and the young girls trodden. “For these things I weep.”
my eye runs down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed. Zion spread forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandments: hear, I pray you, all the people, and behold my sorrow, my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity ( Lam 1:16-18 ).
And so he sort of personifies Jerusalem, and lets Jerusalem cry out declaring the righteousness of God in judgment, “The Lord is righteous.” For they were guilty of having rebelled against God. The Lord is always righteous in judgment, and yet it seems that that is an area where we always want to fault God. And we always hear sort of insinuations that God is unrighteous in judgment. “How can a God of love condemn a man to hell?” You know, and you’ve heard the rest of it. And the idea is that God is not really righteous when He judges. But that’s one thing you can be certain of, and that is the righteousness of God in judgment.
In the book of Revelation, as God is bringing His judgment upon the earth, there are voices that come from the altar saying, “Holy and true art Thy judgments, oh Lord.” And then in one place where God turns the fresh water upon the earth to blood, there are voices that declare, “Oh, that’s great. They shed the blood of Your saints so You’ve given them blood to drink,” and testifying of the properness of that particular judgment that God brings upon the earth at that time.
But God will judge. God has declared He will judge. And thus you can be sure that God is going to judge this world. God is going to judge the wicked. But God, when He judges the wicked, will be absolutely righteous in His judgment. People may complain about it now, but when God makes His judgment there can be no complaint, for the Lord is righteous. They had rebelled against the Lord. They rebelled against His commandment.
He said,
I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and my elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls ( Lam 1:19 ).
They died of starvation while they were looking for food.
Behold, O LORD, for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it: and thou will bring the day that thou has called, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou has done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint ( Lam 1:20-22 ). “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Lam 1:1-11
Jerusalem the widow of Shame (Lam 1:1-11)
How doth the city sit solitayr, that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; She dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest: All her persecutors overtook her within the straits (Lam 1:1-3).
Jerusalem (Zion) was once considered a world power under the reigns of David and Solomon. She was known as a princess among the provinces but now as tributary. Those nations that Judah had used as allies are refered to as lovers. Nations such as Egypt, in whom Judah put her trust rather than God, were not around to comfort her in her time of sorrow (cf. Jer 2:36 ff). Those who would be recognized as her friends had dealt treacherously with her. The Edomites (Psa 137:7), Ammonites, Tyrians (Eze 25:3-6), and the Moabites (Jer 40:14) all rejoiced over the fall of Judah.
Captivity of Judah filled with affliction and servitude.
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary. And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end; Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter: Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself (Lam 1:4-9).
As Jerusalem, depicted as an individual, pondered upon her glorious days of worship and activities at the gates of the city, she mourned even more. She now lay in affliction due to the sins she shamelessly committed against Jehovah God.
Jerusalem is depicted as an unclean woman that was to be shunned (cf. Lev 12:2-5). Her enemies had seen her nakedness, and she was now ashamed. Jerusalem sinned and did not think about the latter end. This verse depicts a sinner who was caught up in the pleasure of the moment and disregarded the consequences of his or her sinful actions (cf. Deu 32:29; Isa 47:7).
The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: For she hath seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly. All her people sigh, they seek bread; They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: See, O Jehovah, and behold; for I am become abject (Lam 1:10-11).
Jerusalem was plundered. Treasures were taken from the city because they had sinned. Jeremiah had warned that this would be the case (cf. Jer 20:5).
Aside from suffering the shame of being plundered, the people starved to death in the famine. Jeremiah had warned the people of this, too, as a consequence of their disobedience (Jer 14:11-12; Jer 21:7; Jer 24:10; etc…).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
In the Septuagint, the Lamentations are prefixed with the words, “And it came to pass that after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented this lament over Jerusalem and said. . . .”
In this brief Book of Lamentation the spirit of the man is strikingly revealed. There is no exultation over the fulfilment of his predictions, and there is a twofold loyalty manifest throughout, first to God in the confession of sin, and then to his people in the expression of their sorrow.
In this first poem there are two clearly defined movements. The first (verses Lam 1:1-11) describes the desolation of the city, as to her relationships with other nations, and as to her internal condition, declaring the cause to be that “she hath grievously sinned.” Under the figure of a widow sitting solitary, the prophet describes the city. “She that was great” has “become tributary,” and is loverless and comfortless. Within, her desolation is overwhelming. The Temple is deserted, and her beauty has departed. With great care the prophet sets forth the cause of her diction. She had “grievously sinned,” and has forgotten her latter end; and the prophet ends this description of the desolation by identifying himself with the sorrow and the sin in the words, “See, O Lord, and behold; for I am become vile.”
In the second movement (verses Lam 1:12-22) the city, personified, bewails her diction, appealing to the passer-by, and describing her sorrow; then confesses the justice of the desolation which has overtaken her, crying to Jehovah for sympathy and deliverance.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Chapter 1 – THE DESOLATIONS OF JERUSALEM
In this first chapter the remnant of Judah confess the righteousness of the Lord in permitting their afflictions, though they are filled with sorrow as they behold the sad results. They acknowledge their own sinfulness and extol the holiness of God, while calling for judgment upon the instrument of His wrath.
In the opening verses the ruined city, where once Jehovah had set His name, is contemplated with broken heart and tearful eye. “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” exclaims the prophet; “How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” (v.1). To a faithful Israelite it was indeed a sorrowful spectacle. What joy and gladness had once filled that now deserted city, in the happy, festive days when the law of the land was honoured and His name exalted! How dreadful the change – the awful result of departure from God, manifested in pride, self-will, and idolatry! How could Jerusalem remain the acknowledged wife of Jehovah, when so faithless and wanton? Alas, she is left to sit in solitude in her widow’s weeds until the day when God shall grant repentance.
“She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies” (v.2). The false gods in whom she trusted when she proved recreant to the covenant of Jehovah are unable to mitigate in anyway her present sorrows. The powers upon which she sought to lean when she forsook the Word of her God, are all indifferent to her present plight. He, the “eternal Lover” whom she has despised, is the only One who loves her still.
Yet He had given her into the hand of her enemies, and had apparently hidden His face from her. ” Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits” (v.3). In this Judah becomes a warning beacon for saints of all time. Failing to maintain the place of separation to which God had called her, mingling promiscuously among her heathen neighbours, she soon proved, as all do who follow her steps, that “evil communications corrupt good manners.” Walking with idolaters, she learned their ways; and as a result God gave her up to wander among the nations until she sickened of their practices. Has not this been the repeated history of every company which God separated from the world and owned as His people? How soon the apostolic Church corrupted itself. The dense darkness of the Middle Ages was the governmental recompense. In even shorter time did the movement begun in the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century become vitiated by conformity to the world; so that one has well asked, “Where is the Church?” and replied, “In the world!” Again, “Where is the world?” and answered, “In the Church.”
From this mixed multitude, at various times, God has been pleased to separate little remnant companies to Himself; only to become, in their turn, enamoured of the world they once professed to forsake. Has it been otherwise with those, enlightened above many, who in these last days were called out from human systems to be a testimony to the unity and heavenly calling of the Church? Alas, my brethren, “how are the mighty fallen!” How unspeakably sad has been the chequered history of that movement which began so auspiciously, and once promised so much! Worldliness, like a canker, is eating out the very life. Pride, haughtiness and self-sufficiency are everywhere apparent. In judgment God has sent division following division until we are like to be utterly destroyed; and yet how much pretension; how little brokenness before Him; how many indifferent hearts and calloused consciences!
Shall it be said of us as of Judah in the past, “The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer” (v.4-6). Nor is it possible to avoid so sad a result by “daubing with untempered mortar,” seeking to heal divisions by glossing over the evils that led to them, and thus failing to hear the voice of God in them. One course, and one alone, would have saved Judah . That was genuine self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before the Lord, causing the people to “tremble at His Word.” This is what is needed everywhere today. It is not so much looking for and learning new truth that will bless and deliver the saints of God, as testing our ways by the truth already committed to us, and seeking to walk in the reality of it. Because of failure so to do, Judah went into captivity, a Christian Church lost her candlestick of testimony, and the world was allowed to prevail against the people of the Lord.
Sad indeed it is to have to look back to blessings, once delighted in, when all is but a memory. ” Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths (or, her desolations, R.V., v.7).” A quiet like the rest of the Sabbath lay over all the city, but it was the quiet of desolation and death, There was no longer anything to hinder her rest. The work of the Lord had often been a burden. She was delivered from it all now; but at how frightful a cost! Set aside as “a vessel wherein is no pleasure,” Jerusalem was left in undisturbed repose.
Touchingly the prophet acknowledges the justice of all this in the four verses that follow (v.8-11). Jerusalem had grievously sinned. It is because of this that she “is removed,” or “has become as an unclean thing,” unfit to be used of God any more. Because of this, those who once honoured, now despise her. Her nakedness had been openly manifested. Her filthiness is apparent to all. She forgot her latter end – forgot God’s purpose in delivering her from Egyptian bondage. “Therefore is she come down wonderfully,” until she has no comforter. Yet, in her season of dire shame and distress, there are some faithful hearts left to cry, “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy hath magnified himself.” Her adversary had triumphed over her, even defiling her sanctuary; the charge of which had been committed to Judah when they were commanded that no uncircumcised should enter into the congregation of the Lord. Having failed to guard her precious things, they were given up to the unclean of the nations. It is ever thus. If God’s people do not value what He entrusts them with, He will teach them its worth by taking it from them, even to making it the sport of their enemies.
Left without bread, sighing for food to refresh the soul, the remnant cry, “See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.” These are precious and needful exercises. Would that they had characterized them in days of grace now gone by! Ah, brethren, may the spirit of humiliation and confession before God be found in us also. The Holy Spirit will associate Himself with this, and still comfort and bless such.
The Spirit of Christ speaks loudly through Jeremiah and the remnant of Judah in the next few verses. Primarily, the words refer unquestionably to what we have had under consideration, the chastisement meted out to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the land. The query, “Is it nothing to you?” is addressed to the nations who had no sympathy for, but rather gloried over them in their deep anguish. But as all Scripture points to Christ, one must be blind indeed not to see here the suffering Saviour entering to the full into the griefs of the spared company, left like grape-gleanings in the vineyard.
What a pathetic interest attaches itself to every word as we thus look at them. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which is done unto Me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger” (ver.12). The sins of Judah drew down that fierce anger upon their heads. It was the just recompense for their departure from the Lord. But when He, the holy Sufferer of Calvary, bowed His head beneath the overwhelming flood of God’s wrath, it was for sins not His own; but He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He was incomparably “the Man of Sorrows,” having full acquaintance with grief, that our joy might be full, as we enter into fellowship with the God we had so terribly offended.
Can it be that any one reading these lines would reply to the heart rending question of the dying Lamb, and honestly confess, “It is nothing, all nothing to me?” Nothing to you that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities! Nothing to you that God manifest in flesh so gave Himself to save guilty rebels against His outraged majesty! Nothing to you that the dreaded cup of wrath was pressed to His parched lips in order that the cup of salvation might be offered to you! Can it really be that it is nothing to you?
Alas! there was a day when it was so with us all: when, even though our emotions might bestirred as we heard or read the story of the Cross, yet, so far as apprehending that it was to meet the need of our sinful souls, it was all nothing to us. How well has the saintly McCheyne expressed what many more could say:
“I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,
Isaiah’s wild measure, or John’s simple page:
But e’en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.
“Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu: ’twas nothing to me.”
And this might be our condition still – if not yet in the pit of the lost, forever beyond the reach of mercy – had it not been for the sovereign grace of God that led Him by His Spirit to show us our needy, lost estate, and to cause us to flee to Him (so long and coldly neglected) for mercy and pardon.
Thus we can join with the same poet-preacher and sing:
“When free grace awoke me by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me – I trembled to die.
No refuge, no safety in self could I see;
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.
“My terrors all vanished before that sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came,
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free;
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.”
In the joy of assured redemption we can look up into His face, once marred more than any man’s, and cry from full hearts, “Yea, Lord, it is something, it is everything to me, that Thou didst so suffer and die!” And our souls are filled with holy awe as we turn aside to see this great sight, and hear Him cry, “From above hath He sent fire into My bones, and it prevaileth against them. He hath spread a net for My feet, He hath turned Me back: He hath made Me desolate and faint all the day” (v.13).
But we rejoice to know that nevermore shall He suffer thus. His sorrows and pains are now forever past; and with gladness unutterable “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isa 53:11). How expressive is the use of that word “travail” in this connection! Two women were once overheard speaking of their sons. The one had adopted a boy from an orphan-house; the other was the mother of a child by birth. “I am sure,” said the first, “my love for my child is as deep as though he had actually been born into the family. I do not believe I could love him more than I do.” “Ah,” replied the other, “you do not really know love yet. You never suffered for your son as I did for mine!”
O beloved, how He has suffered for us! What pangs He endured! What tears He shed! What drops of blood He sweat! How dreadful the travail He had to experience in order that we might be eternally saved! “Fire from above” descended upon Him that we might find a refuge where the fire has been, and thus be forever safe from the eternal fire to come for all who spurn His matchless grace. Precious and holy theme for devout meditation
Not in the same sense could the next two verses be applied to the Lord Jesus. It involves the consciousness of guilt, and He was the guiltless One ; but the words were most fitting in the mouth of the people of Judah . They confess that the yoke of their transgressions is bound by His hand. Like a wreath they are twined about the neck. Because of this, their strength failed, and they were unable to deliver themselves out of their enemies’ hands. The Lord Himself it was who had destroyed their mighty men and summoned the Chaldeans for their ruin. As grapes are trodden in a wine-press, so had He cast the daughter of Judah into the press of His wrath because of her manifold transgressions (v.14-15).
On account of these things the prophet weeps, as he had wept, before they came to pass, in foretelling them. There is no comforter; for Judah ‘s children are desolate. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, but there is no helper, nor any to sympathize. She is as a separated, unclean woman, because of the Lord’s anger (v.16-17).
In verse 18 there is the unreserved acknowledgment, “The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against His commandments.” This is an evidence of true godly exercise. They received but the due reward of their deeds; and they own it in contrition of heart and abasement of soul. They had been deceived by other lovers (v.19), and were left in great distress; but they humbly confess, “I have grievously rebelled.” This what makes it all so bitter: they realize they deserve all that they have been called upon to endure.
Their enemies had heard of their sighs. They rejoiced in their affliction, glad that the Lord had so dealt with them. Their time of woe was coming. God should bring the appointed day when they too should know His indignation because of their sins (v.21). So the prayer goes up that the time may be hastened when all their wretchedness shall come before Him and He will do as He has said (v.22). It is a cry for vengeance not consistent with Christian light and privilege and the grace of this dispensation, but thoroughly in keeping with the character of Jewish blessing. Their deliverance being an earthly one, it therefore requires the judgment of their oppressors.
In a certain sense these last two verses might also be looked upon as setting forth the doom of those who refuse to own the Lordship of Jesus. He too could say of such, “Thou wilt bring the day that Thou hast called, and they shall be like unto Me.” Despising His sufferings, men who reject His grace must know for themselves the awful power of divine wrath.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
CHAPTER 1 Jerusalems Great Desolation and the Sorrow of His People
The chapter begins with an outburst of grief over Jerusalems desolation. Once she was a populous city; now she is solitary. Once she was great among the nations, like a princess among provinces, and now she is widowed. Then in the next verse we hear her weeping; she weeps all night long; none is there to comfort her; her friends have turned against her, they have become her enemies. She was disobedient to her Lord, she rejected His Word, she gave up her holy place as His separated people and now she findeth no rest. The Lords hand is upon her for the multitude of her transgressions. The hopeful note we find in Lam 1:8-11. Here is confession of her guilt and shame; here is humiliation and appeal to the Lord on account of the enemy. See, O LORD, and behold; for I am become vile. Such humiliation and self-judgment is pleasing in the Lords sight.
In Lam 1:12 Jerusalem speaks: is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger. The passer-by who beholds the ruins of Zion is asked to look upon the desolations and then to consider that the Lord in His righteous anger smote her, who is still His beloved. Well may we think of Him, who had to say, See if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, who was smitten and afflicted, upon whom Jehovahs rod rested, over whose blessed head all the waves and billows of Divine judgment-wrath rolled, He who is the Beloved, the Son of God, our Lord. Again the prophet breaks out in weeping, His eye runneth down with water. He is deeply affected over the desolation and judgment which has taken place. But a greater One, greater than Jeremiah, stood centuries after before the same city, brought back from the ruin of Jeremiahs time. And as He beheld that city He wept, because His omniscient eye beheld a still more appalling judgment for city and nation.
Forsaken, uncomforted, distressed, humiliated, sighing and crying, owning her rebellion, vindicating Jehovah and His righteousness, Jerusalem sits in the dust, abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is death.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
How doth: The LXX have the following words as an introduction: “And it came to pass after Israel had been carried captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said.” Lam 2:1, Lam 4:1, Isa 14:12, Jer 50:23, Zep 2:15, Rev 18:16, Rev 18:17
sit: Lam 2:10, Isa 3:26, Isa 47:1-15, Isa 50:5, Isa 52:2, Isa 52:7, Jer 9:11, Eze 26:16
full: Psa 122:4, Isa 22:2, Zec 8:4, Zec 8:5
as a: Isa 47:8, Isa 47:9, Isa 54:4, Rev 18:7
great: 1Ki 4:21, 2Ch 9:26, Ezr 4:20
how is: Lam 5:16, 2Ki 23:33, 2Ki 23:35, Neh 5:4, Neh 9:37
Reciprocal: Lev 13:46 – without Lev 26:31 – And I will make Deu 28:16 – in the city Isa 24:12 – General Isa 47:5 – silent Isa 49:21 – am desolate Isa 54:11 – not comforted Isa 60:15 – thou Isa 64:10 – General Jer 12:11 – it mourneth Jer 15:9 – She that hath Jer 34:22 – and I will Jer 42:2 – left Jer 44:2 – a desolation Jer 48:39 – How is it Jer 51:34 – the king Lam 1:9 – came Eze 26:2 – the gates Eze 26:17 – How art Eze 36:3 – they have made Dan 9:2 – the desolations Amo 6:1 – named Oba 1:5 – how Mic 2:4 – a doleful lamentation
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The Lamentations of Jeremiah
Lam 1:1-18
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
1. The compassionate Christ. Even now we can, in our imagination, see the Lord Jesus Christ as He wept over Jerusalem. We can hear His mournful words: “If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”
Then the Lord went on to tell the things which were about to befall Jerusalem. He prophesied saying: “The days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee * *; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”
It was not, however, alone on this occasion that Christ bemoaned Israel. How plaintive were His words: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.”
There is an expression that gives us an insight into the heart of our Lord. Here it is: Jesus was “moved with compassion.” He was filled with compassion because everything that affected the sons of men affected Him. Their sorrows were His, their pains, their sicknesses, their disappointments; all were upon Him.
2. The compassionate Paul. Take Paul’s words as he saw the coming anguish of Israel. Paul said: “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
All will grant that the Apostle Paul was one of the greatest soul-winners of any age. May we not, therefore, also grant that one of the reasons for his success in winning men lay in his deep passion and compassion for men?
Listen, dear young people: We who would enter the field of service for God as winners of souls, must possess three great prerequisites:
(1) We must know the Person of Christ for our theme. Our conviction of His Deity and His ability to save must be paramount. We must know that “Calvary covered it all.” We must believe that the Gospel is the power of Christ unto salvation, to every one that believeth.
(2) We must be clothed with the power of Christ for our testimony. Our Lord said, “All power is given unto Me.” We must be surcharged with that all-power. We must, experimentally, know what it is to be filled with the Spirit. For Christ said, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
(3) We must be consumed with the passion of Christ for our testimony. We must have His longing for men. We must possess His deep fervor, until the zeal for our Father’s House eats us up, as His zeal ate Him up.
3. The compassionate Prophets. These men, for the great part, were endued with a longing that would not let them go. They pronounced many severe judgments from the Lord, but they pronounced them with tears. Their hearts ached for the people to whom they spake, and against whom they prophesied.
As we study the Prophets of the Old Testament, we are fired with a something that led them on. They spoke with authority, but they also spoke with a fire of conviction and of compassion that was given of God. Whether by life or by death; whether received, or rejected; they told their message as God endued men.
God give us more men like these saints and seers of old!
I. THE CITY SOLITARY (Lam 1:1)
1. The city and its past glory. Lam 1:1 says, “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” There is in these words a striking comparison of the present with the past. The city was formerly filled with people. The expression suggests its former throngs, who went about its crowded thoroughfares. Yes, Jerusalem was of old the glory of the whole earth. The queen of Sheba bore testimony that the half of its glory and wisdom had not been told.
2. The city and its desolation. Our verse says, “How doth the city sit solitary!” It says: “How is she become as a widow!” It says, “How is she become tributary!”
We have been in Jerusalem, ourselves. We have beheld its sorrows, its travail. Life itself seemed to be at a premium there. Dangers lurked at every corner. The population was divided into antagonistic groups. The Arabs and the Jews were at enmity. Within the old walls there was but little of the ancient beauty. The Mosque of Omar stands where the Temple of Solomon once stood. The narrow streets teem with unhappy crowds, pushing their way hither and thither. Small shops are everywhere. It is overrun with the Gentiles.
It is, indeed, solitary. Its influence hardly goes beyond its city walls. It counts for nothing in the great outside world. If it were not for the pilgrims who come and go, seeking to view the city where Christ once walked and taught; it would, indeed, be but little known.
II. A PEOPLE WHO KNOW NO REST (Lam 1:3)
1. Judah has gone into captivity. The world traveler finds the Jew wherever he goes. There is no land where he has not been driven. There is no place where he is not to be found. Our verse says, “She dwelleth among the heathen (the nations).” While many Jews are in Jerusalem and in Palestine yet they but number a small part of the land. Strangers dwell where they once were supreme. They themselves are not wanted in their own country. Alas, what a plight is theirs! They are not wanted at home, they are not wanted in most of Europe, in Russia, and in the world.
They wander about from land to land, from nation to nation. They feel themselves but exiles and strangers. Thank God the United States of America has been a friend to the Jews. However, even in our own beloved land there is a growing antipathy toward the Jews. God only knows what lies ahead. There are now many Jewish refugees fleeing from Europe; yet where shall they flee? Few are the open doors to welcome them.
2. She findeth no rest. The Prophet Jeremiah wrote for just such a day as this. If the Jew goes to any one place, he has no promise of a permanent home where he can dwell in peace.
Personally, we have no sympathy for the treatment that many nations are giving the Jews. However, we are not slow to admit that they, the Jews, are reaping what they have sowed.
3. Her persecutors overtake her in the straits. The Jews find themselves in a strait, with obstacles unsurmountable, only to be overtaken by her persecutors. She cannot defend herself, for she is unarmed and scattered. Had her persecutors come against her as of old when she was walking with God, and was a nation able to protect herself, it would be different. Now, however, Israel is in the straits. She is where she has no power of resistance.
III. THE LORD HATH AFFLICTED HER (Lam 1:5)
There are several things in our text that will bear consideration.
1. Her adversaries are her chief. Woe be to the individual, the city, the state, or the country, when those who hold sway are enemies! It cannot be true that our adversaries will seek our best welfare. Satan is our chief adversary. He goeth about seeking whom he may devour. He seeks to destroy, not to build up; to wreck and to ruin, not to save and to cherish.
2. The Lord hath afflicted her. Is is bad enough to have our enemies against us; however, when the Lord, our best Friend, is using the chastening rod against us, we cannot escape.
There is but one difference: the enemy attempts to lay us low; while the Lord seeks, by correction, to lift us up. Therefore, if God should ask us our choice as to whether we should fall into the power of the devil, or under the power of His rod, let us flee to the Lord every time.
The Lord may deal with us very forcefully for the time, yet in the end His correction is far better.
3. Her children are gone into captivity. Would that both saint and sinner would weigh well the cost of disobedience and sin before they choose that path. Does it ever pay to drift away from God? Does sin ever bring happiness? Is the way of the wicked ever the way of life and light?
It is not pleasant to be in captivity. Then let people shun sin.
It is not pleasant to suffer for our sins. Then let us shun sinful acts.
IV. HER BEAUTY IS DEPARTED (Lam 1:6)
1. Where God found Jerusalem. The Book of Ezekiel so marvelously tells of Israel’s beginning (chapter 16). Here are its words: “Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan.” It was there that God formed the people into a nation. Then God says: “As for thy nativity, * * thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person.”
All of us might do well to consider what we were until grace found us. We too were corrupt. From our feet to our head there was no soundness in us, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. We were sinners, in our sins.
2. What God did for Israel. The same chapter in Ezekiel says: “I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.” Then God entered into a covenant with her and she became His. Then He washed her with water, and anointed her with oil, and clothed her with all manner of fine linen.
All this the Lord did also unto us. He found us in our sins, and washed us with His Blood. Then He anointed us with the Spirit, and clothed us with the robes of His righteousness.
3. What Israel did with her beauty. She was made beautiful by Him; He was her beauty and her glory. Then she trusted in her beauty, and played the harlot with the nation among whom she dwelt. She took the jewels of silver and of gold that He had put upon her, and made idols. The truth is that Israel departed from the Lord her God. She even entered into the grossest of sin, and caused the Name of her Lord to be blasphemed wherever she went.
V. SHE HAS NO COMFORTER (Lam 1:9)
Things are piling up against Israel. Statement after statement, each one freighted with meaning, falls from the lips of God in her condemnation.
1. The pleasant things of old are ever before her. She remembereth, in the days of her sorrow and deprivations, her former glory. That glory now seems to mock her. The contrast between her present and her past staggers her. Was she not the joy of the whole earth-the chosen of the Lord? But now she is despised of men and set aside by God.
2. There are none to help her. She has fallen into the hands of her enemies, and she cries in vain for someone to pity her in her distress. Her former friends are her foes. Those she succored, forsake her. Even God has let her be trodden down by her enemies.
3. Her foes mock her. This is even worse. Our Lord is sympathetic with Israel, for He was mocked by His persecutors. They surrounded His Cross, wagging their heads and crying out against Him. Why, then, does He not arise to her help, as in the days of yore?
4. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed. God cannot help the ungodly. To forgive a heart that is rebellious, is only to encourage its evil ways. When Israel repents, then the Lord will be gracious unto her.
5. She has come down wonderfully. Her fall has been from the heights of favor and blessing, to the depths of despair and disgrace. All who look at her marvel at her shame. They measure the distance from her former estate to her present condition, and they say, “How is she * * that was great among the nations, * * become tributary!”
6. She has no comforter. Any sorrow may be borne, if there is someone near to aid and to cheer. God is the God of all comfort. Then why does He not comfort His fallen and beset people? Peter cursed and swore, and said, “I know not this Man of whom ye speak.” The Lord turned and looked at Peter. However, He permitted Peter to go out and weep bitterly. He permitted Peter to stand hard by the Cross, as He died, yet He gave him no word of forgiveness. Christ said to the thief who cried, “Remember me,” “To day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”; but to Peter He said nothing.
After the resurrection, however, the Lord appeared to Peter. He forgave Him and restored him. So has God, for the time, withheld from Israel His smile, and from Jerusalem His blessing. However, He will yet choose Jerusalem, and He shall yet save Israel. She who has no comforter, shall yet be comforted.
VI. IS IT NOTHING TO YOU? (Lam 1:12)
1. There was a weeping Israel. Here is the heart of Lam 1:11 : “All her people sigh.” What does this mean? Israel is weeping for her woes that have fallen upon her. She weepeth sore in the night. It is a sad day when Israel weeps and sighs. It is, however, a day filled with tokens of coming blessings.
In the Book of Judges we find Israel sinning, then God delivering her into the hands of her enemies. Then Israel cries unto the Lord, and He delivered her. Once more Israel is beginning to cry, with many tears. Soon her cry will cause the Lord to come down to rescue her.
2, There was the weeping Prophet. He too is weeping as he sees the calamities about to fall upon the chosen race. In his day, Israel’s defection from God was well on its way. God had spoken to Jeremiah of His coming judgments. The Prophet knew that the judgments were just and righteous; yet he grieved in his heart, knowing full well what God had said He would do.
3. There was the cry for sympathy. Here is the cry: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” That is the voice of Israel at this very moment. She is in sore affliction. The nations know of her plight, yet, for the most part, they are hedged in where they can do but little to help her in her need.
Ethiopia felt that way when she saw her country invaded, and her ancient lands being taken from her; Czechoslovakia felt that way when she saw a nation far stronger than she coming in to devastate her realm.
At this moment the Jews feel that way. But how do we feel? Is it nothing to us as we pass by? We see the sorrows of the Jews at this present moment. We know of the bitterness of the cup they are now drinking. Do we really care?
It should be something to us, in a most real sense. The Jews are the people of the Lord. They are ours, too. From them came our Lord, after the flesh; from them came the Prophets and the Apostles. We owe them much. We know that they, as a nation, have wandered from God. Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Peace be within her palaces.
VII. THE LORD IS RIGHTEOUS (Lam 1:18)
1. The Lord is righteous in His judgments because He knows the hearts of men. Man looks on the outward appearances, and may make mistakes in judgment. Man acts often upon wholly circumstantial evidence. With God it is different. The very thoughts of all hearts are open to God. Even the imaginations He can see. He knows our down-sitting and our uprising, and understandeth our thoughts afar off. There is not a word in our tongue but He knows it altogether.
God also knows the end of every word, or thought, or deed, at its beginning. He knows the fruitage of every evil way. He judges with the full results before Him.
This all means that God can make no mistake. There are no innocent victims who suffer falsely; there are no overpayments for sin. All judgments are just.
2. The Lord is righteous in judgments because He loves all men. Yes, He loves the very ones He punishes. It is “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” No individual and no race can say God punishes because He hates, or because His love is lukewarm.
God indeed commends His love to us while we are yet sinners. He died for the vilest of the vile, and is not willing that any should perish.
God’s love, however, does not mean that the sinner may expect to go free. God is just, as well as good. His love does not obstruct His justice.
3. The Lord is righteous in judgments because He is long-suffering in heart. After God has seen sin, He gives full time for repentance on the part of the sinner. We read: “The longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” Again we read, “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” The truth is, we have often wondered and marveled at God’s long waiting before His wrath falls. Even Israel was dealt with in all considerateness and patience.
Remember this, however: God’s long-suffering does not mean that His wrath will never fall. It is written, “My Spirit shall not always strive with men.” Again it is written, “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
Thus we must remember, in today’s study, that even in the midst of the tears over Israel’s calamities, the Prophet cried out, “The Lord is righteous.”
AN ILLUSTRATION
The illustration below of the boy and his pennies shows the supremacy in value of heart pity and love.
“A little boy, who had plenty of pennies, dropped one into the missionary box, laughing as he did so. He had no thought in his heart about Jesus, the heathen, or the missionary. His was a tin penny; it was as light as a scrap of tin. Another boy put a penny in, and as he did so looked round with a self-applauding gaze, as if he had done some great thing. His was a brass penny; it was not the gift of a ‘lowly heart,’ but of a proud spirit. A third boy gave a penny, saying to himself, ‘I suppose I must, as all others do.’ That was an iron penny; it was the gift of a cold, hard heart. As a fourth boy dropped his penny into the box he shed a tear, and his heart said, ‘Poor heathens! I’m sorry they are so poor, so ignorant, and so miserable.’ That was a silver penny; it was the gift of a heart full of pity. But there was one scholar who gave his penny with a throbbing heart, saying to himself: ‘For Thy sake, O loving Jesus, I give this penny, hoping that the poor heathen, whom Thou lovest, will believe on Thee, and become Thy disciples.’ That was a golden penny, because it was the gift of love. How many give golden pennies? ‘For love’s sake’ (Phm 1:9). ‘Love is of God’ (1Jn 4:7). He loved-we love.”
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Lam 1:1. This hook consists chiefly of the lamentations of Jeremiah over the sad condition of Jerusalem and the people for whom it was the capital. The book was written after the destruction of the city and thus after the “3rd captivity.” In view of this fact all of the statements regarding that event should be regarded as history. Other remarks will occur in course of the book that are mournful predictions of future sorrows in store for his beloved people. Some statements will be made concerning the future of Babylon, and still others will come of a favorable character pertaining to the return of Israel from captivity. City sit solitary refers to the desolated and isolated situation of Jerusalem. This very condition was predicted in Isa 1:3. Become tributary means to become in subjection to another country.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The touching significance of this book lies in the fact that it is the disclosure of the love and sorrow of Jehovah for the very people He is chastening a sorrow wrought by the Spirit in the heart of Jeremiah. Compare Jer 13:7; Mat 23:36-38; and Rom 9:1-5. – Scofield Reference Bible As regards its external structure, the composition of the book, both as a whole and in its several parts, is so artistic, that anything like it can hardly be found in any other book of Holy Scriptures. Langes Commentary
In the first place it contains just five songs, each limited to a single chapter. In the second place, there is a marked climax in the third song, with an ascent and a descent, a crescendo and decrescendo movement before and after it. About the middle of this song at verse eighteen, the prophet seems to have reached the deepest night of his misery, but where the exigency is greatest, help is nearest. The night is succeeded by the morning (Lam 1:19-21), and with Lam 1:22 breaks the full day.
Each of the songs contains twenty-two verses according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet; in other words, it is an acrostic a favorite form of Hebrew poetry. But in the third song each verse is divided into three members making in our English setting sixty-six verses. Other of its poetical features we cannot dwell upon.
LAMENTATIONS ANALYSIS OF THE CHAPTERS
In chapter 1 the lament is over the ruin of Jerusalem and Judah, and is divided into two parts of equal length. The first is a description of the city, and the second the lamentation strictly considered. In both the speaker is the prophet himself (or an ideal person like the daughter of Zion, for example).
In chapter 2, the lament is over the destruction of the city, which is described and attributed to Jehovah. This also is in two nearly even sections. Lam 2:1-10 describe the judgment; Lam 2:12-22 are the lamentation proper.
In chapter 3 is the climax where Israels brighter day is contrasted with the gloomy night of sorrow experienced by the prophet himself. There are three parts in this chapter, divided as follows: Lam 3:1-66.
In chapter 4, Zions guilt and punishment are described, the whole consisting of four parts which will be readily distinguished as Lam 4:1-6; Lam 4:7-11; Lam 4:12-16; Lam 4:17-22.
In chapter 5, the distress and hope of the prisoners and fugitives are expressed in the form of a prayer. Here the author lets the people speak, not as an ideal person but in the first person plural as a concrete multitude. There is an introduction (v. 1), two principal parts, Lam 5:2-7 and Lam 5:8-16, and a conclusion, Lam 5:17-22.
GOLDEN TEXTS
There are some richly laden verses in this beautiful book, full of comfort and instruction for the saint and of homiletic value to the preacher. We indicate a few: Lam 1:12; Lam 1:16; Lam 2:13; Lam 2:14; Lam 3:21-26; Lam 3:31-33; Lam 3:37; Lam 3:39-41; Lam 5:7; Lam 5:16-17; Lam 5:21.
QUESTIONS
1. What fact gives this book peculiar significance?
2. Have you read Rom 11:1-5?
3. How does the literary structure of this book compare with other Scriptures?
4. Describe the third song.
5. What is an acrostic?
6. Have you memorized any of the Golden Texts?
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Lam 1:1. How doth the city sit solitary The short history of the desolations of the Jewish nation, contained in the fifty-second chapter of Jeremiah, formerly stood as a preface to the Lamentations; but, instead of it, the Greek and Latin copies have a short introduction, which may be thus translated: And it came to pass after that Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said, How, &c. The book being undoubtedly poetical, as a specimen of the kind of poetry which it contains, the reader is here presented with Blaneys translation of the first stanza.
How does she sit solitary, the city that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations! She that was sovereign over provinces, is become tributary!
Jerusalem is here represented as a weeping female, sitting solitary on the ground without any attendant or comforter, the multitude of her inhabitants being dispersed or destroyed. It is remarkable, that in times similar to this, that is, in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian, a coin was struck, on which Judea is represented under the image of a woman sitting in tears beneath a palm-tree. How is she become as a widow! &c. Cities are commonly described as the mothers of their inhabitants, and their kings and princes as their husbands: so, when they are bereaved of these, they are said to be widows and childless. Thus Jerusalem, having lost her king and people, and being forsaken of her God, who was in a peculiar sense a husband to her, is here represented as sitting alone in that pensive melancholy condition. She that was great among the nations, &c. The kings of Judah, in their flourishing state, extended their conquests over the Philistines, Edomites, and other neighbouring countries; and by thus enlarging their dominions, greatly advanced the power of the metropolis of their kingdom. But now, being under subjection to the king of Babylon, and forced to pay tribute to him, she was made no more account of than any other city under the same yoke: see Calmet and Lowth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
This chapter is composed in the acrostic character. Each verse begins with the Hebrew letters in alphabetical order; that is to say, the first begins with aleph, the second with beth; and each verse contains three hemistichs, with the exception of Lam 1:1; Lam 1:19, which have four. The composition surpasses encomium, because the heart of the poet so acted as to touch the heart of the reader. The ideas and the figures are of the first style of composition. The words are laconic, as those of David: Oh Absalom, my son, my son. Such is the character of grief.
The following verse we sometimes find at the head of this book, introduced expletively.And it came to pass, after that Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said,
Lam 1:1. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people. A desecrated city without inhabitant is justly introduced as the first cause of sorrow: all was once regal and festive joy, now all is gloom and desolation.
Lam 1:4. The ways of Zion mourn. No joyful festivals, no train of worshippers entering at every gate, and cheering their accustomed dwellingplaces. No feasts with wine to gladden the heart, no animating worship in the temple, no fire on the altar to take away sin, no music, no virgin voices accompanying the psalms, no faithful prophets to preach to the people. All is mournful silence, and deathful gloom.
Lam 1:7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her afflictionall her pleasant things. Her mansions, her gardens, her splendour, and the brilliant sphere in which she had moved. The poor had not far to fall, but the feelings of the rich were exquisite.
Lam 1:8-9. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned. The impurity of her idolatries is now discovered. This is the answer to the enquiries in the first verse, and this is heavens defence for afflicting her. Come hither then, all ye writers of elegies, who eulogize the spotless dead. Come hither then, all ye Flecheres, who make orations for princes; and ye humbler preachers of funeral sermons. Where is there one of you who dares to talk of Zions sins? If your tongues are venal, how can you stand in presence of the prophetshow in presence of God!
Lam 1:12. See if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. These words designate the sublime of grief. Jeremiah identifies himself with Zion. Many cities have been destroyed in war; but what city had fallen from Zions glory? What sorrow could be compared to hers? The touchstone of the prophets grief arose from joining his sorrows with those of Christ, who expressed the like sentiments in the garden.
Lam 1:18. My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. A disconsolate mother, without a child to wipe her tears. She called for her allies and lovers, but none durst appear. The heathen poets abound with examples of mourners, but all are irrelevant; they apply not to the woes of Zion.
REFLECTIONS.
Jeremiah was forbidden to marry, because of the calamities approaching his country; yet he called the people his children, and bewails them as lost. It has always been the character of genuine piety to sympathize with the afflicted, and to pray for their good. We should weep that the wicked may weep for themselves. Tears flowed plentifully by the waters of Babylon, Psalms 137., when they remembered their former good things and their glory; and had they wept earlier for their sins, these calamities would not have come.
The friendship of the wicked is founded on pleasure and interest; for they are lovers of themselves. Hence when Judah was in trouble, all her lovers forsook her. So it was with Babylon when her day was come, and so it was with the prodigal when his money was spent. Let us therefore seek acquaintance with the friend that sticketh closer than a brother. He will never leave us in the time of trouble; and when dangers have surrounded his church, he has always appeared in due time for her salvation.
In this chapter, and in other parts of the poem, there is a frequent recurrence to sin as the cause of Israels calamities. It is the abomination which maketh both the sanctuary and the soul a desolation. It is a blight which withers the most hopeful aspects, and causes the glory of grace to enshroud itself in thickest darkness. Let the ruins of Zion instruct the christian church, and awe us in the hour of temptation. The consideration of sin should enlighten our prayers when we deprecate the calamities of war; for every nation should fear God; then the paternal corrections of his own hand would be deemed sufficient. He would not suffer the sword of an enemy to correct the errors of his people; for he is the righteous Lord of heaven and earth.
The chapter closes with a curse against Babylon, the author of Judahs ruin: but as has been frequently observed of the curses in the psalms, it is purely predictive. It does not exclude repentance, and the turning away of Gods fierce indignation. The king of Babylon is called, as was Cyrus and also the Messiah, the Lords anointed. The Chaldeans had their commission signed in heaven; but they corrupted it through pride, through revenge, and with a bloody hand. Hence, in due time, it was right that God should commission the Medes to do unto Babylon as Babylon had done to Judah. The curse is purely the language of justice, and it associates with the cry of the martyrs. How long, Holy and True, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lamentations 1. The First Lament.This is an alphabetical acrostic poem in twenty-two stanzas of three lines each, with five Heb. beats in each line. It has two equal parts: Lam 1:1-11 (Aleph to Kaph), the singers account of Zions sorrows, and Lam 1:12-22 (Lamedh to Tau), a soliloquy thereon by the city herself. In detail: Lam 1:1-6 tells of a Zion once populous, now widowed; her nights full of weeping, unconsoled by former lovers who are now all faithless. The people have migrated, to escape taxings (note that they are not exiled, as had been the case in 586 B.C.), but even abroad they are harried; no pilgrims are thronging the roads, as they had been wont to do in the days of the Ptolemies rule (300200 B.C.), but they did not do so in Jeremiahs time; priests, virgins, children wander about moaning; princes and all grandeur have fled away. And, alas! it is Yahweh Himself who has wrought all this scourging of Zion: it is for her sin.
Lam 1:1. How (cf. Lam 2:1, Lam 4:1, and Isa 1:21; Isa 14:4): the book takes its Heb. name (Eykah) from this its first word.Medinah (pl. medinoth), (see Introd.) is used only in late writings, except in 1 Kings 20, where it is difficult to avoid thinking that there the word is misspelt for Midianite.
Lam 1:4. Moedh, Trysting-place or solemn assembly (see Introd.).
Lam 1:6 seems like an echo of Psalms 42, which is probably the wail of Onias II, High Priest in 175 B.C.
Lam 1:7-11. A story of Zions worst sorrow, which is her own sense of sin, and her sighing and depression over it.
Lam 1:7. Delete in, and read, Zion remembers the days of her affliction. The line, All her pleasant . . . of old is a comment written on the margin by some reader and afterwards copied into the text as if original: we decide thus because it would be a fourth line in the stanza, whereas regularly the stanzas have only three lines; besides it spoils the sense.
Lam 1:9. Read, the hinder parts of the filthy skirts, instead of the latter end.
Lam 1:10. The third line speaks of entering into thy congregation, which may be a late churchly addition. The verse seems, to the present writer, to concern the sacrilege of Pompeyand of Antiochusin entering the Temple.
Lam 1:12-19. Zion moans before Yahweh: first confessing her sin, then appealing to every passer-by to see how her hurt is worse than any that has ever been before. Yahwehs fierce anger has burned her, trapped her, loaded her to the neck with woes. Although He is the indwelling Lord, yet He has dishonoured all her leaders, has summoned a solemn sanctuary meeting (Moedh) to condemn her; and all her choice young lives are to die. But the sentence is just: she confesses she has been unfaithful.
Lam 1:12. By a copyists repetition of one letter, the displacement of another, and the insertion of a tiny one to save space, the text has, Is it nothing to you? instead of the correct sense, Therefore ho! all ye.
Lam 1:14 is difficult: we need not state all particulars, but should read:
He has set Himself as a watch over my sin,
Which thro His power is going to get twisted into a rope to bind me:
By His yoke on my neck He has made my strength fail.
The lordly one has given me into such hands,
That never shall I be able to rise again.
Lam 1:16. My eye is written twice by mistake, spoiling the metre.
Lam 1:19. The false lovers are said to be the priests and elders: this was not possible in Jeremiahs time or anywhere near it, but was exactly the condition in the last two centuries B.C.
Lam 1:20-22 is Zions prayer for mercy: Will not Yahweh see her repentance, and regard her inconsolable mourning? But what then? Is He simply to relieve her pain? Oh no, her cry now is, May He work revenge on her oppressors, who are exulting because He has fulfilled on her His righteous sentence. May they too be so treated: and under His swiftly falling blows may they writhe! Such, then, was the spirit of even the best men in Judah just before Jesus rose to preach His gospel of forgiveness. We see here the treatment they were ready to give Him, when He brought them good. And this was the soil on which He sprang: such were the audiences He sought to change and save.
Lam 1:20. there is as death: read, death has utterly ended all.
Lam 1:21. They have heard should be, Hear ye, for the Hebrew lack of vowels has caused a slip in the ordinary translation. The verse should run, by making one or two transpositions, Thou has brought the day that Thou proclaimedst.
As we leave the song, let us note how the darkest, gloomy wailing is in the earlier verses, but towards the end Zion is pictured as more confident of Yahwehs help, and more defiant towards her enemies. Then this defiance culminates in the spirit of utter cruelty in the closing stanzas. How wonderful was the faith of those poor oppressed Jews before Jesus came! They could never dream of an annihilation of their nation. In the course of the long ages they had risen wonderfully to a strong grip on an eternal life, and a doctrine that they were by and by to rule all the world. This Lament shows us vividly the agonies that surrounded Nazareth, and also the follies that were cherished amid the sorrows. Men needed a Consolation for Israel, and they felt sure that such would come. These singers are a picture of the audiences to whom Jesus spoke.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
1:1 How doth {a} the city sit desolate, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the nations, {b} [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she become a slave!
(a) The prophet wonders at the great judgment of God, seeing Jerusalem, which was so strong and so full of people, to be now destroyed and desolate.
(b) Who had chief rule over many provinces and countries.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
A. An observer’s sorrow over Jerusalem’s condition 1:1-11
Jeremiah first viewed Jerusalem’s destruction as an outsider looking in. Lam 1:1-7 describe the extent of the desolation and Lam 1:8-11 its cause.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
1. The extent of the devastation 1:1-7
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Jeremiah bewailed the abandoned city of Jerusalem that had once been so glorious and independent. Sitting alone is sometimes a picture of deep sorrow and mourning (cf. Lam 2:10; Ezr 9:3; Neh 1:4). Now the city was as solitary as a widow and as servile as a forced laborer. It had changed in three ways: numerically, economically, and socially.
"Jerusalem, a city which used to be close to God, has been changed by the choice of significant men. They have turned away from Him when they knew Him, and now their city is under siege. There is death in the city." [Note: Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City, pp. 17-18.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
DESOLATION
Lam 1:1-7
THE first elegy is devoted to moving pictures of the desolation of Jerusalem and the sufferings of her people. It dwells upon these disasters themselves, with fewer references to the causes of them or the hope of any remedy than are to be found in the subsequent poems, simply to express the misery of the whole story. Thus it is in the truest sense of the word a “Lamentation.” It naturally divides itself into two parts-one with the poet speaking in his own person, {Lam 1:1-11} the other representing the deserted city herself appealing to passing strangers and neighbouring nations, and lastly to God, to take note of her woes. {Lam 1:12-22}
The poem opens with a very beautiful passage in which we have a comparison of Jerusalem to a widow bereft of her children, sitting solitary in the night, weeping sorely. It would not be just to read into the image of widowhood ideas collected from utterances of the prophets about the wedded union of Israel and her Lord; we have no hint of anything of the sort here. Apparently the image is selected in order to express the more vividly the utter lonesomeness of the city. It is clear that the attribute “solitary” has no bearing on the external relations of Jerusalem-her isolation among the Syrian hills, or the desertion of her allies, mentioned a little later; {Lam 1:2} it points to a more ghostly solitude, streets without traffic, tenantless houses. The widow is solitary because she has been robbed of her children. And in this, her desolation, she sits. The attitude, so simple and natural and easy under ordinary circumstances, here suggests a settled continuance of wretchedness; it is helpless and hopeless. The first wild agony of the severance of the closest natural ties has passed, and with it the stimulus of conflict; now there has supervened the dull monotony of despair. This is the lowest depth of misery, because it allows leisure when leisure is least welcome, because it gives the reins to the imagination to roam over regions of heart-rending memory or sombre apprehension, above all because there is nothing to be done, so that the whole range of consciousness is abandoned to pain. Many a sufferer has been saved by the healing ministry of active duties, sometimes resented as an intrusion. It is a fearful thing simply to sit in sorrow.
The mourner sits in the night, while the world around lies in the peace of sleep. The darkness has fallen, yet she does not stir, for day and night are alike to her-both dark. She is statuesque in sorrow, petrified by pain, and yet unhappily not dead; benumbed, but alive in every sensitive fibre of her being and terribly awake. In this dread night of misery her one occupation is weeping. The mourner knows how the hidden fountains of tears which have been sealed to the world for the day will break out in the silent solitude of night; then the bravest will “wet his couch with his tears.” The forlorn woman “weepeth sore”; to use the expressive Hebraism, “weeping she weepeth.” “Her tears are on her cheeks”; they are continually flowing; she has no thought of drying them; there is no one else to wipe them away. This is not the frantic torrent of youthful tears, soon to be forgotten in sudden sunshine, like a spring shower; it is the dreary winter rain, falling more silently, but from leaden clouds that never break. The Hebrew poets picture is illustrated with singular aptness by a Roman coin, struck off in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem by the army of Titus, which represents a woman seated under a palm tree with the legend Judaea capta. Is it too much to imagine that some Greek artist attached to the court of Vespasian may have borrowed the idea for the coin from the Septuagint version of this very passage?
The woe of Jerusalem is intensified by reason of its contrast with the previous splendour of the proud city. She had not always appeared as a lonely widow. Formerly she had held a high place among the neighbouring nations-for did she not cherish memories of the great days of her shepherd king and Solomon the magnificent? Then she ruled provinces; now she is herself tributary. She had lovers in the old times-a fact which points to faults of character not further pursued at present. How opposite is the utterly deserted state into which she is now sunk! This thought of a tremendous fall gives the greatest force to the portrait. It is Rembrandtesque; the black shadows on the foreground are the deeper because they stand sharply out against the brilliant radiance that streams in from the sunset of the past. The pitiableness of the comfortless present lies in this, that there had been lovers whose consolations would now have been a solace; the bitterness of the enmity now experienced is its having been distilled from the dregs of poisoned friendship. Against the protests of her faithful prophets Jerusalem had courted alliance with her heathen neighbours only to be cruelly deserted in her hour of need. It is the old story of friendship with the world, keenly accentuated in the life of Israel, because this favoured people had already seen glimpses of a rich, rare privilege, the friendship of Heaven. This is the irony of the situation: it is the tragic irony of all Hebrew history. Why were these people so blindly infatuated that they would be perpetually forsaking the living waters, and hewing out to themselves broken cisterns that could hold no water? The question is only surpassed by that of the similar folly on the part of those of us who follow their example in spite of the warning their fate affords, failing to see that true friendship is too exacting for ties spun from mere convenience or superficial pleasantness to bear the strain of its more serious claims.
Passing on from the poetic image to a more direct view of the drear facts of the case, the author describes the hardships of the fugitives-people who had fled to Egypt, the retreat of Jeremiah and his companions. This must be the bearing of the passage which our translators render-
“Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude.”
For if the topic were the captivity at Babylon it would be difficult to see how “affliction” and “great servitude” could be treated as the causes of that disaster; were they not rather its effects? Two solutions of this difficulty have been proposed. It has been suggested that the captivity is here presented as a consequence of the misconduct of the Jews in oppressing peoples subject to them. But the abstract words will not readily bear any such meaning; we should have expected some more explicit charge. Then it has been proposed to read the words “out of affliction,” etc., in place of the phrase “because of affliction,” etc., as though in escaping from trouble at home the Jews had only passed into a new misfortune abroad. This is not so simple an explanation of the poets language as that at which we arrive by the perfectly legitimate substitution of the word “exile” for “captivity.” It may seem strange that the statement should be affirmed of “Judah,” as though the whole nation had escaped to Egypt; but it would be equally inexact to say that “Judah” was carried captive to Babylon, seeing that only a selection from the upper classes was deported, while the majority of the people was probably left in the land. But so many of the Jews, especially those best known to the poet, were in voluntary exile, that it was quite natural for him to regard them as virtually the nation. Now upon these refugees three troubles fall. First, the asylum is a heathen country, abominable to pious Israelites. Second, even here the fugitives have no rest; they are not allowed to settle down; they are perpetually molested. Third, on the way thither they are harassed by the enemy. They are overtaken by pursuers “within the straits,” a statement which may be read literally; bands of Chaldaeans would hover about the mountains, ready to pounce upon the disorganised groups of fugitives as they made their way through the narrow defiles that led out of the hill country to the southern plains. But the phrase is a familiar Hebraism for difficulties generally. No doubt it was true of the Jews in this larger sense that their opponents took advantage of their straitened circumstances to vex them in every possible way. This is just in accordance with the common experience of mankind all the world over. But while the fact of the experience is obvious, the inference to which it points like an arrow is obstinately eluded. Thus a commercial man in financial straits loses his credit at the very moment when he most needs it. We cannot say that this is a proof of spite, or even a sign of cynical indifference; because the needy person is really most untrustworthy, though his moral integrity may be unshaken, seeing that his circumstances make it probable that he will be unable to fulfil his obligations. But now it is the deeper significance of this fact that is so persistently ignored. There is perceptible at times in nature a law of compensation by the operation of which misfortune is mitigated; but that merciful law is frequently thwarted by the overbearing influence of the terrible law of the “survival of the fittest,” the gospel of the fortunate, but the death-knell for all failures. If this is so in nature, much more does it obtain in human society so long as selfish greed is unchecked by higher principles. Then the world, the Godless world, can be no asylum for the miserable and unfortunate, because it will be hard upon them in exact proportion to the extremity of their necessities. Moreover, the perception that this bitter truth is not a fruit of temporary passions which may be restrained by education, but the outcome of certain persistent principles which cannot be set aside while society retains its present constitution, gives to it the adamantine strength of destiny.
Coming nearer to the city in his mental vision, the poet next bewails deserted roads; “those ways of Zion” up which the holiday folks used to troop, clad in gay garments, with songs of rejoicing, are left so lonely that it seems as though they themselves must be mourning. It is in keeping with the imagery of these poems which personify the city, to endow the very roads with fancied consciousness. This is a natural result of intense emotion, and therefore a witness to its very intensity. It seems as though the very earth must share in the feelings of the man whose heart is stirred to its depths; as though all things must be filled with the passion the waves of which flow out to the horizon of his consciousness, till the very stones cry out.
As he approaches the city, the poet is struck with a strange, sad sight. There are no people about the gates; yet here, if anywhere, we should expect to meet not only travellers passing through, but also groups of men, merchants at their traffic, arbitrators settling disputes, friends exchanging confidences, idlers lounging about and chewing the cud of the latest gossip, beggars whining for alms; for by the gates are markets, al fresco tribunals, open spaces for public meetings. Formerly the life of the city was here concentrated; now no trace of life is to be seen even at these social ganglia. The desertion and silence of the gateways gives a shock of distress to the visitor on entering the ruined city. More disappointments await him within the walls. Still keeping in mind the idea of the national festivals, and accompanying the course of them in imagination, the poet goes up to the temple. No services are proceeding; any priests who may be found still haunting the precincts of the charred ruins can only sigh over their enforced idleness; the girl-choristers whose voices would ring through the porticoes in the old times, are silent and desolate, for their mother, Jerusalem, is herself “in bitterness.”
In this part of the elegy our attention is directed to the cessation of the happy national assemblies with their accompaniment of public worship in songs of praise for harvest and vintage and in the awful symbolism of the altar. The name “Zion” was associated with two things, festivity and worship. It was a happy privilege for Israel to have had the inspired insight as well as the courage of faith to realise the conjunction. Even with the fuller light and larger liberty of Christianity it is rarely acknowledged among us. Our services have too much of the funeral dirge about them. The devout Israelite reserved his dirge for the death of his worship. It does not seem to have occurred to the poet that anybody could come to regard worship as an irksome duty from which he would gladly be liberated. Are we, then, to suppose that the Israelites who practised the crude cult that was prevalent before the Exile, even among the true servants of Jehovah, were indeed more devout than Christians who enjoy the privileges of their richer revelation? Scarcely so; for it must be remembered that we are called to a more spiritual and therefore a more difficult worship. Inward sincerity is here of supreme importance; if this is missing there is no worship, and without it the miserable unreality becomes inexpressibly wearisome. No doubt it is the failure to reach the rare altitude of its lofty ideal that makes Christian worship to appear in the eyes of many to be a melancholy performance. But this explanation should not be permitted to obscure the fact that true, living, spiritual worship must be a very delightful exercise of the soul. Perhaps one reason why this truth is not sufficiently appreciated may be found in the very facility with which the outward means of worship are presented to us. People who are seldom out of the sound of church bells are inclined to grow deaf to their significance. The Roman Christian hunted in the catacombs, the Waldensian hiding in his mountain cave, the Covenanter meeting his fellow members of the kirk in a remote highland glen, the backwoodsman walking fifty miles to attend Divine service once in six months, are led by difficulty and deprivation to perceive the value of public worship in a degree which is surprising to people among whom it is merely an incident of everyday life. When Zion was in ashes the memory of her festivals was encircled with a halo of regret.
In accordance with the principle of construction which he follows throughout-the heightening of the effect of the picture by presenting a succession of contrasts-the poet next sets the prosperity of the enemies of Jerusalem in close juxtaposition to the misery of those of her people in whom it is most pitiable and startling, the children and the princes. Men with any heart in them would wish above all things that the innocent young members of their families should be spared; yet the captives carried off to Babylon consisted principally of boys and girls torn from their homes, conveyed hundreds of miles across the desert, many of them dragged down to hideous degradation by the vices that luxuriated in the corrupt empire of the Euphrates. The other class of victims specially commented on is that of the princes. Not only is the present humiliation of the nobility in sharp contrast to their former elevation of rank, and therefore their sufferings the more acute, but it is also to be observed that their old position of leadership has been completely reversed. The reference must be to Zedekiah and his courtiers. {Jer 39:4-5} These proud princes who formerly exercised command over the multitude have become a shameful flock of fugitives. In the expressive image of the poet, they are compared to “harts that find no pasture”; they are like fleet wild deer, so cowed by hunger that they meekly permit themselves to be driven by their enemies just as if they were a herd of tame cattle.
In the middle of this comparison between the success of the conquerors and the fate of their victims the poet inserts a pregnant sentence which suddenly carries us off to regions of far more profound reflection, touching upon the two sources of the ruin of Jerusalem that lie behind the visible hand of Nebuchadnezzar and his hosts, her own sin and the consequent wrath of her God. It flashes out as a momentary thought, and then retires with equal suddenness, permitting the previous current of reflections to be resumed as though unaffected by the startling interruption. This thought will reappear, however, with increasing fulness, shewing that it is always present to the mind of the poet and ready to come to the surface at any moment, even when it would seem to be inappropriate, although it can never be really inappropriate, because it is the key to the mystery of the whole tragedy.
Lastly, while the sense of a strong contrast is excited objectively by a comparison of the placid security of the invaders with the degradation of the fugitives, subjectively it is most vividly realised by the sufferers themselves when they call to mind their former happiness. Jerusalem is supposed to fall into a reverie in which she follows the recollection of the whole series of her pleasant experiences from far-off bygone times through all the succeeding ages down to the present era of calamities. This is to indulge in the pains of memory-pains which are decidedly more acute than the corresponding pleasures celebrated by Samuel Rogers. These pains are doubly intense owing to the inevitable fact that the contrast is unnaturally strained. Viewed in the softened lights of memory, the past is strangely simplified, its mixed character is forgotten, and many of its unpleasant features are smoothed out, so that an idyllic charm hovers over the dream, and lends it an unearthly beauty. This is why so many people foolishly damp the hopes of children, who, if they are healthily constituted, ought to be anticipating the future with eagerness, by solemnly exhorting them to make hay while the sun shines, with the gloomy warning that the sunny season must soon pass. Their application of the motto carpe diem is not only pagan in spirit; it is founded on an illusion. Happily there is some unreality about most of our yearning regrets for the days that have gone. That sweet, fair past was not so radiant as its effigy in the dreamland of memory now appears to be; nor is the hard present so free from mitigating circumstances as we suppose. And yet, when all is said, we cannot find the consolation we hunger after in hours of darkness among bare conclusions of common-sense. The grave is not an illusion, at least when only viewed in the light of the past-though even this chill, earthly reality begins to melt into a shadow immediately the light of the eternal future falls upon it. The melancholy that laments the lost past can only be perfectly mastered by that Christian grace, the hope which presses forward to a better future.