Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 3:51
Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
51. affecteth my soul ] The inflammation of eyes caused by continual weeping, or, better, the sights of misery on which he looks, add to his mental suffering.
the daughters of my city ] either those whose untoward fate has been already lamented (Lam 1:4; Lam 1:18, Lam 2:10; Lam 2:21), or the villages, daughter towns of Jerusalem. For this sense cp. (with mg.) Num 21:25; Jos 17:11. In Psa 48:11 “daughters” has the same sense.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 51. Mine eye affecteth mine heart] What I see I feel. I see nothing but misery; and I feel, in consequence, nothing but pain. There have been various translations of the original: but they all amount to this.
The daughters of my city.] The villages about Jerusalem.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The eye and the ear are those organs of the body, by which the soul exerciseth its senses to bring in all objects, whether pleasant or sad, to the understanding to judge of them, according to the judgment of which upon them it is affected with joy or sorrow, desire or aversation, &c.; and the eye is the chiefest of these, because its evidence is more certain, and less subject to deceit. The prophet and most of the Jews were eye-witnesses to the evils which had befallen the Jews, and which at present were upon them; so as their hearts were the more affected. The word translated
affect is by some noted to signify to waste and consume, which are the effects of a deep affecting the heart with sad and miserable objects. Because of all the daughters of my city: our margin tells us that it may be also read more than all the daughters of my city; according to which the sense is, that he was more affected with the state of Jerusalem than the tenderest woman that had lived in it: but it is as well, if not better, in this place rendered causally, showing the reason of his deep affliction, viz. all those miseries he had seen fall upon all the Jewish nation, or upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
51. eye affecteth mine heartthatis, causeth me grief with continual tears; or, “affecteth mylife” (literally, “soul,” Margin), thatis, my health [GROTIUS].
daughters of . . . citythetowns around, dependencies of Jerusalem, taken by the foe.
Tzaddi.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Mine eye affecteth mine heart,…. Seeing the desolation of his country; the ruins of the city and temple of Jerusalem; and the multitudes of those that were slain, and carried captive; and the distresses the rest were in; this affected his heart, and filled it with grief; as his heart also affected his eyes, and caused them to run down in rivers of water, as before expressed; or, as the Targum,
“the weeping of mine eyes is the occasion of hurt to my soul or life;”
his excessive weeping endangered his life:
because of all the daughters of my city; not Anathoth, his native place, but Jerusalem; so the Targum,
“of Jerusalem my city.”
The meaning is, that his heart was affected at seeing the ruin of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; or of the towns and cities round about it, which that was the metropolis of. Some, as Jarchi, render it, “more than all the daughters of my city” p; his heart was more affected with those calamities than those of the most tender sex, even than any or all of them.
p “supra cunctas filias civitatis meae”; so some in Vatablus; and Jarchi.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Lam 3:51, taken literally, runs thus: “Mine eye does evil to my soul” ( with signifies to inflict an injury on one, cause suffering, as in Lam 1:2, Lam 1:22; Lam 2:20), i.e., it causes pain to the soul, as the Chaldee has already paraphrased it. The expression does not merely signify “causes me grief” (Thenius, Gerlach); but the eye, weakened through incessant weeping, causes pain to the soul, inasmuch as the pain in the eye increases the pain in the soul, i.e., heightens the pain of the soul through the superaddition of physical pain (Ngelsbach). Ewald has quite missed the meaning of the verse in his translation, “Tears assail my soul,” and in his explanatory remark that is used in a bad sense, like the Latin afficit ; for, if had this meaning, could not stand for tears, because it is not the tears, but only the eyes weakened by weeping, that affect the soul with pain. Ewald is also wrong in seeking, with Grotius, to understand “the daughters of my city” as signifying the country towns, and to explain the phrase by referring to Lam 2:22. For, apart from the consideration that the appeal to Lam 2:22 rests on a false conception of that passage, the meaning attributed to the present verse is shown to be untenable by the very fact that the expression “daughters of my city” is never used for the daughter-towns of Jerusalem; and such a designation, however possible it might be in itself, would yet be quite incomprehensible in this present connection, where there is no other subject of lamentation, either before or after, than Jerusalem in its ruined condition, and the remnant of its inhabitants (Gerlach). “The daughters of my city” are the daughters of Jerusalem, the female portion of the inhabitants of the city before and after its destruction. Nor will what is added, “because of the daughters of my city,” seem strange, if we consider that, even in Lam 1:4, Lam 1:18 and Lam 2:20-21, the fate and the wretched condition of the virgins of the city are mentioned as peculiarly deplorable, and that, in fact, the defenceless virgins were most to be pitied when the city fell; cf. Lam 5:11. But the objection of Bttcher and Thenius, that forms a harsh construction, whether we view it grammatically or in the light of the circumstances, inasmuch as , after “mine eye pains me,” is unsuitable, whether taken in a causal or a comparative meaning: – this objection, certainly, has some truth in its favour, and tells against any attempt to take the words as indicating a comparison. but there is nothing against the causal meaning, if “mine eyes causes pain to my soul” merely signifies “my eye pains me,” because the pain of the eye is the result of the profuse weeping. If those words, however, possess the meaning we have given above (the pain in the eyes increases the smart in the soul), then there is nothing strange at all in the thought, “The evil condition of the daughters of my city is so deplorable, that mine eyes fail through weeping, and the sorrow of my soul is thereby intensified.” Gerlach has already refuted, though more fully than was necessary, the conjecture of Bttcher, that should be changed into (from all the weeping of my city).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
He had said, that his eye flowed down, and then, that it was like a fountain, from which many streams or rivers flowed: he now adopts another mode of speaking, that his eyes grieved his soul; and it is a sign of the greatest sorrow when he who weeps seeks some relief, and is at the same time overpowered by that external feeling. For many indulge in grief and inflame themselves; then the soul of man is like a fan to rouse the burning. But when we weep and our eyes shed tears, and when the mind in a manner exhausts itself, it is a proof of the greatest grief. And this great. grief Jeremiah wished to express by saying, that his eye troubled or grieved his soul
The latter part is explained in two ways: sonic render thus, “Because of all the daughters of my city.” But though this meaning is generally taken, I yet prefer the opinion of those who render the words thus, “More than all the daughters of my city,” for מן, men, denotes a comparison, as it is also a causative. He says, then, that he was given to grief more than all the young women. As the female sex, as it is well known, are more tender and softer than men, the Prophet amplifies his lamentation by this comparison, that in weeping he exceeded all the young women of the city, so that he had almost forgotten his manhood. Had he said, the daughters of the people, it might be explained as before, as referring either to the cities, or to the whole people, that is, the whole community. But when he mentions all the daughters of his city, I cannot otherwise take the passage but as setting forth a comparison, that is, that he could not moderate his grief, but was so seized with it as women are, and also young girls, whose hearts, as it has been already said, are still more tender. (200) The rest to-morrow.
(200) The versions and the Targ. give the first meaning, “because of the daughters of my city;” and the last words, “of my city,” seem to favor it; for had women as a sex been intended, they would not have been thus designated. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(51) Affecteth.Better, harmeth, or causeth grief to.
The daughters of my city.The words have been understood (1) of the maidens of Jerusalem (comp. Lam. 1:4; Lam. 1:18; Lam. 2:20-21); and (2) of the daughter-towns which looked to it as their metropolis. Of these (1) is preferable.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
51. Mine eye affecteth, etc. Literally, Mine eye does evil to my soul; that is, causeth pain to.
Because of all the daughters of my city Ewald and others understand by this the country towns round about Jerusalem, but it is a sufficient reply to this to say, that this interpretation is wholly without warrant of usage. The margin has for “because,” more than; but this, though admissible as a translation, is not to be preferred. The obvious meaning is the true one. The condition of the virgin daughters of an oriental city which had fallen into the power of the enemy was in these brutal times peculiarly deplorable.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 3:51. Affecteth Preys upon.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.” Lam 3:51
Here is the proper use of observation. We are not to look upon life with the eye of the statistician or the political economist or the collector of facts so called; our heart is to be in our eye, and our observation is to be conducted in the light of our tenderest sympathy. When the prophet says “affecteth” he means harms, or causes grief, to my heart: it is as if he said, What I see hurts me; does not merely hurt me outwardly, but hurts me within, strikes me at the very heart, gives me pain of soul, distresses the very springs of life. Note then how keenly sensitive was the prophetic heart. We need not wait for the New Testament in order to show us the range and duality of truest sympathy. The prophets were in their day and according to their light and their capacity as was Jesus Christ himself. They felt all sickness, they mourned in the presence of all oppression, they pronounced the doom of all sin, they sympathised with every one who was groaning under a burden or suffering from some stinging and often unspeakable pain. Speaking of “the daughters of my city,” we are to understand the reference to be to the maidens of Jerusalem, and of the maidens of the daughter town which looked towards Jerusalem as children might look towards a mother. The prophet sees here an image of the destruction and desolation of youth and beauty and music. The tears of Jeremiah were easily accessible; hence he has been called the weeping prophet. He hesitates not to say, “Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission.” Not only were the prophet’s eyes moistened, as modern sensibility often professes that its eyes are bedewed: Jeremiah speaks of a fuller sorrow, a richer sympathy; he says, “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.” In another passage he desires that he might have even greater power of weeping, that he might express his sympathy with the destruction proceeding around him: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” Not only was this copious weeping characteristic of the prophet Jeremiah, it would seem to have been characteristic of the whole prophetic life of the Old Testament. Speaking in the Psalmist’s day, we read of the tears of sympathy, because of the destruction that was proceeding in the city and in the household: “Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.” And again: “My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” Prophets and psalmists have wished to escape from the evil visions that filled their eyes. Thus Jeremiah himself, strong and valiant as he was, seems to have seen enough, and to have desired to run away to quiet places: “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them!” The Psalmist desired that he also might fly away and find rest in unknown places. “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness.” Why is it that our hearts are so little affected by the destruction that is wrought in the city? Simply because we are content to look at surfaces, to look with the eye of science or art or social mechanism. Prophets looked with the eye of the heart, and they could not bear the sad and tragic visions of the streets. Were our hearts right with Christ, were we one with the living God in all the tenderness of his love, a walk down the city thoroughfares would crush us, disable us, and drive us into the utterest despair; only then by some other vision that is to say, by the very vision of the Cross itself could we be recovered from our dejection, and constrained to renew our efforts at amelioration.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Lam 3:51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
Ver. 51. Mine eye affecteth my heart. ] Iisdem quibus videmus oculis flemus, We see and weep with the same eyes. But Pliny a wondereth where that humour is at other times that floweth out of the eyes so readily and plentifully in case of grief.
Because of all the daughters of my city.
a Lib. ii. cap. 32.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
mine heart = my soul. Hebrew. nephesh. App-13.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
eye: Gen 44:34, 1Sa 30:3, 1Sa 30:4, Jer 4:19-21, Jer 14:18, Luk 19:41-44
mine heart: Heb. my soul
because of all: or, more than all
the daughters: Lam 1:18, Lam 2:21, Lam 5:11, Jer 11:22, Jer 14:16, Jer 19:9
Reciprocal: Neh 2:17 – Ye see Psa 137:1 – we wept Rom 9:2 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 3:51. Jeremiah was forced to weep so much that it was affecting his very heart or being. This was in sympathy for the citizens of Jerusalem.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
3:51 My eye {x} affecteth my heart because of all the daughters of my city.
(x) I am overcome with sore weeping for all my people.