Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 4:5

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

5. delicately ] luxuriously. Children are still the subject, and not, as has been suggested, rich persons. In the latter case we should have to render carried on scarlet (i.e. litters or couches furnished with costly stuffs of that colour), unduly forcing the sense of the Heb. verb.

desolate ] See on ch. Lam 3:11.

embrace dunghills ] for want of a better couch.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

They that were brought up in scarlet – literally, those that were carried upon scarlet; young children in arms and of the highest birth now lie on the dirt-heaps of the city.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 5. Embrace dunghills.] Lie on straw or rubbish, instead of the costly carpets and sofas on which they formerly stretched themselves.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This judgment reached not only to the common people, but to persons of the highest rank and order, whose misery was now so much the greater, because so contrary to their former splendid state and way of living. They were wont to fare deliciously; now they wanted bread to eat, and were desolate in the streets. They were wont to eat upon scarlet carpets, or to lodge upon scarlet beds and conches; now they searched for their meat upon, or were glad to lie upon, dunghills.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

5. delicatelyon dainties.

are desolateor,”perish.”

in scarlet embracedunghillsInstead of the scarlet couches on which thegrandees were nursed, they must lie on dunghills.

embraceThey who onceshrank sensitively from any soil, gladly cling close to heapsof filth as their only resting-place. Compare “embrace the rock”(Job 24:8).

Vau.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets,…. That were brought up in the king’s palace, or in the houses of noblemen; or, however, born of parents rich and wealthy, and had been used to good living, and had fared sumptuously and deliciously every day, were now wandering about in the streets in the most forlorn and distressed condition, seeking for food of any sort, but could find none to satisfy their hunger; and so, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, perished in the ways or streets:

they that were brought up in scarlet: in dyed garments, as Jarchi; clothed with scarlet coloured ones, as was the manner of the richer and better sort of people, Pr 31:21; or, “brought up upon scarlet” o; upon scarlet carpets, on which they used to sit and eat their food, as is the custom of the eastern people to this day: these

embrace dunghills, are glad of them, and with the greatest eagerness rake into them, in order to find something to feed upon, though ever so base and vile; or to sit and lie down upon. Aben Ezra interprets it of their being cast here when dead, and there was none to bury them.

o “super coccinum”, Pagninus, Montanus; “super coccino”, Piscator, Michaelis.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Here he goes on farther, and says, that they had perished with famine who had been accustomed to the most delicate food. He had said generally that infants found nothing in their mothers’ breasts, but pined away with thirst, and also that children died through want of bread. But he now amplifies this calamity by saying, that this not only happened to the children of the common people, but also to those who had been brought up delicately, and had been clothed in scarlet and purple.

Then he says that they perished in the streets, and also that they embraced the dunghills, because they had no place to lie down, or because they sought food, as famished men do, on dunghills. (211) It seems to be a hyperbolical expression; but if we consider what the Prophet has already narrated and will again repeat, it ought not to appear incredible, that those who had been accustomed to delicacies embraced dunghills; for mothers cooked their own children and devoured them as beef or mutton. There is no doubt but that the siege, of which we have before read, drove the people to acts too degrading to be spoken of, especially when they had become blinded through so great a pertinacity, and had altogether hardened themselves in their madness against God. It follows, —

(211) The dunghills were collections of cow-dung and other things heaped together for fuel instead of wood. They had been brought up “on scarlet,” i.e., on scarlet couches, they were now glad to lie down anywhere, even on dunghills, and hence they are said to have embraced them, as though they had a love for them, —

They who had fed on delicacies Perished in the streets; They who had been brought up on scarlet Embraced the dunghills.

—

Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(5) They that were brought up . . .Literally, that were carried (as children are carried). Scarlet as in 2Sa. 1:24, stands for the shawls or garments of the rich, dyed, as they were, in the Tyrian purple or crimson. Those that had been once wrapped in such shawls now threw themselves, embracing them as their only refuge, on dunghills.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

5. They that did feed delicately Lived in daintiness and luxury.

Are desolate Perish of starvation, in the streets.

Brought up in scarlet Literally, were carried on purple, or scarlet, (that is, as children,) have now no resting place but dung hills. One of the most vivid of all the passages reflecting the national distress.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Lam 4:5. They that did feed delicately, &c. See the note on 1Sa 2:8 where it has been observed that it was usual in the east to burn dried dung, and consequently to lay up heaps of it for use in their cottages. The author of the Observations thinks that this will serve to explain the expression in this verse of embracing dunghills. “This taking refuge in dunghills (says he) is not mentioned in European descriptions of the horrors of war; but if they in the east burned dung anciently, as much as they do now, and preserved a stock of it with the solicitude of these times, it will appear quite natural to complain that those who had fed delicately, were wandering without food in the ways; and they who had been covered not only with clean garments, but with robes of magnificence, were forced by the destruction of their palaces, to take up their abode in places designed for the reception of this sort of turf, and to sit down upon those heaps of dried dung.” See Observations, p. 137.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Lam 4:5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

Ver. 5. They that did feed delicately. ] Such uncertainty there is of outward affluence. Our Richard II was famished to death. a Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, grandchild to John of Gaunt, was seen to run on foot bare legged after the Duke of Burgundy’s train, begging his bread for God’s sake. This I saw, saith Philip de Comines. This Henry was brother-in-law to King Edward IV, from whom he fled.

They that were brought up in scarlet. ] Qui nutriebantur in croceis seu cocceis, that were gorgeously arrayed, or, that rolling on their rich beds, wrapped themselves in costly quilts.

Embrace dunghills. ] b There take up their lodgings, and there also are glad to find anything to feed on, though never so coarse and homely. The lapwing is made a hieroglyphic of infelicity, because he hath as a coronet upon the head, and yet feedeth upon the worst of excrements. It is pity that any child of God, washed in Christ’s blood, should bedabble his scarlet robe in the stinking guzzle of the world’s dunghill; that anyone who hath heretofore soared as an eagle should now creep on the ground as a beetle, or wallow as a swine in the mire of sensuality.

a Speed, lib. iii. cap. 4.

b In fimetis victum quaeritant prae inopia. – Jun.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)