Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 5:4
We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
4. The bitterness of their captive state is shewn by the fact that they, the rightful owners, were compelled to buy from the enemy who had come into possession the commonest necessaries of life.
is sold ] lit. as mg. cometh for price.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Better as in the margin cometh to us for price. The rendering of the the King James Version spoils the carefully studied rhythm of the original. The bitterness of the complaint lies in this, that it was their own property which they had to buy.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lam 5:4
We have drunken our water for money, our wood is sold unto us.
Zions sufferings
1. Common necessaries denied by adversaries. Fire and water are two necessary elements, but though God in nature have given these in common to His creatures, the Jews being captives are now denied them by their cruel adversaries. Time was when they could command the fields, the wheat, the olives, and the wines, hut at this instant, such is their misery, that they cannot so much as have wood or water without price, unless for money.
(1) Enemies are cruel, they know this will be vexatious.
(2) Adversaries are covetous, our spoils, our moneys will be their riches.
It is not water alone, or wood alone that is now defective, it is both water and wood that they are forced to buy. War seldom deprives us of a single mercy, it strips us at once of many necessaries (Lam 4:1-5). It takes away gold, silver, possessions, habitations, victuals, wood, and water from its captives.
2. Wood and water sweet mercies.
3. We must not sit fast upon our present enjoyments. Full little did these Jews in their prosperity think that their water should become their charge, and that their wood, their fire, should be sold to themselves for money. From whence we note–That Christians ought to sit loose upon their enjoyments, and to look upon themselves as strangers and pilgrims in their most sure possessions. Do not glory, be not proud of what you have now at your own command (Ecc 5:13; Jer 9:23). The tide may turn, your condition may alter and not yourselves, not your friends, but your enemies may be their possessors Though we may complain we must not murmur, we must in patience possess our souls, when our very necessaries become a prey to others. Thus did the primitive Christians in their great afflictions (Heb 10:34; Heb 11:37-38). (D. Swift.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. We have drunken our water for money] I suppose the meaning of this is, that every thing was taxed by the Chaldeans, and that they kept the management in their own hands, so that wood and water were both sold, the people not being permitted to help themselves. They were now so lowly reduced by servitude, that they were obliged to pay dearly for those things which formerly were common and of no price. A poor Hindoo in the country never buys fire-wood, but when he comes to the city he is obliged to purchase his fuel, and considers it as a matter of great hardship.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This seemeth to refer to the state of the Jews in Babylon, where it is probable their adversaries made them buy both water and wood, which in the land of Canaan they had plentifully, and without any further charge to them than fetching the one, and cutting down and bringing home the other.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. water for moneyThe Jewswere compelled to pay the enemy for the water of their own cisternsafter the overthrow of Jerusalem; or rather, it refers to theirsojourn in Babylon; they had to pay tax for access to the rivers andfountains. Thus, “our” means the water which we need, thecommonest necessary of life.
our woodIn Judea eachone could get wood without pay; in Babylon, “our wood,” thewood we need, must be paid for.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
We have drunken our water for money,…. They who in their own land, which was a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, had wells of water of their own, and water freely and in abundance, now were obliged to pay for it, for drink, and other uses:
our wood is sold unto us; or, “comes to us by a price” r; and a dear one; in their own land they could have wood out of the forest, for cutting down and bringing home; but now they were forced to give a large price for it.
r “in pretio venerunt”, Pagninus, Montanus; “caro nobis pretio veniunt”, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet here relates, that the people were denuded, that they labored under the want of water and of wood. He does not say that they were only deprived of corn and wine, he does not complain that any of their luxuries were lessened; but he mentions water and wood, the common things of life; for the use of water, as it is said, is common to all; no one is so poor, if he dwells not in a land wholly dry, but that he has water enough to drink. For if there be no fountains, there are at least rivers, there are wells; nor do men perish through thirst, except in deserts and in places uninhabitable. As, then, water might be had everywhere, the Prophet here sets forth the extreme misery of the people, for water was even sold to them. In stony and high places water is sold; but this is a very rare thing. The Prophet here means that the people were not only deprived of their wealth, but reduced to such a state of want that they had no water without buying it.
At the same time he seems to express something worse when he says, Our water we drink for money, and our wood is brought to us for a price. It is not strange that wood should be bought; but the Prophet means that water was sold to the Jews which had been their own, and that they were also compelled to buy wood which had been their own. Thus the possessive pronouns are to be considered as emphatical. Then he says, “Our own waters we drink,” etc. (224) He calls them the waters of the people, which by right they might have claimed as their own; and he also calls the wood The same; it was that to which the people had a legitimate right. He then says that all things had been so taken away by their enemies, that they were forced to buy, not only the wine which had been taken from their cellars, and the corn which had been taken from their granaries, but also the water and the wood.
But were any one disposed to take the words more simply, the complaint would not be unsuitable, — that the people, who before had abundance of wine and all other things, were constrained to buy everything, even water and wood. For it is a grievous change when any one, who could once cut wood of his own, and gather his own wine and corn, is not able to get even a drop of water without buying it. This is a sad change. So this passage may be understood. It follows, —
(224) To express this meaning, which is probably the true one, the words ought to be thus rendered, —
4. Our own water, for money have we drunk it; Our own wood, for a price it comes to us.
Grotius says that in the land of Canaan the forests were free to all to get wood from. When in exile the Jews had to buy wood. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Our water . . . our wood.The point of the complaint lies in the possessive pronoun. The Chaldan conquerors were in possession of the country, and the very necessaries of life, which had been looked on as the common property of all, were only to be had for money. In the Hebrew of the first clause the fact appears yet more emphatically: Our water comes to us for money. The words have been referred by some commentators to the sufferings of the exiles in Egypt, but the context fits in better with the idea of the hardships of those who were left in Judah.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Our water for money, etc. These are illustrations of the hardships they were experiencing. Such absolute necessities of life could be had by them only on the payment of money. And what greatly enhanced the bitterness of this complaint was, that they had to buy what was rightfully their own. In this not only is there distress and hardship, but a sense of degradation and wrong.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
We have drunk our water for money,
Our wood is sold to us.
Previously the water from their springs and rivers, and from their own cisterns, had been freely available to them. Now they were being charged tolls for the privilege of using it. Furthermore the trees from which they been able freely to obtain timber were now in the hands of others who charged them for any wood that they obtained, whilst there was presumably a charge for gathering firewood. Everyone was taking advantage of them, and there was nothing that they could do about it.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Lam 5:4. Our wood is sold unto us Our wood came at a price upon our necks; Lam 5:5. We are under persecution, &c. Houbigant. That numbers of the Israelites had no wood growing on their own lands for their burning, must be imagined from the openness of their country. See Jdg 5:6. It is certain, the eastern villagers have now sometimes little or none on their premises. Dr. Russel says, that inconsiderable as the stream which runs by Aleppo and the gardens about it may appear, they however contain almost the only trees which are to be met with for twenty or thirty miles round; for that the villages are all destitute of trees, and most of them only supplied with what rain water the inhabitants can save in cisterns. D’Arvieux gives us to understand, that several of the present villages of the holy land are in the same situation; for, after observing that the Arabs burn cow-dung in their encampments, he adds, that all the villagers who live in places where there is a scarcity of wood, take great care to provide themselves with sufficient quantities of this kind of fuel. See 1Sa 2:8. The holy land, from the accounts we have of it, appears to have been as little wooded anciently as at present; nevertheless the Israelites seem to have burned wood very commonly, and without buying it too, from what the prophet says in the present verse. Had they been wont to buy their fuel, they would not have then complained of it as such a hardship. The true account of it seems to be this. The woods of the land of Israel being from very ancient times common, the people of the villages, which, like those about Aleppo, had no trees growing in them, supplied themselves with fuel out of these wooded places, of which there were many anciently, and several that still remain. This liberty of taking wood in common, the Jews suppose to have been one of the constitutions of Joshua, of which they give us ten; the first giving liberty to an Israelite to feed his flock in the woods of any tribe; the second, that he should be free to take wood in the fields any where. But though this was the ancient custom in Judaea, it was not so in the country into which they were carried captives; or if this text of Jeremiah respects those who continued in their own country for a while under Gedaliah, as the ninth verse insinuates, it signifies that their conquerors possessed themselves of these woods, and would allow no fuel to be cut down without leave, and that leave was not to be obtained without money. It is certain that presently after the return from the captivity timber was not to be cut without leave: Neh 2:8. See Observations, p. 218.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lam 5:4 We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
Ver. 4. We have drunk our water for money. ] Fire, water, and air are common good, quae iure naturae sunt omnium et singulorum, saith Cicero. a Lysimachus paid dear for a cup of water when he parted with his kingdom for it. Dives would have done as much in hell for a drop, and could not have it.
Our wood is sold to us.
a Offic., i.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
have: Deu 28:48, Isa 3:1, Eze 4:9-17
is sold: Heb. cometh for price
Reciprocal: Jdg 5:11 – the noise
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 5:4. In a siege all necessities of life are always rationed and often then they are not obtainable. Under such conditions the prices of the important items are increased by those taking advantage of the emergency.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
5:4 We have drank our {b} water for money; our wood is sold to us.
(b) Meaning their extreme servitude and bondage.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The extent of their oppression was evident in their having to purchase water and firewood, commodities that were normally free. The Judahites’ enemies were trying to squeeze the life out of them (cf. Jos 10:24; Isa 51:23). They had worn them out with their heavy demands and taxes (cf. Deu 28:65-67; Eze 5:2; Eze 5:12).