Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 1:5
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.
5. are become the head ] There may be a reference to Deu 28:13; Deu 28:44.
prosper ] lit. are at peace. Cp. Jer 12:1 (“are at ease”).
for the multitude, etc.] The acknowledgement that Israel’s calamities were the requital for her sin recurs frequently in this poem ( Lam 1:8 ; Lam 1:18 ; Lam 1:20 ; Lam 1:22).
before the adversary ] either driven like a flock of cattle on the occasion of the actual deportation, or possibly (as the writer may be dealing with a time many years subsequent) sold by their parents owing to their extreme penury.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Are the chief … prosper – Or, are become the head… are at rest. Judaea is so entirely crushed that her enemies did not need to take precautions against resistance on her part.
Children – i. e. young children, who are driven before the enemy (literally the adversary), not as a flock of lambs which follow the shepherd, but for sale as slaves.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lam 1:5
Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper.
The adversaries of the good
1. The cause apparent of all the miseries of Gods people is the prospering and prevailing of their enemies.
2. It often comes to pass that the wicked prosper in all things of this life, and the godly contrary (Psa 73:4; Job 21:7).
(1) God will, by giving them prosperity, make the wicked without excuse.
(2) The godly being assured of Gods favour and yet pinched, they may the more earnestly bend their affections to the inheritance which is prepared for them.
3. It is the natural disposition of the wicked towards the godly to oppress them in action and hate them in affliction.
4. The wicked never prevail against the godly, further than the Lord giveth strength unto them (Job 1:11-12; 1Ki 22:22; Mat 8:31-32). This teaches us–
(1) To he more patient towards the instruments, and not to be as the dog that snatcheth at the stone cast at him, not regarding the thrower.
(2) To seek the cause of our afflictions in ourselves, for else the just Judge of the world would not correct us.
5. All our afflictions come from the Lord, who is the chief worker thereof.
6. It is the sin of the godly that causeth the Lord to lay all their troubles upon them (Dan 9:6; Neh 1:6).
7. When God withdraweth His strength from His servants, they fall into many grievous sins, one after another.
8. When God meaneth to punish man, He will not spare to deprive him of that which is more dear unto him.
9. The wicked bear such malice unto the truth that when they get the advantage they spate neither age nor sex, thinking to root out the godly from under heaven. (J. Udall.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Her adversaries are the chief] They have now supreme dominion over the whole land.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God hath fulfilled his threatening, Deu 28:43; the enemy is got
above us, and
we are brought very low, for the multitude of our sins, directly contrary to his promise in case of obedience, Lam 1:13. Not only our young and old men, but the little children, have been driven like sheep before the enemy into a miserable captivity.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. the chiefrule her (Deu 28:43;Deu 28:44).
adversaries . . . prosper;for the LordAll the foes’ attempts would have failed, had notGod delivered His people into their hands (Jer30:15).
Vau.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Her adversaries are the chief,…. Or, “for the head” n; or are the head, as was threatened, De 28:44; and now fulfilled; the Chaldeans having got the dominion over the Jews, and obliged them to be subject to them:
her enemies prosper; in wealth and riches, in grandeur and glory; live in ease and tranquillity, enjoying all outward felicity and happiness; while Zion was in distress; which was an aggravation of it; and yet this was but righteous judgment:
for the Lord hath afflicted her; who is righteous in all his ways: the Chaldeans were but instruments; the evil was from the Lord, according to his will and righteous determination, as appears by what follows:
for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy; that is, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea were carried captive by the enemy, and drove before them as a flock of sheep, and that for the sins of the nation; and these not a few, but were very numerous, as Mordecai and Ezekiel, and others, who were carried captive young with Jeconiah, as well as many now.
n “in caput”, Vatablus, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “facti sunt caput”, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Her adversaries or oppressors, in relation to her, have become the head (and Judah thus the tail), as was threatened, Deu 28:44; whereas, according to Deu 28:13 in that same address of Moses, the reverse was intended. Her enemies, knowing that their power is supreme, and that Judah has been completely vanquished, are quite at ease, secure ( , cf. Jer 12:1). This unhappy fate Zion has brought on herself through the multitude of her own transgressions. Her children ( , children of tender age) are driven away by the enemy like a flock. The comparison to a flock of lambs is indicated by . But Zion has not merely lost what she loves most (the tender children), but all her glory; so that even her princes, enfeebled by hunger, cannot escape the pursuers, who overtake them and make them prisoners. Like deer that find no pasture, they flee exhausted before the pursuer. has been rendered by the lxx, and ut arietes by the Vulgate; hence Kalkschmidt, Bttcher ( Aehrenl. S. 94), and Thenius would read , against which Rosenmller has remarked: perperam, nam hirci non sunt fugacia animalia, sed cervi . Raschi had already indicated the point of the comparison in the words, quibus nullae vires sunt ad effugiendum, fame eorum robore debilitato . The objections raised against as the correct reading are founded on the erroneous supposition that the subject treated of is the carrying away of the princes into exile; and that for the princes, in contrast with the young, no more suitable emblem could be chosen than the ram. But does not mean “the driver,” him who leads or drives the captives into exile, but “the pursuer,” who runs after the fugitive and seeks to catch him. The words treat of the capture of the princes: the flight of the king and his princes at the taking of Jerusalem (2Ki 25:3.) hovered before the writer’s mind. For such a subject, the comparison of the fugitive princes to starved or badly fed rams is inappropriate; but it is suitable enough to compare them with harts which had lost all power to run, because they had been unable to find any pasture, and (without strength, i.e., in weakness) are pursued and caught.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
He first says that her enemies had become the head; and by this expression he doubtless means power; and this way of speaking he borrowed from Moses, for these are his words,
“
Thou shalt be the head and not the tail, in a high place, not obscure.” (Deu 28:13.)
He then says, that enemies were the head, that is, ruled over them. And the opposite of that is to be understood, even that they had become the tail, that is, were under the feet as it were of their enemies. And he says that her enemies had acted successfully, even because Jehovah had afflicted her. He here laments after the common practice, as ungodly men are wont to do; but he mixes instruction with his mourning, and shews that God, in a state of things so turbulent and confused, appeared as a righteous judge. He then recalled them to the consideration of God’s hand, when he said that her enemies had acted successfully, because God had afflicted her. Jerome renders the words, “because Jehovah hath spoken.” He derives the verb from הגה, ege, which means to speak or to meditate. But this is an evident mistake, as we shall find another presently in this very chapter. There is no doubt but that the Prophet intimates that the cause of all evils was, that God had afflicted her, even on account of the greatness of her impieties, or of her sins. He now then begins to shew that there is no reason why the Jews should be swallowed up with grief and despair, if only they considered whence their evils proceeded. He thus begins to call their attention to God’s judgment. This indeed of itself would not have been sufficient; but he afterwards points out a fruitful source of consolation. But we shall see these things mentioned in their due order.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
() Lam. 1:5. Her adversaries are become the head, as was threatened if unfaithful to the Lord (Deu. 28:44); her enemies prosper, are in peace, and rest secure, knowing that all resistance is over, so completely has she been crushed. This was brought about not by their might, but because Jehovah has afflicted her for the greatness of her transgressions; and the sufferings befall the most innocent also; her young children have gone captives, the most ominous of all her disasters, driven like a band of the enslaved in Africa, before the adversary.
() Lam. 1:6. She has not only been harried of her most precious and tender charges, also from the daughter of Zion is departed all her beauty. God Himself, whose Shechinah made Zion the perfection of beauty, no longer shined there; no longer was there a worship of Him in the beauty of holiness, and even her princes are become like harts that do not find pasture; enfeebled by the scanty diet of the close siege, they have lost vigour, and go without strength when chased before the pursuer, so as to be easily caught. This is in evident allusion to the flight and capture of the King and his men of war, within a few miles from Jerusalem, when it was besieged by the Chaldean army (2Ki. 25:3-5).
() Lam. 1:7. Again a change of aspect is presented. Already the city ruined, the people exiled, the holy mountain desecrated have been regarded. Now the poet gives the name of the city, which he shrank from pronouncing before, and uses it as a generic, all-embracing term, Jerusalem remembers, adding an item of pungency to her deep sufferings, in the days of her affliction anda probable meaning of the following word is wanderings, as in margin of Revised Version here. In chap. Lam. 3:19, where the same word is again employed, the margin gives outcast state as a fresh rendering. That of the Speakers Commentary is to be preferredhomelessness, describing the state of the Jews cast out of their homes and driven into banishment; all her pleasant things which were from the days of old. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. Sorrows crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. When her people fell into the band of the adversary, and there is no helper to her; the adversaries see her, they sneer at her cessations (desolations in Revised Version). This last Hebrew word occurs only here. Its root means to cease, and so this derivative is applied, as by Plumptre, to the enforced Sabbaths of untitled land, and the Sabbaths conspicuous for the absence of any religious rites. This seems far-fetched, except as to the latter part, and this should be considered as but a portion of the Jewish customs which had been discontinued. If Romans derided the Jews for cessation from work on the seventh day of the week, Babylonians would not. They may have mocked at the faith of Israel in the supremacy of Jehovah, seeing they regarded Him as a subjugated national deity; but 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 (sabbatu)(Cheyne).
HOMILETICS
THE TANTALISING INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENEMIES OF THE CHURCH
(Lam. 1:5-7)
I. They contentedly enjoy the fruits of their conquest. Her adversaries are the chief; her enemies prosper. Her foes have become her masters; her enemies enjoy quiet prosperityGeikie (Lam. 1:5). Judea has become so utterly crushed that her conquerors revel in their spoils without fear of resistance, or any attempt at reprisals on the part of the vanquished. If we allow our vices to become our masters, we have the chagrin of seeing them rioting in indulgence while we are powerless to interpose.
II. They have no concern to know the cause of the Churchs calamities. For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions (Lam. 1:5). What of that? It is no concern of theirs to pry into moral causes. The invaders wish to strike a blow at imperious Egypt. Judah stands in the way, and, becoming troublesome, must be crushed. They knew not, nor did they care to know, that they were but instruments in the hands of a Higher Power to punish a nation for its sins. It was brought home to Judah that her disasters were provoked by her manifold transgressions, and it was an aggravation of her sufferings that her enemies were utterly regardless and apparently ignorant of all this. Had they understood it, they might have shown more pity.
III. They are indifferent to the sufferings they inflict. Her children are gone into captivity. Her princes have become like harts without strength before the pursuer (Lam. 1:5-6). The young children are driven before the adversary, not as a flock of lambs which follow the shepherd, but for sale as slaves. The princes are hunted down to exhaustion. In the ancient sculptures nothing is more affecting than the mournful processions so often depicted of tender women and young children driven in gangs as captives before their heartless conquerors. In olden times the treatment of prisoners of war was characterised by the most brutal cruelty. They were regarded as an encumbrance, and were often butchered wholesale to save further trouble. They were subjected to degradations from which death would have been a merciful relief.
IV. They make no allowance for the feelings of the conquered regarding their losses. From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. Jerusalem remembered all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old (Lam. 1:6-7). In the midst of her distress Jerusalem remembered the happiness of former days, when the Temple stood out in all the beauty of its architecture, and as the symbol of holiest worship; when the throne was the centre of imperial power and magnificence; when the land was prosperous, and the people united and content. Now the Temple is shattered past recognition, the most distinguished citizens are in exile, the land is desolate, and the people plunged in misery. But all this is nothing to her enemies; they heed not what their victims have lost; they are more interested in what their conquests have gained.
V. They make sport of the Churchs utter discomfiture. The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her Sabbaths, her calamities, her ruined circumstances (Geikie; Henderson). The more literal meaning is her Sabbatisms. Foreigners ridiculed the custom of the Jews in ceasing from labour every seventh day, and attributed their ruin to what appeared to them a strange, fanatical practice. Oh, had those Sabbaths been as faithfully observed in spirit as they were in form, how different would have been the career of Judah! The Church is familiar with the scoffs of unbelievers. While she is true to God, they are powerless to harm. It is when she is conscious of unfaithfulness that they begin to irritate.
LESSONS.
1. It is a hard time for the Church when her enemies triumph.
2. God is the refuge of the Church in time of trouble. He is never indifferent to her sufferings.
3. The Church should learn to make the best of prosperous times.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 1:5. Her adversaries are the chief; her enemies prosper. New masters:
1. Soon make evident their newly-acquired superiority.
2. Rule with severity when actuated by a spirit of enmity.
3. Enjoy without compunction the prosperity secured by the ruin of others.
The Lord afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Sin:
1. Is a transgression of the law of God.
2. Has a tendency to multiply itself.
3. Is a prolific source of trouble.
4. Is punished by the Being against whom it is committed.
Lam. 1:5-6. National disaster. I. Involves the suffering of innocent children. Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy (Lam. 1:5). II. Quenches the splendour of its reputation. From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed (Lam. 1:6). III. Degrades and harasses its most illustrious rulers. Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer (Lam. 1:6).
Lam. 1:7. Sad memories.
1. When contrasting present miseries with former joys.
2. When reflecting on the suddenness and completeness of our calamities.
3. When mingled with the heartless mockery of the authors of our misfortunes.
ILLUSTRATIONS.Lessons from the worlds treatment. Three men are my friends, He that loves me, he that hates me, and he that is indifferent to me. Who loves me teaches me tenderness; who hates me teaches me caution; who is indifferent to me teaches me self-reliance.
Loose talk leads to loose conduct. Indulgence in verbal vices soon encourages corresponding vices in conduct. Let any one talk about any mean or vile practice with familiar tone, and do you suppose, when the opportunity occurs for committing the mean or vile act, he will be as strong against it as before? It is by no means an unknown thing that men of correct lives talk themselves into sensuality, crime, and perdition. Bad language easily runs into bad deeds. Select any iniquity you please, suffer yourself to converse in its dialect, to use its slang, to speak in the character of one who relishes it, and I need not tell you how soon your moral sense will lower down to its level. Becoming intimate with it, you lose your horror of it. To be too much with bad men and in bad places is not only unwholesome to mans morality, but unfavourable to his faith and trust in God. It is not every man who could live as Lot did in Sodom, and then be fit to go out of it under Gods convoy.The Christian Commonwealth.
New masters: Tyranny not permanent. By the volcanic eruption among the Tonga group in 1885, a new island was formed. When it was visited a few years after, the soil below the surface was still hot, the temperature at a depth of seven feet being 100 Fahr., while at the surface it was only 74. With the exception of two young cocoa-nut trees, which seemed not very hardy, there was no vegetation but a few bunches of grass, and a moth and small sandpiper constituted the animal population. It is thought the island will disappear in a few years, as the waves are rapidly wearing the shore-line away. Such has been the history of many a vaunted human tyranny. Its policy was inaugurated with noise and heat, and threatened to revolutionise the existing order. But when it had spent its force and cooled down, it revealed its barrenness, and, worn away with the ever-active waves of time, it at length disappeared.The Scottish Pulpit.
Sin a poison. What poison one fang of the old serpent will throw into our moral system! Look around and see how many have been poisoned with the desire for strong drink, with lust, with avarice, with pride, with anger, with unbelief. Fiery serpents are among us, and many die of their venom. If we tolerate the least sin, it is a burning drop in the veins of the soul. One touch of the fangs of this serpent will work immeasurable sorrow, even if the soul be saved from death. It is only the power of God that keeps us from being destroyed by this viper. Had he his will, he is a spirit so malignant that no heir of heaven would survive. O God, keep Thine own! Deliver us from the evil one!C. H. Spurgeon.
Sin defies law. A woman named Guerin, in a rage of jealousy, murdered her unfaithful husband. Going to a villa where she learnt he was living with another woman, she stood at the door and called his name. Hearing her voice, he went out to speak to her, and had scarcely crossed the threshold when she stabbed him in the abdomen. He staggered back into the house, and after a few minutes crawled to the window and said in a feeble voice, Kiss our child, for all is over. The recital of this incident in the court in Paris, told as a woman could tell it, and she a principal actor in the scene, and the evidence adduced that Madame Guerin had borne an irreproachable character and was an excellent mother, so moved the jury that they acquitted her without a moments hesitation, amid a storm of applause from the public in court. A gush of sentiment disarmed the rigour of the law and choked the voice of vengeance. One wrong does not justify another. But sin defies law and justice, and spreads confusion wherever it reigns.The Scottish Pulpit.
Avoid the example of the bad. I would desire all young men often to remember the saying of Lactantius, He who imitates the bad cannot be good. Young men, in these professing times, stand between good and bad examples, as Hercules in his dream stood between virtue and vice, solicited by both. Choose you must who to follow. Oh, that you were all so wise as to follow the best! Life, heaven, happiness, eternity, hang upon it.
Sad memories. A small boat was picked up one morning on the north shore at Troon. It had the appearance of having broken away from a vessel during a great gale in the Clyde. It is a dangerous moment when a young man breaks away from the happy associations of his early life, whether in church or home. Chafing under restraint, he plunges heedlessly into the wide world in search of a larger liberty. Unaccustomed to self-control, he is swayed by every varying current, drifts out to sea, and is ultimately picked up a partial wreck on some far-off shore. Then it is that he is tormented with painful memories; he sees his folly, and laments his reckless severance from the moral restrictions of a happier time. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.The Scottish Pulpit.
Memory and music. Music touches every key of memory, and stirs all the hidden springs of sorrow and joy. We love it for what it makes us forget, and for what it makes us remember.
Beware of melancholy. Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach. A lady was once given two-and-twenty recipes against melancholy. One was a bright fire, another to remember all the pleasant things said to her, another to keep a box of plums on the mantelpiece and a kettle simmering on the hob. She thought this mere trifling at the moment, but did in after life discover how true it is that these little pleasures often banish melancholy better than higher and more exalted objects, and that no means ought to be thought too trifling which can oppose it either in ourselves or others.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(5) Her adversaries are the chief.Literally, have become the head (Deu. 28:13).
Her enemies prosper.Better, are at ease, secure from every resistance on her part. Before the enemy, driven, i.e., as slaves are driven.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Are the chief The mighty, and therefore rule her.
Prosper Literally, are at rest; an expressive figure.
Children before the enemy In ancient sculptures such mournful processions of women and tender children are often engraved.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 1:5. Her adversaries are the chief Literally, are at, or for the head. They rule over, or are superior to her. See Isa 9:15. Deu 28:13.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lam 1:5 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.
Ver. 5. Her adversaries are the chief. ] Heb, Are for the head. This was threatened. Deu 28:13-14 ; Deu 28:43-44 This, when it happens, is a great grief to the godly. Therefore the prophet Nahum, for the comfort of God’s Israel, is wholly in setting forth the destruction of their enemies, the Assyrians.
Her enemies prosper.
For the Lord hath afflicted her.
Her children are gone into captivity.
Before the enemy.
a Cavet Scriptura ne haec potestas detur adversariis. – Oecolamp.
are the chiefs are the head. Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 28:13, Deu 28:44), the same word. App-92.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4. transgressions = rebellions. Hebrew. pasha’. App-44.
children = young children, as in Lam 2:11, Lam 2:19, Lam 2:20, and Lam 4:4. Not “sons”.
adversaries: Lam 2:17, Lam 3:46, Lev 26:17, Deu 28:43, Deu 28:44, Psa 80:6, Psa 89:42, Isa 63:18, Jer 12:7, Mic 7:8-10
for: Lam 1:18, Lam 3:39-43, Lev 26:15-46, Deu 4:25-27, Deu 28:15-68, Deu 29:18-28, Deu 31:16-18, Deu 31:29, Deu 32:15-27, 2Ch 36:14-16, Neh 9:33, Neh 9:34, Psa 90:7, Psa 90:8, Jer 5:3-9, Jer 5:29, Jer 23:14, Jer 30:14, Jer 30:15, Jer 44:21, Jer 44:22, Eze 8:17, Eze 8:18, Eze 9:9, Eze 22:24-31, Dan 9:7-16, Mic 3:9-12, Zep 3:1-8
her children: Jer 39:9, Jer 52:27-30
Reciprocal: Deu 28:41 – thou shalt not enjoy them 2Ki 21:14 – deliver Ezr 2:1 – whom Nebuchadnezzar Psa 5:10 – the Psa 13:2 – exalted Isa 22:5 – breaking Jer 5:6 – because Lam 1:8 – hath Lam 1:16 – my children
Lam 1:5. Her adversaries means the Babylonians who had become chief or exalted above the people of Judah. But the prophet admits that such a sad state of affairs was just because it was from the Lord as a punishment for her many transgressions. Her children means the citizens of Judah who had gone into captivity.
1:5 Her adversaries {g} are the head, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
(g) That is, have rule over her, De 28:41 .
Jerusalem’s enemies had become her masters, since God had caused them to prevail because of Jerusalem’s many sins.
"Over and over again he [Jeremiah] affirmed that the Lord Himself had decreed (Lam 1:17; Lam 2:17; Lam 3:37-38) and sent the calamity (Lam 1:5; Lam 1:12-15; Lam 2:1-8; Lam 3:1; Lam 3:43-45; Lam 4:11)." [Note: Chisholm, p. 359.]
The city was devoid of children since they were in captivity.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)