Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 4:18

They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

18. They hunt our steps ] This expresses the danger which existed in the “streets” (lit. broad places, and therefore exposed) from the towers which were gradually advanced nearer to the walls by the besiegers. Eastern streets are too narrow to expose their occupants to the weapons of a besieging force.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 18. We cannot go in our streets] Supposed to refer to the darts and other missiles cast from the mounds which they had raised on the outside of the walls, by which those who walked in the streets were grievously annoyed, and could not shield themselves.

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

The Chaldeans employed in the siege are so close upon us, that we cannot stir a foot about our businesses, nor look out at our doors, nor walk safely in the streets; we are ruined, there is an end of our civil state; our period is come, and the time of our prosperity is elapsed.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

18. Theythe Chaldeans.

cannot gowithoutdanger.

Koph.

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

They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets,…. The Chaldeans, from their forts and batteries, as they could see, they watched the people as they came out of their houses, and walked about the streets, and shot their arrows at them; so that they were obliged to keep within doors, and not stir out, which they could not do without great danger:

our end is near, for our days are fulfilled; for our end is come; either the end of their lives, the days, months, and years appointed for them being fulfilled; or the end of their commonwealth, the end of their civil and church state, at least as they thought; the time appointed for their destruction was not only near at hand, but was actually come; it was all over with them.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Many apply this verse to the Egyptians, that they insidiously enticed the Jews to flee to them in their difficulties. It is indeed, true, that the Jews had been deceived by their false promises; and, as a harlot draws to herself young men by wicked arts, so also the Jews had been captivated by the enticements of the Egyptians. But the meaning of the Prophet seems to be different, even this, — that the Chaldeans followed the Jews as hunters, so that they observed their footsteps; and I connect together the two verses, for it immediately follows, —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(18) They hunt our steps.Better, They lie in wait. The words probably point to the posts occupied here and there near the wide places of the city, which led people to avoid them through fear of being attacked. The only cry possible at such a time was that all was over.

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

18. They hunt our steps The word for “hunt” does not mean to pursue game so much as to watch for, to ensnare, to wait in ambush. The reference is to the time of the capture and sack of the city. The inhabitants could not escape, for whenever they appeared in the streets they were at once captured.

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

The Aftermath Of The Taking Of The City ( Lam 4:18-20 ).

In vivid terms the prophet describes what followed the taking of the city. People cowered in their houses afraid to go out. For those who did found that they were hunted down by the enemy. Those who fled to the mountains, or into the wilderness discovered the same. Everywhere that they went they found the enemy. They found themselves pursued in the mountains, and ambushed in the wilderness. And this was even true of their king, the king who had been their very life, the Anointed of YHWH, in whom they had had such implicit trust. They had not seen him as a vacillating, weak king, but as the son of the house of David who would ensure their standing among the nations. But instead he had fled and had been taken in the snares of the enemy.

Lam 4:18

(Tsade) They hunt our steps,

So that we cannot go in our streets,

Our end is near, our days are fulfilled,

For our end is come.

Once the city was taken the soldiery would seek out resistance, which in their eyes would lie in any male who could be found. It thus became impossible to go out in the streets even to search for food. All they could do was lie low and cower in their houses waiting for the end to come, recognising that that day was near. All was lost. Resistance had been in vain. Hope was gone. They had reached the end of their days. They had no time left.

Lam 4:19

(Qoph) Our pursuers were swifter,

Than the eagles of the heavens,

They chased us on the mountains,

They laid wait for us in the wilderness.

Even those who fled to the mountains or the wilderness fared no better. Their pursuers were swifter than the mighty eagles watching for their prey and swooping down on them with incredible speed. They found themselves chased on the mountains and ambushed in the wilderness. There was no escape from the dogged pursuit as the enemy remorselessly hunted them down.

Lam 4:20

(Resh) The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of YHWH,

Was taken in their pits,

Of whom we said, ‘Under his shadow,

We will live among the nations.’

And this had even been so for the Anointed of YHWH. He who had been their very life, whom they had trusted so utterly, and whom YHWH had anointed over them, had fled from the city only to be caught in the snares of the enemy. They had looked to him as the Davidic king to give them status among the nations so that they could proudly hold up their heads, to be the hero under whose shadow they lived. There is here a hint of Messianic expectation. But instead he had failed them and in the end had ignominiously fled the city, seeking refuge among those nations, and had been trapped like a hunted animal.

Interestingly this phrase ‘the breath of our nostrils’ is found as used in Canaan in the Amarna letters which predated Moses, and on an inscription of Rameses II at Abydos in Egypt indicating how much people in those days depended on their rulers. But for the prophet its chief significance may well have arisen from Gen 2:7. The king was seen as their God-given life.

Some see ‘under his shadow, we will live among the nations’ as referring to those who had fled with Zedekiah, who had hoped to find refuge with him among the nations, thus drawing out the hopelessness of the escape attempt. Even the royal party had been unable to escape. But it is more likely that it had Messianic implications.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Lam 4:18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Ver. 18. They hunt our steps. ] There is an elegance in the original, as if we should say, They hunt our haunts.

That we cannot go in our streets. ] Because of their forts, from whence they shoot at us. Satan doth so much more –

“ Cui nomina mille,

Mille nocendi artes. ”

Our end is come. ] We are an undone people.

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