Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 4:3
Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people [is become] cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
3. the jackals ] See on Jer 9:11; Jer 51:34.
like the ostriches in the wilderness ] Cp. C.B. (Davidson) on Job 39:15 f. for “the popular belief that the ostrich did not brood but left her eggs to be hatched in the sun. The belief is not sustained by observation, except to this extent, that the bird does not brood till her complement of eggs (thirty in number) be laid, and that during the earlier part of incubation she often leaves the nest by day to go in search of food. It is also said that she lays a number of eggs outside the nest, which are not incubated but serve as food for the poults when they are hatched.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Sea monsters – Rather, jackals.
Their young ones – Their whelps. The term is applied only to the young of dogs, lions, and the like.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. Even the sea monsters draw out the breast] The whales give suck to their young ones. The word tannin, signifies all large and cruel creatures, whether aquatic or terrestrial; and need not here be restrained to the former sort. My Old MS. Bible translates curiously: Bot and the cruel bestis that ben clepid Lamya, and thei nakeden ther tetis, geve ther whelpis souken.
Like the ostriches in the wilderness.] For her carelessness about her eggs, and her inattention to her young, the ostrich is proverbial.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The learned author of our English Annotations well observeth, that whatever creature is here intended by the word translated sea-monsters, yet our translation is not proper, the text speaking of creatures of Gods making, monsters properly signifying such as have something beyond their natural bulk and proportion. What creatures are signified by the Hebrew term, whether sea-calves, or dragons, or serpents, or whales, is very hard to say, the Hebrew word signifying some creatures, occurring so rarely as it is not easy to determine the species, from the word used to express it. He certainly speaks of some brute beasts, and those that are most savage. He saith there are none such but by a natural instinct feed and nourish their young ones; but the Jewish women were become cruel to their children, either forced to appear so, having through the famine no milk to give them, nor any thing to relieve them, or were indeed so, killing them to make food for themselves, as Lam 2:20.
Like the ostriches in the wilderness; like ostriches, that lay their eggs and leave them in the sand, and are hardened against their young ones, as Job 39:14-16. Some think a kind of owls are intended, which for want of meat eat up their young ones, as the Jewish women now did. See Lam 4:10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. sea monsters . . . breastWhalesand other cetaceous monsters are mammalian. Even they suckle theiryoung; but the Jewish women in the siege, so desperate was theirmisery, ate theirs (Lam 4:10;Lam 2:20). Others translate,”jackals.”
ostrichessee on Job39:14; Job 39:16, on theirforsaking their young.
Daleth.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Even the sea monsters draw out the breast,…. Which some interpret of dragons; others of seals, or sea calves; but it is best to understand it of whales, as the word is rendered in Ge 1:21; and elsewhere: and Bochart d has proved, out of various writers, that these have breasts and milk; but that their breasts, or however their paps, are not manifest, but are hid as in cases, and must be drawn out: and so Jarchi observes that they draw their breasts out of a case, for their breasts have a covering, which they uncover: so Ben Melech. Aristotle e says, that whales, as the dolphin, sea calf, and balaena, have breasts or paps, and milk, which he makes to be certain species of the whale; and each of these, he elsewhere says, have milk, and suckle their young: the dolphin and sturgeon, he observes f have milk, and are sucked; and so the sea calf, he says g, lets out milk as a sheep, and has two breasts, and is sucked by its young, as four footed beasts are. Agreeably to which Aelianus h relates, that the female dolphins have paps like women, and suckle their young, with great plenty of milk; and the balaena, he says i, is a creature like a dolphin, and has milk. And Pliny, speaking of the dolphins, observes k, that they bring forth their “whelps”, and so the young of this creature are called here in the next clause in the Hebrew text l, and nourish them with their breasts, as the balaena; and of the sea calves the same writer says m they feed their young with their paps; but the paps of these creatures are not manifest, as those of four footed beasts, as Aristotle observes; but are like two channels or pipes, out of which the milk flows, and the young are suckled;
they give suck to their young ones; as they do, when they are hungry; which is mentioned, as an aggravation of the case of the Jewish women, with respect to their behaviour towards their children, by reason of the famine, during the siege of Jerusalem; which here, and in the following verses, is described in the sad effects of it; and which had a further accomplishment at the destruction of the same city by the Romans: now, though the monsters suckled their young when hungry, yet these women did not suckle theirs;
the daughter of my people [is become] cruel; or, is “unto a cruel one” n: that is, is changed unto a cruel one, or is like unto one, and behaves as such, though of force and necessity: the meaning is, that the Jewish women, though before tenderhearted mothers, yet, by reason of the famine, having no milk in their breasts, could give none to their children, and so acted as if they were cruel to them; nay, in fact, instead of feeding them, they fed upon them, La 4:10;
like the ostriches in the wilderness; which lay their eggs, and leave them in places easily to be crushed and broken; and when they have any young ones, they are hardened against them, as if they were none of theirs, Job 39:13; and this seemed now to be the case of these women; or, “like the owls”, as the word is sometimes rendered; and which also leave their eggs, and for want of food will eat their young, as those women did. So Ben Melech says, it is a bird which dwells in the wilderness, and causes a voice of hooping to be heard.
d Hierozoic. l. 1. c. 7. p. 46. e Hist. Animal. l. 3. c. 20. f Ib. l. 6. c. 12. g lbid. h Hist. de Animal. 1. 10. c. 8. i Ib. l. 5. c. 4. k Nat. Hist. l. 9. c. 8. l “catulos suos”, Pagninus, Montanus, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius. m Nat. Hist. l. 9. c. 13. n “in crudelem”, Montanus “sub. mutata fuit”, Piscator; “similis est crudeli”, Munster.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This verse is harshly explained by many, for they think that the daughter of the people is called cruel, because she acted towards her children as serpents do to their young ones. But this meaning is not suitable, for the word בת, beth, is well known to be feminine. He says that the daughter of the people had come to a savage or cruel one, the latter word is masculine. Then the Prophet seems to mean that the whelps (such is the word) of serpents are more kindly dealt with than the Jews. Serpents are void of all humanity, yet they nourish their brood and give them the breast,. Hence the Prophet by this comparison amplifies the miseries of the people, that their condition was worse than that of serpents, for the tender brood are nourished by their mothers; but the people were without any help, so that they in vain implored the protection of their mother and of others. ‘We now see the real meaning of the Prophet.
The particle גם, gam, is emphatical; for had he spoken of animals, such as are careful to nourish their young, it would not have been so wonderful; but so great seems to be the savageness and barbarity of serpents, that they might be expected to east away their brood. Now he says that even serpents draw out the breast The Jews say that the breasts of serpents are covered with scales, as though they were hidden; but this is one of their figments. It is a common phrase, taken from t common practice; for a woman draws out the breast when she gives suck to her infant; so serpents are said to draw out the breast when they give suck to their whelps; for גורים, gurim, are the whelps of lions or of bears; but in this place the word is applied to serpents. The daughter, then, of my people has come to the cruel one, for the people had to do with nothing but cruelty, there being no one to bring them help or to succor them in their miseries. He, then, does not accuse the people of cruelty, that they did not nourish their children, but on the contrary he means that they were given up to cruel enemies. (209)
As the ostriches, or the owls, he says, in the wilderness. If we understand the ostrich to be intended, we know that bird to be very stupid; for as soon as she lays an egg, she forgets and leaves it. The comparison, then, would be suitable, were the daughter of the people said to be cruel, because she neglected her children; but the Prophet, as I think, means, on the contrary, that the Jews were so destitute of every help, as though they were banished into solitary places beyond the sight of men; for birds in solitude in vain seek the help of others. As, then, the ostrich Or the owl has in the desert no one to bring it help, and is without its own mother, so the Prophet intimates that there was no one to stretch forth a hand to the distressed people to relieve their extreme miseries. It follows, —
(209) The reference here is to the conduct of mothers, called here “the daughter of my people,” as it appears evident from the following verse, —
Even dragons have drawn out the breast, They have suckled their young ones: The daughter of my people has been for cruelty Like the ostriches in the desert.
It is said that the ostrich lays her eggs and forsakes them. See Job 39:15. The verb, to be, is understood, as the case often is, but it must ever be in the same tense as the verb or verbs connected with the sentence. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
(). Lam. 4:3. Beasts of prey show affection for their brood. Even the jackals draw outpresentthe breast; a familiar fact testifying that they were true to their instincts, they suckle their whelps; but in miserable contrariety to this, the daughter of my people has become otherwise; unwilling to give nourishment to their babes, they show themselves cruel, like ostriches in the desert. This arraignment of the wild birds is according to ideas current at the time, and reported in the Book of Job. She leaveth her eggs on the earth she is hardened against her young ones, as if they were not hers (Job. 39:14; Job. 39:16). Later observations require some modification of this account of the habits of the ostrich; but the writers of the Sacred Scriptures had not a knowledge of Nature beyond their times.
This fearful, unnatural result of the extreme trials of the Israelites had its correlated feature.
(). Lam. 4:4. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth, because of getting no milk. The young children ask bread, and no one divides to them the cakes in which form it was made.
() Lam. 4:5. Adults also are distressed. They that did feed delicately, in the fastidiousness of luxury, are desolate in the streets, with no one to serve them, with no means to satisfy hunger, perishing. They that were brought up in scarlet, those of the wealthy classes, accustomed to use the most expensive cloth, lay themselves, in sheer despair, on the dirt-heaps which have accumulated in the ruined city. Like Dives, clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day, they too are in darknessonly they in the visible, he in the invisible world.
() Lam. 4:6. Those awful distresses were due to the way in which the people had lived. The crying wickedness of Sodom is again and again denounced by prophets as a warning to the Israelites. Here that wickedness is minified, and, from the long drawn out sufferings of the latter, it is implied that the iniquitynot the punishment of the iniquity, a translation which has not been established from the usage of the two corresponding Hebrew words elsewhereof the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom. The Cities of the Plain had not the advantage which the Jews had, who were intrusted with the oracles of God, and their guilt was less. The supreme authority of Jesus Christ stands behind the declaration that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for those who refused the light of life. Moreover, Sodom was destroyed by a sudden strokeno protracted sufferings, no starved, wailing children, no mothers eating their own infants, overthrown as in a moment, and by forces in which no human agency had any part; hands did not encircle her. No enemies brandished their swords against her inhabitants, investing her on every side. God can paralyse all industries and destroy a community without mans aid. The ground of this preference of Sodom is that a trouble direct from God is more bearable than one inflicted by man, and was expressed by King David, Let me fall into the hand of Jehovah let me not fall into the hand of man (1Ch. 21:13).
() Lam. 4:7. Men under religious vows could not have been so numerous as to form a conspicuous element in the population. Nor is there any reason to suppose that they were noted for a fine physique. Besides, the Hebrew word is not confined to those who are professed Nazarites, but applies to such as were distinguished from others. So Joseph, in Jacobs dying forecasts, is described as him that was nazin, separate from [marg. that it prince among] his brethren (Gen. 49:26). Her nobles were purer than snow, &c. Still another feature characterised them, they were more ruddy in body than rubies. The white and red are to be understood as mixed, and shading into one another, as our popular poetry speaks of cheeks which like milk and purple shine (Delitzsch); My beloved is white and ruddy (Son. 5:10); My love is like the red, red rose (Scottish song). Sapphire was their polishing [lit. figure]. The comparison, however, can only be with the brilliancy of the gem, not with its shape. The appearance of the nobles, as here described, indicates that their faces were not bronzed and seamed by exposure to all kinds of weather; no engrained dust from toiling day after day darkened their complexion. They looked as those who live delicately in kings courts. But now
() Lam. 4:8. Darker than blackness is their visage; they are not recognised in the streets as members of the aristocracy; nothing marks them off from the labouring classes. Their skin cleaveth to their bones, they are emaciated and shrivelled through hunger and anguish, and the skin is become dry as wood.
() Lam. 4:9. One melancholy contrast suggests another, i.e., between those who are dead and those who are tortured by want. Better are the slain by the sword than the slain by hunger. The next clause is more descriptive of the condition of the former than of the latter. The advantage of less prolonged and gnawing pains is with those who pine away [lit. flow away, as sinking from loss of blood gushing from ghastly wounds], pierced through at a time when there was no lack of food from the fruits of the field.
() Lam. 4:10. A more dreadful fact is related in regard to the little ones than that in Lam. 4:3-4. The hands of tender-hearted womennot servants or hirelings, but themselveshave boiled their own children; they became meat for them in that climax of sufferings, the destruction of the daughter of my people. Moral duty is sacrificed, and unnatural crimes committed at the shrine of physical cravings.
HOMILETICS
THE EXTREMITY OF SUFFERING
(Lam. 4:3-10)
I. Deadens natural affection (Lam. 4:3-4). Maternal instincts are demoralised in the straitness of the siege. Little children are left to perish, without any effort to relieve their wants or soothe their sufferings. In vain they ask for bread; no attempt is made to allay their hunger and thirst. Absorbed in their own intolerable miseries, the wretched mothers sink below the instincts of the wild beasts, for even the jackals suckle their young. They are become like the cruel crocodile, which, after laying its eggs in the sand, abandons them without further care. The infants pine to death, unheeded and unmourned. Excessive suffering denaturalises man and woman.
II. Drags down all classes to one level (Lam. 4:5). The wealthy are now even as the poor. They who fared sumptuously, and whose tastes were pampered with the most delicate viands, are now sullenly starving to death with the crowd. They who were clothed in scarlet, and accustomed to every refinement from their infancy, are now content to stretch themselves on the dirt-heaps of the city, and eager to devour any offal they may pick up amid the general scramble for food. All men find a universal communism in suffering. Human extremity knows no distinction in ranks and titles. Hunger drags every one to the same level.
III. Prefers a swift to a lingering punishment (Lam. 4:6). The destruction of Sodom, which filled a large space in the Jewish mind as an example of the terrible judgment of Heaven on extreme iniquity, was regarded as light compared with the sufferings of Jerusalem. The punishment of Sodom was sudden, and came direct from God; but the punishment of Judah was by the hands of the Chaldeans, and was slow and lingering. David preferred to be dealt with directly from God, and chose pestilence rather than injuries inflicted by human hands (2Sa. 24:14). But the iniquity of Judah was greater than the sin of Sodom, and the punishment was therefore more severe. There is a point in suffering when we yearn for a speedy release; when death is welcome.
IV. Reduces the healthiest from beauty to hideousness (Lam. 4:7-8). The Nazarites, because of their temperance, were remarkable for health and personal beauty, and were held in veneration because of their religious devotion (comp. Numbers 6). Their complexion was ruddy as coral, and the beauty of their physical form was as exact and faultless as is the cutting of a sapphire. But the most distinguished of the population, whether Nazarites or of the aristocracy, are involved in the general calamity, and suffer with the rest. Their rosebud complexion is turned to blackness, their frame is shrunk and distorted, and their skin is shrivelled and dry. Famine plays havoc with beauty, and brings the strongest down to helplessness.
V. Recoils not from the most horrible means of appeasing the irresistible pangs of hunger (Lam. 4:9-10). Such were the sufferings of the famished, that they who were slain with the sword were deemed happier than those who were pierced with the dart of unappeased hunger. So extreme was the famine, that cannibalism became common, and women who were known as tender-hearted mothers actually boiled and ate their own children (comp. 2Ki. 6:28-29; Lev. 26:29; Deu. 28:56-57; Josephuss Wars, cap. 10:9). It is a fearful experience when the animal in human nature gains the mastery over every other instinct.
LESSONS.
1. Extremity makes strange revelations of human nature.
2. The restraints of civilisation are very superficial.
3. Sin acquaints the soul with the lowest depths of degradation.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 4:3-10. The rigour of war. I. Demoralises maternal affection (Lam. 4:1). II. Involves innocent children in suffering (Lam. 4:2). III. Reduces all classes to poverty and distress (Lam. 4:5; Lam. 4:7-8). IV. Prolongs the misery of its victims (Lam. 4:6). V. Is attended with the worst results of famine (Lam. 4:9-10).
Lam. 4:6. Graduated punishment.
I. Is proportioned to the character and degree of the sin committed. II. Its severity implies the enormity of the offence. III. Cannot be charged with injustice.
Lam. 4:7-10. The horrors of famine. I. Changes strength into feebleness and beauty into deformity (Lam. 4:7-8). II. Is more cruel than the sword (Lam. 4:9). III. Debases the most refined into cannibals (Lam. 4:10).
ILLUSTRATIONS.Degradation. Is it not wonderful that base desires should so extinguish in men the sense of their own excellency, as to make them willing that their souls should be like to the souls of beasts, mortal and corruptible with their bodies?Hooker.
There have been those
Who, in the dark dissolving human heart,
And hallowed secrets of this microcosm,
Dabbling, with shameless jest, a shameful band,
Encarnalised their spirits.
Importance of food. Temperature has less influence in inciting the migration of birds than failure of food; for a few even of the regular migrants will linger throughout the winter at sheltered localities, where food remains accessible, safely daring the severest cold. Hunger means loss of heat and life, and it is this the birds primarily flee. No attraction to Christians like spiritual food. Tie them up by the teeth, as Mr. Spurgeon says.
Necessity a teacher. Life and the necessities of life are the best philosophers, if we will only listen honestly to what they say to us; and dislike the lesson as we may, it is cowardice which refuses to hear it.Froude.
The wife of a certain chieftain who had fallen upon idle habits, one day lifted the dish-cover at dinner, and revealed a pair of spurs; a sign that he must ride and hunt for his next meal.
Help in extremity. In the Magdalen Islands, off the Newfoundland coast, the means of livelihood is almost entirely found in the fisheries, and if these fail, life becomes a burden. In 1883 a famine occurred which came near to decimating the population. The fisheries failed; the ship which was expected to bring the winters supply before the ice formed foundered in a storm. By the time spring came, starvation stared the people in the face. Many must have died had not a large ship filled with produce been wrecked off Coffin Island. The news spread like wildfire. The population turned out, and from the cargo of a shipwrecked vessel drew a new lease of life.
Mans extremity is Gods opportunity. It is a current saying, That the darkest cloud precedes the dawn, and that Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Early risers tell us that the lowest temperature immediately precedes the sun-rising. These things serve to illustrate Gods kingdom of grace. Before honour is humility. Thou has lifted me up and cast me down. How long, O Lord, how long?
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(3) Even the sea monsters . . .Better, jackals. The Authorised Version is intended apparently to apply to cetaceous mammals; elsewhere (Jer. 14:6) the word is rendered dragons. Jackals, it may be noted, are combined with owls or ostriches, as they are here, in Job. 30:29; Isa. 13:21. A like reference to the seeming want of maternal instinct in the ostrich is found in Job. 39:16. The comparison was obviously suggested by facts like those referred to in Lam. 2:20.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Sea monsters The original here has been mistaken in our Version. It is not tannim, “sea monsters” but tannin jackals; and this harmonizes with the mention of ostriches in the last clause of the verse.
Cruel, like the ostriches Which fowl is, in Job 39:13-17, used as “nature’s type of unmotherhood.” This popular belief, that the ostrich treats her young as if they were not hers, comes of the fact that her eggs are sometimes left to be hatched in the sand by the heat of the sun, and not by the warmth of her own body.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 4:3. Sea-monstersgive suck to their young ones See Job 39:13-14, and Parkhurst on the word anah. We are told by voyagers, that the sea lioness, and other sea-monsters, have dugs with which they give suck.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lam 4:3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people [is become] cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
Ver. 3. Even the sea monsters. ] a Heb., Whales or seals, which, being amphibii, have both a willingness and a place convenient to suckle their whelps.
The daughter of my people is become cruel.
a Lamiae. – Vulg.
ostriches. Compare Job 39:13-17.
sea monsters: or, sea calves
the daughter: Lam 2:20, Lam 4:10, Lev 26:29, Deu 28:52-57, 2Ki 6:26-29, Isa 49:15, Jer 19:9, Eze 5:10, Luk 23:28, Luk 23:29
like: Job 39:13-16, Rom 1:31
Reciprocal: Gen 41:55 – famished Lev 26:26 – General Deu 28:56 – and delicate 1Ki 3:21 – give Job 39:16 – hardened Isa 32:12 – lament Jer 4:11 – daughter Jer 6:26 – daughter Jer 32:24 – because Jer 47:3 – the fathers Lam 2:11 – because Eze 16:5 – eye Mat 24:19 – General Mar 13:17 – General
Lam 4:3. The state of destitution brought upon the Jews was so extreme that many of the natural emotions were quenched, and human mothers became colder toward their young than sea monsters were to theirs.
Lam 4:3-5. Even the sea-monsters draw out the breast The very dragons have drawn out the breast: so Blaney. Even these fierce and destructive animals are not so unnatural as to neglect the care of their young ones; whereas the women of Jerusalem have been reduced to that miserable necessity as to disregard their children, as the ostrich does her eggs. The tongue of the sucking child, &c. Such was the scarcity of food, that the women had not nourishment sufficient to produce milk to enable them to give suck to their infants, and when the children begged for bread the parents had none to give them. They that did feed delicately embrace dunghills Lie down on dunghills, and seek about them in hopes to pick up something to eat.
4:3 Even the sea monsters {c} draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: the daughter of my people [is become] cruel, like the {d} ostriches in the wilderness.
(c) Though the dragons are cruel, yet they pity their young, and nourish them, which Jerusalem does not do.
(d) The women forsake their children as the ostrich does her eggs, Job 39:17 .
The horrors of the siege of Jerusalem had turned the once-compassionate women of Judah into selfish creatures unwilling to give of themselves for the welfare of their young. Like ostriches that do not care for their offspring (cf. Job 39:14-18), these women had abandoned and even eaten their children. They behaved worse than loathsome jackals, which nurse their young.
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: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)