LAMENTATIONS – CHAPTER 5

THE PRAYER OF A SUFFERING PEOPLE

In this final chapter, which does not follow the acrostic arrangement, one finds a lament which dissolves into a prayer of confession. And, recognizing the eternal sovereignty of God, Judah casts the burden of her sin upon Him – to await His merciful remembrance, and the restoration of fellowship.

Vs. 1-10: AN APPEAL FOR DIVINE MERCY

1. God’s attention is directed to the pathetic suffering and helplessness of His people in an appeal to His compassion, (vs. 1; comp. Lam 3:19; Psa 44:13-16).

2. Jerusalem, the proud heritage of Israel, has been turned to strangers; their houses occupied by foreigners (vs. 2; Isa 1:7; Zep 1:13; contr. Lev 20:24).

3. In a metaphorical sense, they consider themselves as orphans, and their mothers as widows, because they have been abandoned by God, their Father (vs. 3; comp. Jer 15:9; Jer 18:21).

4. In their present straits they are required to purchase the very necessities of life from their captors, (vs. 4; Isaiah 1); so heavy is the yoke of bondage upon their necks that they have no rest, (vs. 5; Isa 47:6; Neh 9:36-37; comp. Jer 30:8) – very just retribution, since they have rejected the yoke of Jehovah with such stiff necks! (2Ch 30:8; Neh 9:29-30; Isa 48:4-6).

5. In an effort to escape conditions which seemed to them intolerable, they have pledged themselves: first to Egypt – at the death of Josiah, (2Ch 36:3-4), and later to Assyria – the Chaldeans, who now ruled the empire once controlled by Assyria, (vs. 6; Jer 2:17-19) -in order to survive!

6. Divine judgment upon the accumulated sins of their fathers has now fallen upon their offspring who follow in their rebellious ways, (vs. 7-10; comp. Jer 14:20; Jer 16:12-13).

a. Thus, they have been brought under the rule of slaves; nor can they find a way of escape! (vs. 8; Zec 11:6; comp. Psa 7:1-2).

b. To seek for their sustenance in the wilderness is to imperil their very lives at the hands of marauding Bedouin (vs. 9; comp. Jer 40:9-12), who have become a steadily increasing menace since the fall of Jerusalem.

c. Under the heat of severe famine, their skin is said to be as black as an oven (vs. 10; comp. Lam 4:8; Job 30:30; Psa 119:81-83).

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

This prayer ought to be read as unconnected with the Lamentations, for the initial letters of the verses are not written according to the order of the Alphabet; yet it is a complaint rather than a prayer; for Jeremiah mentions those things which had happened to the people in their extreme calamity in order to turn God to compassion and mercy.

He says first, Remember what has happened to us; and then in the second part he explains himself, Look and see our reproach Now the words, though brief and concise, yet contain a useful doctrine — that God is pleased to bring help to the miserable when their evils come to an account before him, especially when they are unjustly oppressed. It is, indeed, certain that nothing is unknown to God, but this mode of speaking is according to the perceptions of men; for we think that God disregards our miseries, or we imagine that his back is turned to us when he does not immediately succor us. But as I have said, he is simply to be asked to look on our evils, for we know what he testifies of himself; so that as he claims to himself the office of helping the miserable and the unjustly oppressed, we ought to acquiesce in this consolation, that as soon as he is pleased to look on the evils we suffer, aid is at the same time prepared for us.

There is mention especially made of reproach, that the indignity might move God the more: for it was for this end that he took the people under his protection, that they might be for his glory and honor, as Moses says. As, then, it was God’s will that the riches of his glory should appear in that people, nothing could have been more inconsistent that that instead of glory they should have nothing but disgrace and reproach. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet makes a special mention of the reproach of the people. It follows, —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE PROPHETS LAMENTATIONS

Lamentations 1-5

WE are quitting the Book of Jeremiah, but not the Prophet, and we are leaving the greater volume of Jeremiah, not because we have exhausted it nor because we have touched even its high points in passing. But having promised our readers forty volumes on the whole Bible, we are beginning to realize the extremely limited discussion we can give to the Books that remain, and yet stay within the number of volumes agreed upon with the publisher.

Jeremiah should have at least another volume similar in size to this, and LAMENTATIONS alone should claim five chapters instead of one.

However, we hope in this discussion to get before you the essential suggestions of this volume. It is correctly supposed to have come from the pen of the great Prophet. Modern criticism, to the contrary, will but poorly impress those students of Biblical history who know that in the septuagint version this volume was introduced in the following words:

And it came to pass that after Israel had been carried away captive Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented this lament of Jerusalem.

Three hundred years, then, before Christ, the scholars had no doubt whatever that these five chapters, constituting the volume of LAMENTATIONS, were from Jeremiah, and voiced his exceeding sorrow at the sight of his people conquered and carried away into captivity. The Prophet had lived to see his direst predictions fulfilled, and to deeply grieve the fact that his warnings to Judah and Israel had been disregarded and the day of judgment had come.

In order to present something like a birds eye view of the Book, we have elected to discuss it under four heads:

The Complete Subjugation, The Conquering Sin, The Consequent Sorrow, and, The Comforting Assurance.

THE COMPLETE SUBJUGATION

The Prophet views this subjugation as a true loyalist might be expected to see it. He looks upon it as it is related to Jerusalem, as it has affected the land of Judah, and as it has depressed the spirits of the people.

As it related to Jerusalem!

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies (Lam 1:1-2).

The first thing that affects and profoundly moves Jeremiahs feelings is the city itself. He loved Jerusalem. Either a man is very unpatriotic or else the metropolis, in which he has elected to live, is very unattractive if he does not come to love it.

When one goes to London and listens to the roar of that great city and looks on its narrow crowded streets, endures its ever-repeated rains and its almost endless fogs, he may wonder that any one loves London; but speak a word against it to a Londoner and you will speedily learn that London holds a large place in his heart.

Think of New York or Chicago, over-grown, bestial, dirty; and yet practically all New Yorkers and most Chicagoans have an abiding affection for their city.

Jerusalem even in Christs day was far from a Minneapolis in beauty; but Christ loved it and wept over it.

A citizen who has no affection for the place of his residence is a poor patriot, and the citizen who is not grieved when his city is subjugated to the vicious, has no right to a residence in it, and even less to its protection of either his person or property.

As it affected the land!

Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits (Lam 1:3).

This also is the voice of the patriot. His interest exceeds municipal limitations. They reach to the limits of the state. It is not enough to be a good Minneapolitan; it is absolutely essential to be a good Minnesotan, and a loyal American. We sing sometimes:

My country! tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing:

Land where my fathers died!

Land of the Pilgrims pride!

From every mountain side

Let freedom ring!

If we are true patriots, we will find even more pleasure in the second verse:

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love;

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills;

My heart with rapture thrills.

Like that above.

Jeremiah was equally concerned for the spirit of his people, and he wrote:

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. * *

Her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture (Lam 1:4-6).

It is a pathetic picture. To this good hour, America has never learned the meaning of this Scripture. Our people have never been subjugated; in our wars we have never been defeated, much less carried away captive to slave in other lands; and these lamentations are but superficially understood of us.

When the Russian-Japanese war of some years since was on, the great Russian general Stoessel, seeing that their defeat was imminent, since the Japanese had already occupied Keekwan Mountain and Q. fort and heights south of the forts, wired to the Czar: I now bid you all good-by forever. Port Arthur is my grave! For days following he fought on against impossible odds. Says the correspondent of the Associated Press: The hospitals are now in the rake of the Japanese fire. The wounded who can leave, are doing so. They can be seen in the streets on heaps of debris, exposed to the bitterly cold weather, and some staggering back to the front defying the Japanese and desiring death. They know that the stock of ammunition is about out, and that they are in the relentless grasp of the enemy.

When General Stoessel ordered them to fight they answered, We cant fight: we have nothing left with which to fight. Our men cannot move. They sleep, standing. They can see nothing but bayonets at their breasts. Their morale is gone! They were doomed and they knew it.

When a day like that breaks over a people, hopelessness takes possession.

Thats what Jeremiah saw, and thats the ground of his grief, and this Book is the expression of it. But Jeremiah saw another thing, namely,

THE CONQUERING SIN

He knew why these disasters had come. For months and years he had predicted them. But like the warning of Lot to his children in Sodom, he had seemed to them as one that mocked, and as it was sin that necessitated that Sodomic flame, so sin had fruited again and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Judahs transgressions were a multitude.

For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of Her transgressions (Lam 1:5).

Sin is like a pestiferous seed. It has great ability to multiply itself. Give Johnson grass a single start and it is with the greatest possible battle that you can keep it from taking the entire field. Let one seed from the Scotch thistle fall into good soil, and in a few years you will be fighting this enemy of fields on a thousand acres.

There is in Australia, a weed called the Australian weed, the seed of which, if sown in the water, multiplies with such rapidity that it soon chokes the flow of the stream itself.

Such a seed is sin! People of America are wondering about the increase of crime and are attempting to account for it in various and sundry ways, but there is nothing mysterious involved. Sin produces sin, and concerning its children, there is no practice of birth control, and its kind rapidly increases; so the life giving streams of decency are being choked by its fungus growth. The current of law is being turned out of its course and the fountain of righteousness itself is being clogged.

The character of sin also increases. Mild sins are somehow able to give birth to malignant ones. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned (Lam 1:8), was the lament of the Prophet. Thats always the result. A little sin to begin with; a grievous sin to end with.

A while ago a very popular modernist minister of New York told his shallow and admiring audience a very palatable thing, namely, Sin and hell have now been put in the museum! If so, then the museum itself is safe no longer.

It is quite interesting to go to the Smithsonian Institute and look on those magnificent specimens that Mr. Roosevelt and his sons and other Nimrods have brought to earth, and finally by the aid of the taxidermist placed in apparent life, but perfect death, before the public gaze.

If, however, the day should come when suddenly those great and ferocious beasts became as intensely alive and voraciously alive, as are sin and hell, I should want to be a long remove from the museum.

Down in Brazil there is a vine called the Matador or murderer. Its slender stem, very harmless looking at first, creeps along the ground until it strikes a tree, when it at once begins to climb the side of the same and throws out tendrils and takes deep hold, embracing the tree at a thousand points. Up and up it goes until the topmost limb, though it be a hundred feet away, is within its embrace and then a writer says, As if in triumph over its victim, this parasitic vine brakes into a huge beautiful blossom, as if joyfully conscious of victory, for that tree is doomed, and from its height above the same the vine scatters its seeds far and near to undertake, at another point, until whole forests are helpless victims within its deadly grasp. Such is the conquest of sin!

It leaves its victim destitute of sympathy. Listen to Jeremiah,

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me? (Lam 1:12).

This is Judahs lament when once she realizes that she is doomed, and the neighbor nations do not care. It is hard for any man or woman to be treated with contempt, but it is hardest for that man who has held the high position, and for that woman who has known the greatest beauty and charms. Such had been Judahs experience. She had been princess among the nations, and now none so poor as to do her reverence.

We may imagine that Germany was embarrassed when the war ended in her defeat, but that embarrassment was as nothing to the embarrassment of this time, when the creditor nations look upon her with contempt because she does not, and perhaps cannot, meet her pledged obligations. Anything is easier to bear than public contempt.

As we saw in our last sermon, self respect is difficult when popular respect has departed. The stricken demands sympathy and to withhold it from them is to crush them!

Do you remember that, in the Marble Faun, Hawthorne presents poor Miriam conscious of her guilt, and yet craving the sympathetic and loving touch of a friend? In her loneliness and remorse, that was her mightiest need. In Hilda she hoped, but alas, Hilda, in her purity and Phariseeism, turned from Miriam as from some contaminating thing, and as she went, walked on Miriams heart, and, with a high and doubtless haughty look in her eyes, crushed the same.

If there is one lesson that we poor mortals need to learn above another, it is the God-like compassion for another, compassion for the poor, tenderness for the sick, and even sympathy for the sinful. The cruelest men in the world are the priests and levites that pass by on the other side; to whom the sight of suffering is naught, and in whom sense of brotherhood is not.

But I am dwelling too long on this first chapter, and consequently must only touch those that remain. We can do this by studying next the

CONSEQUENT SORROW

It was felt most deeply by the Prophet himself.

The third chapter is the expression of it. It is too lengthy for reading. I will leave it to you for your quiet hour.

It opens in such a way as to indicate the deeps of Jeremiahs soul.

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.

My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.

He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.

He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate (Lam 3:1-11).

It is almost uniform for a sinful people to imagine that the Prophet among them is the one man exempt from sorrow. They think that because he warns, he has a conscious superiority, and that he never desires or deserves any sympathy. On the contrary, the Prophet suffers more than the people to whom God hath sent him. When Jesus Christ, the Prophet of Prophets, looked on Jerusalem He saw them happy when His heart was heavy; He saw them giddy with mirth when His heart was broken; He saw them given to frivolity while He was in the mountain in prayer, bedewing the sides of the same with His tears.

Their sin was not only His sorrow, it was also His suffering. Campbell Morgan, speaking of Jeremiah, says, It would have been easy for him to miss the persecution, and the prison. A modification of his message by accommodation to the desire of the princes, a softening of its terrible roughness, even a general denunciation of sin, a mild discourse upon their falsity of their hopes from Egypt, and the certainty of the victory of the Chaldeans; any of these changes would have saved him. Yet he never faltered, but steadily, in spite of the anger of men, spoke what God had given him to say. This brought upon him the suffering described.

This has been repeated in all ages. In the days of the Old Scotch Covenanters a wee laddie, one Jamie Douglas, for refusing to play traitor to the truth was one day held over a steep and rough precipice by a brutal soldier, and given the option of disloyalty or death. Looking up into the face of the man, with eyes bright with the light of true heroism, he said, Drop me down, then, if ye must; tis neer so deep as hell!

In this sorrow his people share.

It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not (Lam 3:22).

He changes from the personal I to the plural we.

It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed.

Let us search and try our ways (Lam 3:40).

Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God (Lam 3:41).

We have transgressed and have rebelled (Lam 3:42).

Thou hast made us as the off scouring and refuse in the midst of the people (Lam 3:45).

Here he identifies himself with the people, and the people with himself. No man liveth unto himself. We cant even suffer alone. Had it been so, Moses would have suffered even unto death for Israels redemption; had it been so, Jeremiah would gladly have gone to the cross for Judah. Only Christ is. the adequate substitute. He alone can stand in the sinners stead. On Him only can God lay the iniquity of us all.

This leads also to an additional thought.

This judgment was divinely visited.

The Lord hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof (Lam 4:11).

People wonder sometimes why God judges sin; why God executes wrath against iniquity; why God punishes the sinner. If it were not so, what a world! We are fast coming to the time when judgment against sin is no longer popular. The superficial thinking, the unbiblical thinking, the shallow reasonings of men are fast ruining and wrecking the world. We have almost as many parole boards as we have police courts, and most of them sit quite as constantly. Some of our Governors in recent years have granted more reprieves than all the judges of the state rendered convictions and what is the productthe land is filled with violence! Lawlessness is triumphant; banditry is the biggest of American businesses; murder is almost as common as birth. If the nations continue they will have to turn and learn again from God, re-establish law, and visit sin with judgment.

But from this unpalatable train of thought we turn to the prophetic conclusion:

THE COMFORTING ASSURANCE

God is always a compassionate God. Jeremiah didnt forget that fact, but in his sorrow he reverts to it and says,

It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.

The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him (Lam 3:22; Lam 3:25).

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word;What more can He say than to you He hath saidTo you who for refuge to Jesus have fled.

Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;Ill strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,The waters of sorrow shall not overflow;For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I will not desert to his foes;That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,Ill never, no never, no never forsake.

Gods ears are ever open to penitent cries. Jeremiah says,

I called upon Thy Name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.

Thou hast heard my voice: hide not Thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.

Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon Thee: Thou saidst, Fear not (Lam 3:55-57).

How like God! This Old Testament truth is beautifully illustrated in the New Testament story of the publican who would not lift up so much as his eyes to Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner, and he went down to his house justified.

With broken heart and contrite sigh,A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry;Thy pardoning grace is rich and free:O God be merciful to me.

I smite upon my troubled breast,With deep and conscious guilt oppressed;Christ and His Cross my only plea;O God, be merciful to me!

Far off I stand with tearful eyes,Nor dare uplift them to the skies;But Thou dost all my anguish see:O God, be merciful to me!

And when redeemed from sin and hell,With all the ransomed throng I dwell;My raptured song shall ever be,God hath been merciful to me.

Gods power is adequate for salvation.

Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old (Lam 5:21).

He alone is our hope.

Down in Illinois some years ago there was a cave-in in a coal mine. Sixty men were imprisoned hundreds of feet deep; but there was a small opening left between where they stood and the mouth of the cave. Fred Evans, a little boy, who was his mothers lone support, stood at the mouth of the cave when the foreman said, Fred, you are probably small enough to make it through this hole and carry down a pipe-line to the men and if you can do it you can save the lives of those men, for through it we can pump them fresh air and send them milk and water with which to sustain them. Will you try?

Without a moments hesitation, the little lad said, I will do my best, Sir!

Taking the line, he started on the long six hundred foot crawl. Again and again the line ceased to move, and the people without were filled with fear lest he had struck an impassable place or more probably still, coal or stone had fallen on him. But after a minute it would pick up again and by and by there came back through the tube the glad announcement that Fred had arrived.

For a whole week milk and water and air went through that tube to the men and Fred, and the whole sixty of them were eventually reached by the men and saved.

Gov. John R. Tanner, then Governor of Illinois, hearing of the deed of heroism sent for the lad. Youngster, said the Governor, the state of Illinois wants to recognize your pluck. What can we do for you? To which the lad finally answered after a bit of embarrassment, I would like to learn how to read.

The result was that he received a fine education free from the state of Illinois, and today he is a successful man.

Hear me! When we were caught, not in the accidental cave in a coal mine, but in the consequence of our own conduct; when the sentence of death against sin had been justly passed, Gods Son carried to us the life line. It cost Him, not the long anxious moments of Freds crawl, but rather the cruelties of the Cross, the shedding of the last drop of His precious Blood; but He failed not, and by that Blood we are redeemed.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

EXEGETICAL NOTES.

Lam. 5:1. Remember, O Jehovah, what has happened to usan application not to one who had forgotten, but to One who could consider their affliction and pain with a view to forgive all their sins and redeem Israel out of all his troubles; a prayer which is not so much an utterance concurrent with the nature of God, as concurrent with the partial knowledge and felt needs of the worshipper; behold, and see our reproach, the reproach of Thy servants wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Jehovah, the footsteps of Thine anointed.

HOMILETICS

A PITEOUS APPEAL TO JEHOVAH

(Lam. 5:1)

Once more, and for the last time, the prophet returns to his sorrowful theme. There is a fascination in it he cannot resist. Grief, unduly indulged, is apt to make us selfish, and so to accustom us to a grievance that we never wish to be without one: we coax and caress our troubles rather than seek to he bid of them. But the sorrow of the prophet arose from no mere personal distress. He was the mouthpiece to express the lamentations of the best spirits of his day over a national and world-wide disaster. His poetic and prophetic insight fitted him the more clearly to grasp and weigh the magnitude of the calamity. The profound and passionate grief with which he recited the leading incidents in the national catastrophe tended to stamp them with indelible distinctness upon his memory. He could never forget them, and it would seem as if he could not cease talking about them. As if with a clinging fondness for the theme and loathe to dismiss it, he passes in slow and final review the chief features of the siege and capture of Jerusalem. Thus wailed the genius of Hebrew poetry over the desolation of Judah and Jerusalem! Other cities and countries have had their minstrels to lament their public sorrows, but the national elegies of the Jew alone have spread among all races of the earth, and remain fresh after twenty-five centuries. Nor are they even yet without deep and practical interest, recording as they do the catastrophe that awaits any community, however highly favoured, which forgets that public and private righteousness alone secures permanent prosperity (Geikie). This fifth and last elegy begins and ends in prayer It is a hopeful sign when trouble brings us to our knees. We are then in the way of receiving comfort and delivering help. This verse is a piteous appeal to Jehovah.

I. Rising from the hearts of a suffering people. Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us. The trouble is not simply threatened and approaching: it is upon us; we are now in the midst of it, and cannot be in a worse plight than we are in already. Our nation ruined, our city gone, our Temple gone, and the spiked heel of the oppressor even now presses us in the dust. If Thou canst do anything for us, O Lord, do it now. The cry of real suffering has an irresistible pathos about it: there is the sound of tears in it. Such a cry never fails to reach the ears of Jehovah, and His pitying heart yearns to help the suppliant.

II. Is expressed by a people who regard their sufferings as a reproach. Behold our reproach. We are sunk from dignity and greatness to abject humiliation and shame, from affluence to poverty. We are the people of Jehovah, chosen by Him and publicly acknowledged by Him before the world. He has wrought miracles of power on our behalf, and we thought we were lifted above the possibility of change and decay to which other nations were liable. But now we are abandoned by our Divine Protector, and have become objects of scorn by our oppressors. Our calamities reflect upon the name and honour of Him who has done so much for us: our reproach is His reproach. So they thought; and so think the privileged in all ages when trouble overtakes them. They are apt to blame any one but themselves, and are slow to see that their distresses are the fruits of their own sins.

III. Is uttered with the confidence that His help will he graciously afforded. Remember, consider, behold. Remember what is past, the sufferings we have had; and behold and consider the present, the sufferings under which we at this moment writhe. Is this nothing to Thee, O God of our fathers? Is it a matter of indifference to Thee that Thine own children are in such abject woe? It cannot be. Our fathers sinned and so have we; but we repent. We are still the heirs of the promises. Lord have mercy, and fulfil Thy word unto Thy servants. It is a great help to prayer to believe that God not only sees and commiserates our miseries, but that He is able and willing to help us.

LESSONS.

1. God is not indifferent to the sufferings of His people.

2. The suffering heart finds relief in prayer.

3. Prayer is the first stage in the process of religious reform.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

The hopefulness of prayer.

1. When it is the cry of distress.
2. When it encourages a humble and reverential familiarity with God.
3. When it is an earnest appeal from the weak to the strong.
4. When it is based on the assurance that God knows all about our case and is willing to succour.

ILLUSTRATIONS.The need of prayer.

When prayer delights the least, then learn to say,
Soul, now is greatest need that thou shouldst pray.
Say what is prayer, when it is prayer indeed?
The mighty utterance of a mighty deed.
The man is praying who doth press with might
Out of his darkness into Gods own light.
All things that live from God their sustenance wait,
And sun and moon are beggars at His gate.

Trench.

Prayer in trouble. Sinking times are praying times with the Lords servants. Peter neglected prayer at starting upon his adventurous journey, but when he began to sink, his danger made him a suppliant, and his cry, though late, was not too late. In our hours of bodily pain and mental anguish we find ourselves as naturally driven to prayer as the wreck is driven upon the shore by the waves. The fox hies to his hole for protection, the bird flies to the wood for shelter, and even so the tried believer hastens to the mercy-seat for safety. Heavens great harbour of refuge is All-prayer. Thousands of weather-beaten vessels have found a haven there, and the moment a storm comes on it is wise for us to make for it with all sail.Spurgeon.

Prayer should be importunate. Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give but an occasional pluck at the rope; but he who wins with Heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly, and pulls continuously with all his might.Biblical Treasury.

God answers prayer. I once saw a grand procession in which an Oriental monarch, surrounded by a thousand life-guards, moved to the sound of all kinds of music. Some unknown subject had a request to urge. He knew the utter impossibility of ever breaking through the guards that day and night surrounded his majesty. That humble person perhaps had some dear friend in prison, who, according to Oriental custom, could never be tried or freed while the prosecutors malice or purse held out. They have no Habeas Corpus law among nations without the Bible. This poor creature took the only possible way known to one unable to bribe the officers, and flung his petition over the heads of the guards, and it fell at the feet of the sovereign. In a moment one of the life-guards pierced it with his bayonet and flung it back into the crowd. Alas! the proud, pleasure-loving monarch, amid the luxuriant splendours of his court, palace, army, and plans of reaping renown, never so much as dreamed of noticing the prayer of that broken heart and crushed spirit. Not thus does the King of kings treat the humblest suppliant who seeks His help.Van Doren.

I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came; at some time, no matter how distant a day, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came.Adoniram Judson.

Prayer brings deliverance. Prayer procures deliverance from trouble just as Naamans dipping himself seven times in Jordan procured him a deliverance from his leprosy; not by any virtue in itself adequate to so great an effect, you may be sure, but from this, that it was appointed by God as the condition of his recovery, and so obliged the power of Him who appointed it to give force and virtue to His own institutions beyond what the nature of the thing itself could otherwise have raised it to.South.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A PENITENT NATION

Lam. 5:1-22

The form of the fifth poem differs in at least two respects from the four which precede it. First, this poem is not in the acrostic form. But like chapters 1, 2 and 4 it does have twenty-two verses which indicates that these five poems belong together. Secondly, chapter 5 is a prayer and not a dirge. While the poem does contain a recital of the miseries recently suffered by the people, the purpose of the poet here is to appeal to the compassion of God so as to gain His help. The poem consists of two unequal parts. (1) In Lam. 5:1-18 the poet describes the present reproach of Zion, and (2) in Lam. 5:19-22 he requests the restoration or renewal of Zion.

I. THE REPROACH OF ZION DESCRIBED

Lam. 5:1-18

TRANSLATION

(1) Remember, O LORD, what has come upon us! Take note and observe our reproach. (2) Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners. (3) We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows. (4) We drink our water with silver, our wood comes to us for a price. (5) Our pursuers are upon our necks; we are weary, but we have no rest. (6) We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, in order to get bread. (7) Our fathers sinned but they are dead. We have borne their iniquities. (8) Slaves rule over us! There is no one to deliver us from their hand. (9) At the risk of our lives we bring our bread because of the sword of the wilderness. (10) Our skin is hot like an oven because of the fever of hunger: (11) Women were ravished in Zion, maidens in the streets of Judah. (12) Princes were hanged by their hands; elders were not respected. (13) Young men carried the mill and youths staggered with wood. (14) Elders have left the gate, young men their songs. (15) The joy of our heart has ceased, our dance has changed to mourning. (16) The crown of our head has fallen! Woe now to us, for we have sinned. (17) For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are darkened; (18) because of Mt. Zion which is desolate, jackals walk on it.

COMMENTS

That chapter 5 is a prayer is indicated by the language of Lam. 5:1 : Remember, O LORD, what has come upon us! There is a sense of desperation and urgency in these words. Of course God has not forgotten His people. He is not oblivious of their suffering. But when God hesitates to deliver one from reproach and difficulty it often seems to the sufferer that He has forgotten. The words of Lam. 5:1 also reflect the hope and faith of the poet. He stands as a petitioner before a judge to present his case. He is sure that if he can present a convincing picture of the desperation and repentance of Israel that the Judge of all the earth will intervene on their behalf. The prophet is pleading with God to demonstrate by divine intervention that He is aware of what has happened to His people.

The condition of Israel was truly pitiable. Their reproach was great. They had lost everything. Their inheritance (land) and their houses had been given to strangers probably as payment for aiding in the Chaldean conquest of Jerusalem (Lam. 5:2). With the male population practically decimated, those who remained were virtually widows and orphans (Lam. 5:3). Such essential items as water and wood were so scarce that they had to be purchased from the captors (Lam. 5:4). They were cruelly oppressed. The Chaldean troops which occupied the land gave the people no rest. They were breathing down their neck all the time. The Jewish remnant was constantly forced to labor for the enemy and were given no time to rest (Lam. 5:5). In order to obtain food they had been forced to give their hand in solemn pledge of surrender and servitude to Egyptian and Assyrian traders who passed through the land (Lam. 5:6).

Lam. 5:7 is not a complaint but a confession. The poet is not claiming that his generation has been punished unjustly for the people confess their guilt in Lam. 5:16. Lam. 5:7 is an acknowledgement of the principle that sin often has consequences which extend from one generation to another. Of course the Old Testament clearly teaches that every individual sinner is punished for his own sin (Jer. 31:30; Eze. 18:1 ff.); but if children continue to walk in the footsteps of their wicked fathers and even surpass their fathers in wickedness they may expect to be punished with ever increasing severity (see Jer. 16:11-12). The consequences of sin are cumulative. The passing of time gives more opportunity for hearing and obeying the word of God. Therefore, the generation of Jeremiah was even more guilty than previous generations because they had neglected more opportunities, more warnings, and ignored more judgments than their fathers. Lam. 5:7, then, is not an excuse for the people but an explanation of the severity of their suffering.

In Lam. 5:8-18 the prophet continues to picture the severity of Gods judgment on Judah. Babylonian mercenaries, some of whom had been former slaves of the Jews, now ruled over the land (Lam. 5:8). With no stable government to restrain them, marauding Bedouin tribes who lived on the fringes of the desert raided the valley farms. Only at great risk of life could the harvest be brought in (Lam. 5:9). A virtual famine continued to exist in the land and the people suffered greatly because of it (Lam. 5:10).

All sections of the population had suffered immeasurably. The women of Judah had been raped. It was unsafe for a maiden to walk the streets of Jerusalem (Lam. 5:11). The princes of the land had been impaled and left to die a slow and shameful death. The cruel enemy had no respect for the older people of the land (Lam. 5:12). What few young men survived the siege and capture of Jerusalem were forced to grind grain which was usually the work of women or slaves. Even the younger boys were compelled to serve the enemy by carrying huge loads of fire wood (Lam. 5:13). Elders no longer assembled to conduct their business in the gates of the city. Young men could no longer get together to make merry (Lam. 5:14). The once joyous people were now experiencing only bitter sorrow (Lam. 5:15).

In Lam. 5:16-18 the passage reaches its climax as the poet acknowledges the justice of the present sufferings. Like a crown toppling from the head of a deposed monarch, so the glory of Judah has suddenly and completely been removed. The nation experiences misery and woe because we have sinned against God (Lam. 5:16). The heart of the people is sick with sorrow, their eyes darkened by tears because of the national loss (Lam. 5:17). The sacred hill of Mt. Zion where once proudly stood the Temple of Solomon is now desolate. Jackals have made their home in the ruins of Gods Temple (Lam. 5:18). Sin always pays off in wages of death and destruction.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

V.

(1) Remember, O Lord.The fact that the number of verses is, as in Lamentations 1, 2, 4, the same as that of the Hebrew alphabet suggests the inference that this chapter also, though not actually alphabetic, was intended to have been so, and that we have the last of the five elegies in a half-finished state. It would seem as if Jeremiah first wrote freely what was in his mind, and then set to work as an artist to bring it under the alphabetic scheme. This chapter, it may be stated, has more the character of a prayer than any other, and the prayer begins with recapitulating the woes of Judah as a ground for the compassion of Jehovah.

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

THE GENERAL DISTRESS, Lam 5:1-7.

1. What is come Better, what hath happened to us. This is more fully explained by the term reproach; and this, in turn, by the sad recital which follows.

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

Remember, O YHWH, what is come on us,

Behold, and see our reproach.

The prophet calls on YHWH to remember all that had come on them and to consider the reproach that they were under, something that he will now deal with in detail. The first person plural indicates the prophet’s identification with his people. They were feeling totally humiliated.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Description of the Present Misery

v. 1. Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us, the evils which had befallen the Lord’s congregation in the ruin of the entire nation; consider and behold our reproach, turning to their pitiable condition with merciful attention. The misery of Jerusalem and Judah, the home of the true Church, is now depicted.

v. 2. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens, since the invading Chaldeans had taken possession of the entire land.

v. 3. We are orphans and fatherless, like those that have been deprived of their natural protectors; our mothers are as widows, this statement bringing out the fact that large numbers of men, the defenders of the city and country, had either fallen in battle or been led away into captivity.

v. 4. We have drunken our water for money, namely, that which was rightfully their own; our wood is sold unto us, they were obliged to buy the very necessaries of life from the conquerors or pay exorbitant taxes.

v. 5. Our necks are under persecution, their pursuers and tormentors being continually upon them, driving them headlong; we labor and have no rest, no matter how tired they were, rest was denied them.

v. 6. We have given the hand, stretching it out in humble supplication, to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread, since the nation as such was reduced to absolute beggary.

v. 7. Our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have borne their iniquities, the generation of Jews at the time of the destruction of the city being obliged to bear not only its own guilt, but that of the previous generations as well, placing them under a double misfortune. God punished the iniquities of the fathers upon the children who followed their fathers on their ways of wickedness.

v. 8. Servants have ruled over us, many of the Chaldean overseers and petty officers actually being slaves; there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand, the former kingdom of priests having become a servant of servants.

v. 9. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness, for the country, sparsely populated as it was after the deportation of the exiles, was open to the ravages of nomad hordes, whose raids were a constant menace.

v. 10. Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine, glowing with the heat of fever brought on by their condition.

v. 11. They, the invading armies and the raiding hordes, ravished the women in Zion and the maids in the cities of Judah, the usual accompaniment of barbarous warfare.

v. 12. Princes are hanged up by their hand, the disgrace of their slaughter thus being intensified by their suspension from the accursed tree; the faces of elders were not honored, the enemies showing no respect for dignity or age.

v. 13. They took the young men to grind, compelling them to perform the work of slaves, and the children fell under the wood, as they dragged the heavy mill-stones with which the grinding was done. The Jewish young men and boys were required to do the lowest and most menial services.

v. 14. The elders have ceased from the gate, no longer assembling at the customary place for deliberations and judgments, the young men from their music, for the joyful meetings were also held in the open space at the gates of the cities.

v. 15. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning, all mirth and cheer being things of the past.

v. 16. The crown is fallen from our head, their former position of glory and honor and influence apparently being put from them forever. Woe unto us that we have sinned! The realization of sinfulness and the acknowledgment of guilt, as in a confession of this kind, is the first step toward true repentance.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Lam 5:1-18

INSULT UPON INSULT HAS BEEN HEAPED UPON JERUSALEM.

Lam 5:2

Our inheritance. The land had been “given” to Abraham (Gen 13:1-18 :25; Gen 17:8), and was consequently inherited by Abraham’s posterity. Our houses. Not as it the Chaldeans had actually taken up their abode in some of the houses of Jerusalem. The expressions are forcible, but inexact. The land was seized; the houses were destroyed (Jer 52:13).

Lam 5:3

We are orphans and fatherless; i.e. “We are like the most desolate of beings,” as the Targum already explains it. Hence in the next clause the mothers of Israel ere likened to widows.

Lam 5:4

We have drunken our water, etc. The Jews were not yet carried away to Babylonia when this was written, but had to pay a dear price to the new lords of the soil for the commonest necessaries of life.

Lam 5:5

Our necks are under persecution. Persecution is here compared to a yoke. But this rendering and explanation hardly suit the phrase, which rather means, “We are pursued close upon our necks.” The harassing conduct of the Babylonian conquerors is compared to the pursuit of a foe fast gaining upon a fugitive.

Lam 5:6

We have given the hand, etc. Starvation awaits the Jews unless they submit to one or the other of their hereditary foes. Some escape to Egypt and “give the hand” (i.e. surrender, Jer 1:15) to the lords of the fertile Nile valley; others acquiesce in the fate of the majority, and sue for the alms of the Babylonians.

Lam 5:7

We have borne their iniquities. The fathers died before the iniquity was fully ripe for punishment, and their descendants have the feeling that the accumulated sins of the nation are visited upon them. This view of national troubles is very clearly endorsed by one important class of passages (Exo 20:5; Exo 34:7; Num 14:18; Jer 32:18). The objection to it is forcibly expressed by Job (Job 21:19), “God [it is said] layeth up his iniquity for his children: [but] let him requite it to himself, that he may feel it!” Hence Jeremiah (Jer 31:30) and Ezekiel (Eze 18:1, etc.) insist on the truth that every man is punished for his own sins. Of course the two views of punishment are reconcilable. The Jews were not only punished, according to Jer 16:11, Jer 16:12, for their fathers’ sins, but for their own still more flagrant offences.

Lam 5:8

Servants have ruled; rather, slaves. The Babylonians in general might be called slaves, by comparison with the “kingdom of priests” (Exo 19:6), and the “sons” of Jehovah (Isa 45:11; Hos 1:10). Or the expression may mean that even baseborn hangers on of the conquering host assumed the right to command the defenceless captives.

Lam 5:9

We gat our bread; rather, we get our bread. The allusion in the following words is perhaps to murderous attacks of Bedawins (as we should call the Ishmaelites) on the Jews who attempted to gather in the scanty harvest.

Lam 5:10

Was black like an oven. The translation is misleading; there is no real parallel to Lam 4:8. Render, gloweth. It is the feverish glow produced by gnawing hunger which is meant. The terrible famine; rather, the burning heat of hunger. Hariri, the humoristic author of the cycle of stories in rhymed Arabic prose and verse, called ‘Makamat,’ puts into the mouth of his ne’er do well Abu Seid very similar words to describe a famished man

“Dess Eingeweide brennend nach Erquickung sehrein,
Der nichts gegessen seit zwei Tagen oder drein.”

(Ruckert’s adaptation, third Makama.)

Lam 5:12

Princes are hanged up by their hand; i.e. by the hand of the enemy. Impalement after death was a common punishment with the Assyrians and Babylonians. Thus Sennacherib says that, after capturing rebellious Ekron, he hung the bodies of the chief men on stakes all round the city (‘Records of the Past,’ 1.38). Benomi gives a picture of such an impalement from one of the plates in Botta’s great work.

Lam 5:13

They took the young men to grind; rather, the young men have borne the mill. The lower millstone seems to have been specially hard, and therefore heavy (see Job 41:24), and to carry it about must have required a more severe exertion even than the constant turning of the mill handle. Dr. Thomson “cannot recall an instance in which men were grinding at the mill”, and both Exo 11:5 and Mat 24:41 presuppose that it was women’s work. The conquered Jewish youths, however, share the fate of Samson

“Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.”

(‘Samson Agonistes,’ 41.)

“Eyeless,” indeed, they may some of them have been, as putting out the eyes was a common Oriental punishment (comp. Jer 39:7). The children. This is, perhaps, too strong. The Hebrew naar is applicable, not only to children, but to youths at the age for marriage (Gen 34:19) or war (1Ki 20:15). The wood; not the wooden handle of the mill, but the wood required for fuel.

Lam 5:14

From the gate. The place where the elders, technically so called, assembled for legal proceedings, and where the citizens in general met together for social concourse (comp. Gen 19:1; Rth 4:11; Psa 69:12; Amo 5:12, Amo 5:15; Dan 2:49). From their music (comp. Jer 7:34; Jer 16:9).

Lam 5:16

The crown is fallen, etc.; rather, the crown of our head is fallen. The Jewish people is compared to a rich man at a banquet, crowned with a diadem (comp. Isa 28:1). Jeremiah has a similar phrase in his prophecies (Jer 13:18). It evidently expresses figuratively the prosperity and honour formerly enjoyed by the now vanquished people.

Lam 5:17, Lam 5:18

These verses form a transition to the final appeal. The thought of the desolation of Zion overwhelms the spirit of the poet. But he will soon be able to lift himself up again when he recalls the sublime truth of the inviolable security of Israel’s God. Foxes; rather, jackals.

Lam 5:19-22

FINAL APPEAL TO GOD FOR THE REVERSAL OF THE JUDGMENT.

Lam 5:19

Remainest; better, art enthroned.

Lam 5:20

Wherefore dost thou forget us, etc.? The poet does not say,” Wherefore hast thou forgotten us?” One of the psalmists, indeed, does go so far (Psa 74:1); but the poet of this lamentation, with a more tender and trustful reserve, adopts the tense of feeling (the imperfect) in preference to that of fact (the perfect), and asks, “Wherefore dost thou [to my feeling] forget us? Wherefore, if Jehovah’s power is still unbroken, does he allow Israel to feel herself forsaken?” The fact is certain, viz. that the land of Israel is desolate, and (the poet seems to imply) desolate for some time already. The interpretation is hypothetical, and, as the last verse will show, the poet cannot bring himself to believe that it can be accurate.

Lam 5:21

Turn thou us, etc. Not “bring us back to thee,” i.e. to the sacred land (as Thenius), for it is not a speech of the exiles, but of the Jews left behind, at least for the present, in Judea. “Turn thou us” means “Bring us into a state of reconciliation with thee” The next petition, Renew our days as of old, means, “Restore the old happy mode of life, each man with his own vine and his own fig tree, undisturbed by the fear of invasion, and rejoicing in the sense of the favour of Jehovah.” The first petition has the priority because only on repentance and recovered purity of heart and life can Jerusalem rise from her ashes. Isaiah had said this long ago (Isa 1:26, Isa 1:27), and the elegiac poet repeats it (comp. Jer 31:18).

Lam 5:22

But; rather, unless. The poet wishes to suggest that the idea seems to him inconsistent with the covenant relationship of Jehovah towards Israel. May we not compare a striking passage in Isaiah which should probably be rendered thus: “A wife of one’s youth, can she be rejected? saith thy God” (Isa 54:6)? Both passages express, in a most delicate way, the incredulity of the writers with regard to the absolute rejection of Israel. And thus this melancholy Book of Lamentations concludes with a hope, “faint, yet pursuing,” of the final realization of the promises to Israel. The interpretation adopted admits of no reasonable doubt, in spite of the fact that ancient doctors of the synagogue thought otherwise when they established the custom of repeating verse 21 after verse 22 had been read, in order to soften the supposed gloomy impression of verse 22.

HOMILETICS

Lam 5:1

A prayer of distress.

I. IT IS OFFERED TO GOD. The whole of this last elegy is in the form of a prayer. Other laments are interspersed with cries to Heaven. This poem is one continuous address to God. We see here true wisdom; for mere complaining is useless, To wail to the winds is foolish and vain. To make our troubles known to our fellow men often avails little, for we may only weary them instead of eliciting their pity, or, if we do succeed in gaining commiseration, that may be of little real use to us. But God is the great Comforter. His ear is ever open to the cry of his distressed children. His heart is always tender to feel compassion for their woes. His hand is strong and willing to work substantial deeds of helpfulness.

II. IT DESCRIBES THE MOURNFUL CONDITION OF THE SUPPLIANT. The poet refers to “what has come upon us” and “our reproach.” Subsequent verses describe the miserable condition of the Jews in more detail. It is much that we can unbosom our souls before God. The mere relief of confiding in him is a comfort. Moreover, if we desire his help we must make this confidence. Reserve on our part necessitates apparent indifference on his part. We need not fear of wearying him with our plaints. Indeed, if we were more open hearted in confiding our troubles to God we should come to have fewer troubles to concern ourselves with.

III. IT ASKS FOR DIVINE NOTICE.

1. “Remember.” It seems as though God must have forgotten and deserted his children when he has permitted them to fall into grievous distresses.

2. “Consider.” We need God’s thought for us. Our case is such that the wisdom of God as well as his grace is necessary for our salvation. The great work of Christ is a proof of Divine thought, study, consideration.

3. “Behold.” Here is a nearer attention. God is not only asked to remember and think of our case, but to inspect it himself. And when he looks he heals. When once we are assured that God remembers, considers, and beholds our trouble, we can leave it with him, well knowing that he will not mock our cries by listening without answering.

Lam 5:2

The lost inheritance.

I. THE EARTHLY INHERITANCE OF ISRAEL WAS TURNED TO STRANGERS. Canaan, the land promised to Abraham and his seed, was always regarded as more than a mere possession. It was considered to be received from God as an inheritance, and held by a Divine right. Yet even this sacred soil was taken away from the people. Strange races from the East settled down upon it, and the rightful owners were driven into captivity or compelled to pay for water from the wells their fathers had dug, and for fuel from their own woods (Lam 5:4). A second time the people have been driven from their inheritance, and Turkish mosques now desecrate the city of the Jews.

II. THE SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE OF ISRAEL WAS TURNED TO STRANGERS. The Jews were more than possessors of one little favoured land. To them were entrusted the oracles of God. Prophets and priests gave them peculiar privileges in spiritual things. They were a people of God’s own possession. The blessings of the Jews were to culminate in the advent of the Messiah. The Messiah came. He came to his own inheritance, and his own people received him not; for Christ first offered himself to Jews. and Christ was first refused by Jews. In rejecting Christ the house of Israel rejected its true inheritance. Gentiles took up the privileges which Jews despised. We and other nations of Gentile Christendom are the strangers to whom their inheritance is turned over.

III. THE CHRISTIAN INHERITANCE MAY BE TURNED TO STRANGERS. There have been Christian lands, such as North Africa and Asia Minor, which have lost their Christianity and have passed into the possession of the bitterest foes of the Crucified. Within the pale of Christendom the inheritance may be lost, If we permit unbelief to lay hold of people who once enjoyed full faith in Christ, this result will take place. When men who are unbelievers at heart get possession of Christian pulpits and undermine the very faith they are supposed to be preaching, is not this a terrible instance of the inheritance passing to strangers?

IV. THE INHERITANCE IS TURNED TO STRANGERS BECAUSE THE CONDITIONS ON WHICH IT IS HELD ARE VIOLATED. This truth applies to all three cases just describedto Israel’s earthly inheritance and her spiritual inheritance and to the Christian inheritance. The land was not given to strangers till after strange gods had been admitted into the land. It was always designed by God that the privileges of the gospel should be given to Gentiles as well as to Jews (e.g. Isa 60:3). But it was owing to their refusal of these privileges that the Jews lost their own share in them. The inheritance was to have been widened to admit new citizens; the old Citizens cast themselves out of it, and so gave place to the new. In like manner Christ never takes the candlestick from any portion of his Church till his people have faithlessly cast him oat of their hearts.

V. THE LOST INHERITANCE IS TO BE RESTORED. Whether Israel will return to Palestine is only a question for the curious, and of no great practical interest. For so long as the people are restored to God and truly prosperous it cannot much matter on what spot of the globe they reside. In their palmy days many of them were in the habit of wandering far from their native land. But the true restoration, restoration to the spiritual inheritance in God, is promised to all who will return to him (Isa 61:1-3).

Lam 5:3

Orphanage and widowhood.

In the desolation of Jerusalem the inhabitants felt like orphans and widows, bereaved of the stay and comfort of life, uncured for and homeless. Many would be literally orphaned and widowed after the great slaughter of the siege, The sad condition of these greatest sufferers brings before our notice the similar trouble of those who are similarly situated in our own day.

I. ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD INVOLVE OVERWHELMING SORROW. The mournful condition of the sufferers is the first thing to strike us. Their sorrow is keen because it concerns a nearest and dearest relative, and it is the more dreadful because it strikes a whole family. Moreover, the trouble is not simply one of affection. The breadwinner is lost. The prop and strength of the household is cut down. The protector of the helpless is removed. The guide and counsellor of the young is no more.

II. ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD SHOW US THE BROKEN CHARACTER OF HUMAN LIFE. There is a oneness in a true family. All the members together constitute a unit. But when death claims the head the family is broken and its completeness destroyed. Then part is on earth and part in the other world. The widow and her children thus bear testimony to the imperfection of earth, to the transitoriness of what once seemed perfect, and to the need of a future life wherein the severed threads may be reunited and the Divine idea of the family realized.

III. ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD ARE UNDER THE ESPECIAL CARE OF GOD. He is the “Father of the fatherless and the Judge of the widow” (Psa 68:5). If God sends exceptional trouble, he also feels exceptional compassion and gives exceptional aid. Helplessness is the greatest claim on the Divine pity. The heavier the need of any sufferers the more likely is it that God will come to their deliverance. It is true that he may not restore lost comforts. A shadow; long and dark, may long lie across the path of orphans and widows. But unseen hands will be tending them, if not for their wealth and pleasure, yet for their peace and blessedness. God sometimes helps by raising up friends. He may also aid by rousing the faculties of the sufferers. Under the pressure of necessity a widow, left with the care of a family, may develop capacities that slumbered in neglect so long as they were not called for.

IV. ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD HAVE A FIRST CLAIM ON CHRISTIAN CHARITY. Where God’s compassion is strongest ours should be also. If the trouble is great and the sufferers have not brought it upon themselves by their own folly or fault, the sympathy should be particularly large and active. The care of widows and orphans was one of the first characteristics of the Church, distinguishing it from the selfish indifference of paganism. With all our desire for the spiritual welfare of men, and all our zeal in preaching the gospel, this elementary duty of Christianity must have a first place in our energies if we would not be justly accounted hypocrites.

Lam 5:7

Children suffering for the sins of their parents.

I. IT IS A FACT THAT CHILDREN DO SUFFER FOR THE SINS OF THEIR PARENTS. It was apparent in the times of the Captivity; for owing to Josiah’s reformation the moral condition of the nation then was better than it had been a generation or so before; yet the blow, which was caused by the greater guilt of the fathers, fell upon the children. It may often be observed in history that the greatest catastrophes do not fall on the most guilty, but on their successors, who are often better mere Thus James II. was a better man than Charles II; though the Stuart dynasty ended in the younger brother; and Louis XVI was comparatively innocent, and yet he had to suffer for the vices of Louis XIV and Louis XV. In private life, poverty, disease, and disgrace are inherited by children from their parents. Now, it is a sign of the robust truthfulness of the Bible that this dark fact is distinctly recognized. There is no attempt to shun it because it is mysterious. We have in the Bible an honest, brave confronting of the evils of life, and not a system which is only beautiful to contemplate in idea and which cannot be squared with facts.

II. THIS FACT IS A WARNING TO PARENTS. The selfishness that incurs disastrous consequences on a man’s family is too often ignored if those consequences are not immediately apparent. But it should be exposed and reprobated. Thus the intemperate man is sometimes regarded as a kind and good natured man because he displays no malice of temper. Surely his cruelty in impoverishing his household and risking the health of his children should be considered a gross sin. If a man will not hold his hand for his own soul’s sake, let him consider how he will wreck his family and ruin innocent sons and daughters before he yields to temptation.

III. THIS FACT SHOULD NOT SHAKE OUR FAITH IN GOD.

1. Men in all ages have faced it clearly and yet have retained their trust in Providence, e.g. the writers of the Bible.

2. The very idea of faith implies that we must confide and wait in the darkness where we cannot understand.

3. The necessary greatness of the scheme of the government of a world should lead us to expect mysteries in it.

IV. THIS FACT SHOULD HELP US TO UNDERSTAND PART OF THE DIVINE IDEA OF LIFE. It is a sorrowful sightinnocent little children plunged into poverty and distress through no fault of their own, solely on account of the sins of those who should be their greatest benefactors! But it shows us that God does not treat us as isolated units. He takes notice of families as such. There is a “solidarity” of mankind. Everywhere we see the innocent suffering with the guilty. Social and domestic life are under providential care. And it may be best for the world as a whole that the several societies and collective bodies of which it consists should be governed with Messing and discipline than that each individual should receive only his own private grace and judgment. Moreover, if this is the case, inasmuch as the individuals profit by the corporate life and prosperity, this treatment by. families and cities and nations may turn out in the long run to be the best for the separate persons.

Lam 5:19

Consolation in the supremacy of God.

The Divine supremacy is often regarded as a topic of dread rather than as one of comfort. The awful throne towers above poor humanity, sublime and majestic, and men turn from it to seek refuge at the humbler footstool of mercy. But the writer of this elegy finds deep satisfaction in contemplating the supreme and eternal government of God.

I. THERE IS CONSOLATION IN THE FACT THAT GOD IS ENTHRONED. Above the tumult, above the darkness, stands the throne of God. God is King over all, not only reigning in majesty, but also ruling in might.

1. Evil is not supreme. It rears its head in boasts and threats. It dwells in high places. But it does not reach to the highest.

2. Evil is under government. Not only is it not supreme, but in the lower domain where it seems to rove at will it is not really free. It is chained, checked, and overruled. The kingdom of God extends over the rebellious haunts of iniquity.

3. Justice is above all. Wrong must give place to righteousness. Law must triumph over disorder. The fair order that is the image of God’s equitable and righteous will is ultimately to supersede the hideous confusion of man’s lawlessness. Even now God is reigning and working through the chaos to the development of life and beauty.

4. Goodness controls everything. He who is enthroned supreme is our Father, the kind and merciful God. His rule must reflect his character. For such a Lord to be supreme is for all the law and government of his kingdom to be inspired with love.

II. THERE IS CONSOLATION IN THE FACT THAT GOD‘S THRONE IS ETERNAL. The eternal is always of first moment. Whatever be the force, or size, or character of any temporal thing, its transitoriness makes it as an unsubstantial dream compared with the solid endurance of what is eternal. God’s eternal throne renders the petty thrones of evil, so hastily set up and so swiftly cast down, like mere passing shadows.

1. Nothing can overthrow the throne of God. We see good causes frustrated, good men crushed and bad powers apparently victorious; but they cannot take the citadel. The throne above looks down upon their petty victories with scorn.

2. Goodness will outlive evil. The temporary phase of darkness cannot endure like the everlasting kingdom of light. Generation after generation comes and goes; still the grand old throne stands above all, immovable. In one age, wild dreams of new religions possess the minds of men. In another, lethargy and degeneration of character are prevalent. But all these shadows pass, and the throne still abides. Like the rock about which the surf fumes and frets, the throne of God dwells firm and calm in the midst of all earthly changes.

3. Evil will be made to work for good. The everlasting throne will draw all transitory things into subjection to itself. We can endure our passing troubles if we are children of God and citizens of the kingdom of heaven, because these very troubles must do the will of our gracious Lord.

Lam 5:20

Questioning God.

I. IT IS NATURAL THAT WE SHOULD WISH TO KNOW THE PURPOSE OF GOD‘S DEALINGS WITH US. There is no subject for inquiry that touches us more nearly or that affects us in such important matters. God’s treatment of us concerns our highest welfare for time and eternity. It is in all the experience of lifeour many blessings, our varied trials, our greatest prosperity, and our heaviest trouble. Surely it is natural that we should ask whither are all these waves driving us, and why do they sometimes beat so strangely and severely.

II. THERE IS MUCH IN GOD‘S DEALINGS WITH US THAT WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND. It seems that he has forgotten us when we are permitted to fall into great and lasting trouble. Short, sharp affliction may be faced. But long enduring distress wears out hope and faith, and makes it appear more and more as though the lonely sufferer had been deserted by God. The purpose of this is not easy to discover. The whole dispensation is just inexplicable.

III. THE RIGHT WAY TO DISCOVER THE PURPOSE OF GOD‘S DEALINGS WITH US IS TO ASK HIM. We often discuss vainly when we have no data to start with. But speculation is sure to fail if it goes beyond all evidence and clear reason. Prayer is the one safe resource. It would be well if we had enough faith in God to confide our doubts to him. For it is too often only unbelief that makes us silence doubt. If we truly trusted God we should more bravely confess to him all that troubled and perplexed our minds. In response to such confidence God may reveal to us a new way of looking at our experience that shall help us to understand something of its object; or he may simply reconcile our minds to the mysteryperhaps an equally beneficial result.

IV. WE MAY REST ASSURED THAT GOD HAS A PURPOSE IN HIS DEALINGS WITH US. It is there, though we cannot see it. We may say, “Wherefore dost thou forget us?” and we may not be able to receive an answer to our question. Yet we should not doubt that there is a “wherefore.” God does nothing aimlessly. He certainly cannot be putting his children to pain without an object, nor without one that is adequate to the cost. The knowledge of this fact should quiet fear and restless doubt, even if the object itself remains hidden in mystery.

V. WE MUST BEWARE OF QUESTIONING GOD QUERULOUSLY. We have no right to demand an explanation from God. To couch complaints in the form of inquiries is insulting to God. Let the questioning be humble and submissive, and the answers are sure to come in peace, if not always in light.

Lam 5:21

Renewal.

When they do not lead to improvement lamentations are profitless, though they may be unavoidable. It is vain to mourn the past if our grief does not help us to make the future better. Sorrow for sin is good only when it leads to an active repentance. It is therefore necessary that a true consideration of the miserable condition into which evil living has brought us should rouse an earnest desire for a new and better life.

I. RENEWAL MUST BE THE WORK OF GOD. The writer does not simply resolve to do better, nor hope that a happier state of affairs will come about of its own accord. He prays. And the object of his prayer is to plead with God to produce the great change which is so much needed.

1. We cannot accomplish the renewal.

(1) We cannot change our own hearts; they are too corrupt and too hard,

(2) We cannot bring back the old days. The past is lost forever. If it is to be equalled or surpassed by the future, a Divine providence alone can accomplish the great work.

2. God does bring about renewal. He renews the face of the earth. He sends springtime into wintry lives. No soul is so corrupt that God cannot renew it; no life is so desolate that God cannot brighten it. We try vainly to turn ourselves. But God is strong as well as gracious. If only he turn us we shall be surely turned.

II. RENEWAL MUST BE IN OUR EXPERIENCE. The mistake is to suppose that God must change to us. But there is no need for him to turn. He is always good and always willing to be favourable to his children as soon as they submit and obey. Till then nothing can induce him to do so unrighteous an act as to turn from wrath to pleasant treatment. The necessary change lies all on our side. Men used to think that night was the desertion of the earth by the sun, and day the enjoyment of his return. They were wrong. They now know that the sun is not thus fickle. So it is with the soul’s night and day. A primitive and narrow theology says that God changesnow going, now returning. Larger knowledge shows that he abides the same, and that as our distress is in turning from him, so our redemption must be in returning to him.

III. RENEWAL MUST BEGIN WITH OUR INNER LIFE. The writer wisely prays to be turned back to God before he prays for the renewal of the old days. It is a common mistake to seek for the external fruits of forgiveness before the internal. The first thing is to bring the soul back to God. Other happy consequences will follow. It is vain to pray for the brightness of noon before our part of the earth has revolved towards the sun. It is to be noted that the great change in the soul is a turning to God. God draws us to himself. Redemption is reconciliation to God. To be near him, to trust and love and obey him, to seek more and more of his light and life,this is the renewed health and blessedness of the soul that is restored from the wretchedness and ruin of sin.

IV. RENEWAL WILL AFFECT OUR WHOLE EXPERIENCE. After the interior life is renewed the exterior also undergoes a happy transformation. The Jew yearned for the old happy days of peace and prosperity. We inevitably clothe the joyous past with a glamour of affection. Many a lost joy seems inconceivably bright now it has gone. Yet God may bring it back, if not in. the old form, for the exact past is irretrievable, yet in even richer sweetness. The penitent muses sadly over the innocent days of old in the dear home now long since broken up. He would give worlds to bring back that peaceful time before all his sin and shame. It cannot return. But far off, at last, there may be reunions in the better world and rejoicings that will outdo the brightness even of those happy days.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON

Lam 5:1

The Lord’s remembrance besought.

The inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem had looked, now to Egypt and now to Assyria, for help and deliverance. Events had shown upon how broken a reed they had leaned. Their experience was now leading the best among them to another and a surer, higher, Refuge. As the spokesman of his repenting fellow countrymen, Jeremiah entreats the remembrance and the regard of Jehovah.

I. ADVERSITY SOMETIMES LEADS MEN TO SEEK THE REGARD AND FAVOUR OF THE GOD WHOM IN PROSPERITY THEY HAVE FORGOTTEN. That trouble may foster self-control and patience is a commonplace of moral teaching. But it only answers its highest end when it leads the afflicted to seek and call upon their God. In the noonday of happiness, the healthy, busy, and joyous too often forget him to whom they are indebted for all. Providence is forgotten when the sun shines; clouds and darkness seem to have a natural tendency to remind the soul of God.

II. THE LORD‘S REMEMBRANCE AND CONSIDERATION ARE AN ASSURANCE OF HELP AND DELIVERANCE. That the Omniscient is not perfectly aware of all that happens to man is not for a moment to be supposed. The language of the prophet is human language, adapted to our ignorance and infirmity. The Lord will be entreated; he summons his children to think of him; and he promises to draw near to those who draw near to him. The sinner may well dread the all-including gaze of the righteous Judge; but the lowly and believing penitent may well take courage when he learns that the Lord has not forgotten to be gracious.T.

Lam 5:7

The moral continuity of nations.

Man is naturally not merely gregarious, but social. The powers that be, an apostle teaches us, are ordained by Godfrom which we learn that political and social life have a Divine sanction. Accordingly, the Judge of all deals with men, not only as individuals, but as communities. This fact was present to the mind of the prophet when he wrote these words.

I. THE FACT OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE MORAL GOVERNOR. The history of the Jews is the history of a theocracy; but it embodied lessons which are adapted to all mankind. Nations have national privileges, national responsibilities, national probations, national rewards and punishments.

III. NATIONAL RETRIBUTION IS SOMETIMES DEFERRED FOR A SEASON. The prophets appear to have had a clear view of this law. Wrong doing in one generation was seen to be followed by punishment in a succeeding age. Jeremiah is the author of the well known proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” The seed (to change the figure) is sown by one generation; a following generation reaps the harvest.

III. THE CERTAINTY THAT PENALTIES WILE, BE INFLICTED UPON THE IMPENITENT. There is indeed a sense in which even the repenting and reformed suffer for the sins of those who have gone before them. But for the impenitent and unreformed there is no exception, no escape. We, says the prophet, speaking of himself and of his rebellious and ungodly contemporaries”we have borne the iniquities of our fathers.” The apostasy and rebellion of the former generations were visited upon those who endured the horrors of the siege and the degradation of the Captivity. There is mystery in the providential appointment that, not only shall every man bear his own burden, but that some shall bear the burden of those also who have gone before them. But the fact remains, and it gives solemnity to the life of families and of nations.

IV. THE LESSON IS THUS IMPRESSED UPON ALL MENHOW SERIOUS AND REAL A THING IS NATIONAL PROBATION!

1. The teaching which was profitable for Israel is equally adapted to England, and indeed to all the nations of mankind. The Lord is King, and from his government and authority none of the earth’s inhabitants is free.T.

Lam 5:8

None to deliver.

Bitterness was added to the misery of the Jews when Chaldean slavesadvanced to eminence and power on account of their abilitywere placed in authority over them. But there was no choice; resistance was impossible and deliverer there was none, In this respect the condition of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may represent that of sinful, helpless men.

I. A CRUEL BONDAGE. Sinners have yielded themselves up to obey the enemy of their souls, the foe of God. This is

(1) a usurper, who has no right to rule over men;

(2) a tyrant, who with unjust and unreasonable exercise of authority oppresses those beneath his power;

(3) a cruel master, whose service is slavery, whose stripes are many, whose wages are death and destruction.

II. A SEEMINGLY INEVITABLE FATE. The conquered Judaeans had looked hither and thither, in the crisis of their fate, for some friend and helper, but they had looked in vain. Similarly the captive of sin can find no earthly deliverer; his fellow men are his fellow sinners and fellow captives; there is no eye to pity and no hand to save.

III. A SOLITARY BUT SUFFICIENT CONSOLATION AND REFUGE. The restless waves answer their purpose when they toss the imperilled mariner towards the haven of refuge. Affliction and adversity, chains and dungeons, oppressors and torturers, may make the one only Deliverer welcome. The Lord God has revealed himself to us as the Saviour of all men. There is no prison from which he cannot set the captive free; there are no gyves and fetters he cannot strike off; there are no foes from whose hands he cannot rescue and deliver.T.

Lam 5:15

The cessation of joy.

This fate had been foretold. “Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.” Well is it for those who take the warning which is given beforehand, and do not wait, as Jerusalem waited, for the stern lessons of a retributive providence.

I. THERE IS CESSATION OF JOY WHICH IS NOT PUNITIVE. The health, the elasticity of spirits, the pleasures of youth, cannot be protracted to old age. “Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories fade away.” Days of sickness, of poverty, of bereavement, of sorrow, are appointed by the Lord of the human lot, to follow days of brightness. The wail of sorrow will replace the song of gladsome joy. Yet all this experience may be spiritually disciplinary and helpful; there may be in it nothing of punishment, nothing of Divine displeasure.

II. THERE IS CESSATION OF JOY WHICH IS THE SIGN OF DIVINE ANGER AND THE FULFILMENT OF DIVINE THREATENING. Such was the case with Judah, upon whom the siege and the Captivity came, not without warning, not without space for repentance. In fact, sin puts an end to the joy which it promises to increase and perpetuate, and brings about the mourning and distress against which it pretends to ensure us. The retrospect of those whose joy has ceased becomes in such cases a retrospect of human rebellion and Divine forbearance. Conscience awakes and admits that sorrow is merited.

APPLICATION. Yet there is a way of repentance. God will renew the days of his people as of old. This is the cry and the hope of the penitent: “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.”T.

Lam 5:16, Lam 5:17

The degradation of sin.

The promise of sin is something very different from this; no flattery is untried, no prospect withheld, which may induce men to rebel against God. But, as with our first parents, as with the dwellers in Jerusalem, so is it in the experience of all men; the promises which sin makes are unfulfilled; the wages of sin are death.

I. THE PICTURE OF DEGRADATION. It is highly figurative language which the prophet here employs; but it is not exaggerated, it is not unjust.

1. The head is uncrowned. Judah’s independence and freedom was as a crown to the head; but the Chaldeans tore it off and flung it away. They who defy God must lose in so doing all that is most honourable, most sacred, most precious.

2. The heart is faint. Judah’s joy was turned into mourning, her hopes were dashed to the ground; how could the heart be other than faint? The ways of sin are ways of disappointment, weariness, and distress. The heart of the transgressor sinks within him when he sees the fruit of his doings.

3. The eyes are dim with watching for deliverance, with tears of woe.

II. THE CAUSE OF DEGRADATION. Judah may have been unwilling to admit the truth, and may have been disposed to attribute calamities to second causes. But the prophet was just, and laid his hand upon the true explanation when he confessed on behalf of his countrymen, “We have sinned!” Trace up human misery and national disaster to the source, and this is to be reached only when we come to defection and departure from the righteous Lord.

III. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF DEGRADATION. “Woe unto us!” is the cry of the prophet. When men sin and suffer but fail to acknowledge their own ill desert, the intentions of Providence are as yet unfulfilled. The sin must be taken home; the punishment must be acknowledged just; the confession must be penitent, sincere, and frank.

IV. THE LESSONS OF DEGRADATION.

1. Let the virtuous and obedient abjure self-confidence and cherish trust in God.

2. Let the tempted beware of the foe, and watch and pray lest they sin and come into this torment.

3. Let the smitten sinner repent and turn unto the Lord and seek pardon and renewal.T.

Lam 5:19

The eternal throne.

The believer in God has this great advantage over the atheist and the agnostiche has a firm conviction that all things are under the control and rule of a wise, righteous, and benevolent King, who reigns both in heaven and on earth. Afflictions, personal and relative, may distress his mind; calamities may overwhelm his imagination and baffle his reason; but he has this consolationhe knows that the Lord remains forever on his throne.

I. GOD‘S ETERNAL THRONE CONTRASTS WITH THE PERISHING THRONES or EARTH. The King of Judah, defeated and carried captive, was torn by a foreign hand from the throne of his power and glory. All earthly monarchies are transitory and all earthly monarchs are mortal. They perish, but God endureth.

II. THE STABILITY OF GOD‘S THRONE RESTS UPON THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF HIS DOMINION. “A sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” Injustice and oppression may prevail for a season, but only right is indestructible and immortal. Even in his mercy the Supreme has regard to the claims of justice and to the maintenance of rightful authority.

III. THE DEFEAT OF GOD‘S ENEMIES IS ASSURED. They may rage and they may take counsel together, but the Lord has them in derision. All their assaults upon his kingdom must fail, and those who lead those assaults must come to shame and misery. No weapon that is formed against God and his people shall prosper.

IV. THE VICTORY OF GOD‘S CAUSE IS CERTAIN. Kingdoms rise and fall, princes are elevated and dethroned; but the King of kings goes conquering and to conquer. All his foes are put beneath his feet, and on his head are many crowns.T.

Lam 5:21

Turn us again!

The Scriptures are the volume of hope; they lend no countenance to despondency; they rebuke despair. Deep as was the degradation of the Jews, far as they had wandered from God’s ways, inexcusably as they had defied his authority, there was for them a place of repentance. And Jeremiah closes this Book of Lamentations with language of confident supplication and well grounded hope of better times.

I. THE NEED OF TURNING. The whole of the book thus closed witnesses to this necessity. Judah had gone wrong, had wilfully taken the path of rebellion and defiance. In this respect her case represents that of every culpable transgressor. The end of the way of sin is death, is destruction without remedy. It is a stern truth, but it is a truth, and a truth which mercy reveals.

II. TO WHOM THE TURNING MUST BE. “Turn us unto thee!” Away from the sin which has misled, away from the human counsellors and helpers in whom is no wise counsel and no sufficient help, away from self, to God against whom the sinner has transgressed and to whom he needs to be reconciled. The old phrase, “conversion unto God,” is one full of truth, meaning, and appropriateness.

III. BY WHOM THE TURNING MUST BE EFFECTED. The prayer is unto the Lord; for he alone can turn the wanderer unto himself. By the authority of his Law, by the winning, melting power of his gospel, by the sweet constraint of his Spirit, he alone can transform the heart, reverse the steps, and renew the olden clays of those who have transgressed but have now at length sought his favour and forgiveness.T.

HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG

Lam 5:2

The fate of inheritance and houses.

The Israelite reckoned a great deal on his inheritance, that which came to him as an Israelite; and in this he did quite right, seeing how he was bound to dwell on the promises made to Abraham. There was the national territory, sanctified and made a peculiarly valuable thing by the manner in which it first came into Israel’s hand. Then there were the tribal inheritances and the family inheritances. So that altogether inheritance was continually before the Israelite mind; inheritance became almost a part of self. Doubtless many tracts of land had run down in the same families for generations. And now the foreigner comes in to reap the riches of these lands and dwell in the houses built on them. What the Israelites failed to recollect was that the inheritance they esteemed so much was not the real inheritance in the eyes of God. The visible land, out of which comes the corn, the wine, the oil, is only the type of that deeper, that truly exhaustless spiritual land, where we are to sow plentifully, assured that a harvest cannot fail. There is the inheritance, corruptible, defiled, that doth fade away. There is the house made with hands, temporal, on the earth. And then, all unconscious of the pains we are preparing for ourselves, we let our heart’s best affections get round these things. The loss of the inheritance, the loss of the houses, was the way to gain, if only the loser could see it. Doubtless what we may fail to possess of temporal things some one else gets hold of; but his getting is not with a firm, abiding grasp. These lamenting Israelites would reckon that the less of inheritance and houses, which made them so miserable, would make the new possessors correspondingly happy; and such would be the case for a time, but only so long as the brightness of the first delusion lasted. God does not mean that we should ever say of any really good thing that our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. Of the really good things there is enough and to spare for all. Christ sends out his apostles to urge every one towards the inheritance of the saints in light; and in the house of him who is Father of Jesus and of all that believe in Jesus there are many mansions, many abiding places, a place for everyone wishing to dismiss the restless, craving spirit, and abide in such a place.Y.

Lam 5:7

The sin of the fathers and the suffering of the children.

This chapter is the complaint of those who suffer. “We,” “us,” “our,”these are the prominent words. The complainers are those who have lost inheritance and houses, become fatherless, and entered into a galling servitude. And now what do they give as the reason of all this terrible experience? Thisthat “our fathers have sinned.”

I. THE MEASURE OF TRUTH IN THIS. The fathers had sinned. That was an historical fact. The utterances of former prophets, recorded, perhaps, in far greater abundance than we have any idea of, attested the iniquities of past generations. No generation of which there was any record had been without its disobedience. And had it not also been said that the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children? Hence there is plain logic in these words, “Our fathers have sinned and we have borne their iniquities.” Great is the suffering in bodily pain, in privation, and in emotion, of every generation; and each generation has a right to say that some, at all events, of this suffering would have been escaped if only preceding generations had lived according to the full law of righteousness. Hence the appeal to us, when self-indulgence presses with all its energies, to consider others. Indulging self, we have to make ready for after pains; but those pains cannot be kept within the limit of our own lives.

II. True as this statement is, there is A MEASURE OF DEFECT IN IT. Note exactly how the point is put: “Our fathers have sinned, and are not;” that is, “they cannot suffer any more, and now the suffering comes on to us.” In such an aspect of the situation there is great pathos, but we need to travel round to the other aspects also. There is a difference between retribution and suffering. Some kinds of pain and injury may be inherited to the third and fourth generation, but a guilty conscience belongs to the individual. The worst pains, the worst consequences, and those on which the Saviour looks with the most pity, are surely those coming out of our own wrong doing; and searching into the connection between the sins of past generations and the suffering of the present one will do harm rather than good, if such a searching tends to obscure our own lawlessness, our own want of attention to the requirements of God, There is, indeed, a great difference in kind between the suffering coming on us from the wickedness of others and that which comes from our own.Y.

Lam 5:14

The occupation of the elders gone.

I. THE PLACE OF OLD MEN IN A COMMUNITY. As men grow old they may get past certain kinds of work, but they need not cease to be useful, nor need age become, unless from bodily frailty, a burden and a weariness. There is much for an old man to tell from the stores of his experience and observation. He may show what ought to be avoided, even if he cannot always tell what ought to be done. The elders sat in the gate, where the throng passed in and out, and where they could see more people probably than anywhere else. An old man should endeavour to be useful and to mingle with the life of the world as long as he can. It is right that he should be in the way of all the respect and veneration he can receive, not because these things are necessary to his happiness, but because those who give them are the better for their giving. A society without its troops of children at one end, full of life and eagerness, and its sprinkling of hoary heads crowned with glory at the other, would soon feel that very important elements were lacking. Elders sitting in the gate bore testimony to a certain stability and continuity in the social life of Jerusalem.

II. THE PECULIAR ASPECT OF THE CALAMITY FURNISHED BY THE FACT THAT THE OLD MEN HAVE FORSAKEN THE GATE. There is no longer anything to take them to the gate. Where of old they had many pleasures, now they will have nothing but pain. The place of honour would only become a place of insult, and in all likelihood only too many of these elders had been advisers of the wrong sort, men with a serene and firmly rooted confidence in their own opinion. To the warnings of a prophet old men can often reply that such things have been said over and over again without coming true; and then, when all at once the threatening takes effect, what can they do but retire into as much obscurity as possible? These same old men, many of them, must have had much to do with the state of affairs that made all these calamities a Divine necessity.Y.

Lam 5:16

Discrowned Jerusalem.

I. THE PAST HONOUR OF JERUSALEM. The crown has fallen from the head; a crown, therefore, has been upon the head. The lament is not over something striven for and not attained, but over something, as it seems, securely possessed and now irretrievably lost. Notice how Ezekiel is instructed to put the matter (Eze 16:12). In making Jerusalem to know her abominations there is a contrast with former privileges. Jehovah says, “I put a beautiful crown upon thine head and thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty.” Unquestionably Jerusalem and the land of which she was the radiant centre shone forth gloriously among the Gentiles. The great example of this is that queen of the south who came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. God for his own purposes, inscrutable, and yet, as we must believe, beneficent, constituted it so that Jerusalem was like a fair woman crowned with a crown of pure gold. Other cities had their strength, glory, peculiarities, but Jerusalem was uniquely glorious. And so human individuals may have most attractive natural endowments. There may be physical beauty, or genius, or some ineffable charm of character, or great intellectual capacity, something that lifts man or woman above the common crowd, and thus puts upon them a bright and manifest natural crown. The same great secret power that glorified Israel glorifies men still, not for what they do, nor for any claim they have, but that in their glory they may stimulate and inspire others, and multiply the happiness of every life coming within their sway. It was for the sake of the nations that Jehovah glorified Jerusalem and made her beautiful.

II. HER PRESENT HUMILIATION. The crown has fallen from the head, but the mark of past and lost regality remains. It cannot be obliterated. The higher a nation climbs, the further it can fall and the more terrible becomes the spectacle of its fall. It needed all the slow and majestic ascent of Rome to greatness to make Gibbon’s great book possible. Thus, looking from such a height, he had pathetic struggles and contrasts to depict, which would else have been impossible. So, also, we contemplate the aberrations and miseries, the cynicism and misanthropy coming out in the lives of geniuses who have missed their way, men of richest endowments who, from the depths of serf-indulgence and debauchery, might well cry, “The crown is fallen from my head.” And so we see that the great crown to be desired is, not that which comes through natural differences or differences in social position, but that which comes through the divinely inspired quality of one’s living. “The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness” (Php 4:1; 2Ti 4:8; Jas 1:12; 1Pe 5:4).Y.

Lam 5:17

The faint heart and the dim eyes.

I. THE PENETRATING EFFECT OF THE DIVINE CHASTISEMENTS. Jerusalem had been satisfied with outward things. Wherever it turned, there had been enough to satisfy its pride and its pleasure. And now Jehovah, by efficient agents, had taken these outward things away. The difference that had been made in Jerusalem was perceptible to any eye. But another difference could only be known when it was confessed, namely, the difference made in the hearts of the people when their outward circumstances were so completely changed. Proud, resolute men, full of joy in their selfish purposes, found the interest of life completely gone, It would have availed nothing if all these chastisements had ended in leaving the people real Stoics, able to say that it was all the same whether they kept their temporal possessions or lost them. God did not desolate Jerusalem for any delight that he took in this; it was to find a way to humble hearts that were unsubdued after every prophetic appeal. When men are delightedly occupied with the things of sense, then it is a great end gained if, through losses and changes, their hearts become faint and their eyes dim. For then they may accept the ministry of Christ to put into their hearts an energy which will tend for righteousness and direct their eyes to look on the world in the right way,

II. THE CAUSE HERE SPECIALLY MENTIONED. The hill of Zion has become a desolation; it has become again a mere height in the wilderness, such as doubtless it had been at some time before in the immemorial past. That Zion is here specified seems to point to the sorrow and despair caused by the overthrow of religious ordinances. The very fact that Jehovah had allowed the place devoted to him to become thus desolated made his displeasure with the people to become a much more vivid thing. It seemed as if he needed no more a habitation in their midst.Y.

Lam 5:19-22

The only resource acknowledged to be in God.

It will be felt that this prayer is a fitting conclusion to the book. What could be more proper than that these people, having looked all around with an ever-deepening sense of loss and humiliation, should now look above? Upon earth, in strength or skill of man, there is nothing to be looked for; if anything is to be got, it is by looking to heaven.

I. AMID ALL THESE CHANGES THE CONTINUANCE OF JEHOVAH IS PERCEIVED. Zion has become desolate, but the true throne of God is not there. That God lives, unchangeable, unaffected by our lapses and losses, is the last safeguard of hope, and it is an impregnable one. Much is it to be desired that, amid all the vicissitudes of life, we should have this sense of something unchanging.

II. THE SENSE OF SEPARATION FROM GOD. This was the crown of troubles to some of the people, that God seemed to have forgotten them and forsaken them. But when God remembered them and manifested his presence, all that the people in general did was to take his gifts and think nothing of the Giver’s will and purpose. God, of course, had neither forgotten nor forsaken. What the people called forgetting was only a different kind of remembering. What they called forsaking was only a closer presence.

III. THE UNQUENCHABLE HOPE OF THOSE WHO TAKE THE RIGHT VIEW OF GOD. This chapter has had in it the tones of penitence and contrition. It is admitted that the cause of all this desolation is the people’s turning away from God. And now there is the petition which results from a full self-discovery. Inward weakness is discovered. The last cry of the book indicates that the turning of men to God is the great thing to be desired, Not a restoration to external possessions and comforts, but a turning to God consequent on his turning to us. The results that come from our being turned to God by his power will one day be seen to justify all the loss and pain needed to bring them about.Y.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Lam 5:1. Remember, O Lord In the Vulgate, Arabic, and Syriac, this chapter is intitled, “The prayer of Jeremiah.” It is rather to be understood as the earnest supplication of the whole body of the Jews in their captivity. See the introductory note to this book.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Lamentations 5

Distress And Hope Of The Prisoners And Fugitives: [expressed In The Form Of A Prayer Or, E. V., A Pitiful Complaint Of Zion In Prayer Unto God.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:1. Remember, Jehovah, what has come upon us!

Look down and see our reproach.

Lam 5:2. Our inheritance has fallen to strangers,

Our houses to aliens.

Lam 5:3. We have become orphans, without father,

Our mothersas widows.

Lam 5:4. Our water we have drunk for money,

Our wood comes for a price.

Lam 5:5. On our necks we have been pursued;

We have been weary,there was no rest for us.

Lam 5:6. Towards Egypt have we stretched the hand,

Towards Assyria,to be satisfied with bread.

Lam 5:7. Our fathers sinned. They are no more;

We have borne their iniquities.

Lam 5:8. Servants have ruled over us:

There was none to deliver from their hand.

Lam 5:9. At the peril of our lives we get our bread,

Because of the sword of the desert.

Lam 5:10. Our skin has been parched as an oven,

Because of the ragings of hunger.

Lam 5:11. Women in Zion have been humbled,

Virginsin the cities of Judah.

Lam 5:12. Princes have been hung up by the hand:

The persons of Elders have not been honored.

Lam 5:13. Young men have carried mill-stones;

And boys have fallen under [burdens of] wood.

Lam 5:14. Elders have forsaken the gate,

Young mentheir music.

Lam 5:15. Ceased has the joy of our heart;

Our dance has been changed to mourning.

Lam 5:16. The crown has fallen from our head.

Woe unto us! for we have sinned.

Lam 5:17. For this our heart has become faint;

For these things our eyes have become dim.

Lam 5:18. As to Mount Zion, which has become desolate,

The foxes have walked upon it!

Lam 5:19. But Thou, Jehovah, reignest forever;

Thy throne is from generation to generation.

Lam 5:20. Wherefore shouldst Thou always forget us,

And abandon us for length of days?

Lam 5:21. Turn us, Jehovah, unto Thee, and we shall turn;

Renew our days as of old;

Lam 5:22. If Thou hast not utterly rejected us,

And art wroth against us exceedingly!

ANALYSIS

The subject is chiefly composed of the particular incidents of those grievous days which followed the capture of Jerusalem. The Poet lets the people speak yet not as an ideal female person, but in the first person plural as a concrete multitude. The Song is divided into an introduction, Lam 5:1, two principal parts, Lam 5:2-16, and a conclusion, Lam 5:17-22. In the introduction, Lam 5:1, the Lord is entreated to regard the sorrows that had befallen Zion [the people]. In the following two principal parts, Lam 5:2-16, these sorrows are described in detail. The first part embraces Lam 5:2-7. All their property, fixed and movable, is seized by the enemy, Lam 5:2; families are scattered, fathers have disappeared, mothers are as widows, Lam 5:3; the captives receive no subsistence, they must buy what they need, though as the product of their own land it is really their own property, Lam 5:4; on the march to Babylon, they are driven beyond their strength, and no rest is allowed them, Lam 5:5. Besides all this, the whole people do not even remain, together. Whilst one party is compelled to throw itself into the arms of the Egyptians, another party belongs to Assyria; both are in such straits as to rejoice if able only to prolong their lives, Lam 5:6. But this great misfortune is caused by the sins of the fathers, the consequences of which now their posterity have to bear, Lam 5:7. The second principal part embraces Lam 5:8-16. Whilst those forced to Babylon groan under the rods of the rough servants, who are their drivers, Lam 5:8, those who wander to Egypt, must seek for subsistence amidst constant danger from the robbers of the desert, Lam 5:9 : both parties suffer the consuming pangs of hunger, Lam 5:10. To this is now added a recital, partly the recollection of what had already been endured, partly an exhibition of what they still experienced, of the sufferings from which no class of the population was exempted: women have been dishonored, Lam 5:11; noble princes hung up or outrageously ill-treated, Lam 5:12; young men compelled to carry heavy hand-mills, and boys loads of wood, Lam 5:13. Sitting in the gatethe delight and glory of old men, and playing on stringed instrumentsthe pleasure of young men, have come to an end, Lam 5:14. In general, among all classes, deep mourning has succeeded to pleasure and joy, Lam 5:15. The crown of glory has fallen from the head of Zion, and, verily, those who suffer this, are obliged to acknowledge, that it has happened, not merely because their fathers had sinned (Lam 5:7), but because they themselves have sinned, Lam 5:16. The conclusion contains a prayer, to which Lam 5:17-18 are introductory. In these verses it is declared, that all the affliction of the Israelites culminates in the destruction of the Sanctuary. But this thought suggests the encouragement, which the Poet now presents in his prayer; although the external Sanctuary is destroyed, Thou Thyself, O Lord, remainest for ever, ver, 19. Wherefore shouldest Thou forget and forsake Thy people for ever? Lam 5:20. Lead us back to Thyself, that we may be again what we have been in former times, Lam 5:21. This will be done, for it is not to be supposed, that Thou canst have utterly rejected us, Lam 5:22. [Lam 5:1, introductory; Lam 5:2-10, descriptive of general suffering from oppression and want of necessaries of life; Lam 5:11-13, instances of individual suffering; Lam 5:14-18, effect on the feelings and sentiments of the people; Lam 5:19-22, the prayer.W. H. H.]

Preliminary Note on Lamentations 5

This chapter is not acrostic. Yet it is evident from the agreement of the number of the verses with the number of the letters of the alphabet, that the chapter should be regarded as belonging to the four preceding ones as a member of the same family. The acrostic is wanting, because the contents are in prose. The Poet would make apparent, even in the external form, the decrescendo movement, which we perceive from the third chapter onward. Were there not 22 verses, this chapter might be regarded as an entirely disconnected supplement. But the number of verses is a vinculum, that in a way even externally observable, unites this prosaic chapter with the preceding poetical ones.

[Various reasons may be given for the absence of the acrostic in this chapter.1 1. There may be something in the notion that the alphabetical structure was not allowed to embarrass freedom of thought and expression in prayer (Gerlach, Adam Clarke). 2. We may suppose the writer felt less need of the artificial restraint in controlling his feelings and restricting their expression. It is not true that this Song is of less impassioned character than the others, as Wordsworth says, but it is true, as he further says, that the writer, being less agitated by emotions, and having tranquillized himself by the utterance of his sorrow, and by meditations on the attributes of God, did not need the help of that artificial appliance to support and control him. Besides, new restraints are imposed upon the writer in this Song, which more than supply any assistance derived from the alphabetical curb in the preceding songs. The verses are reduced from three and two members each, to a single member, and this not only balanced by a cesura or pause as in the other songs, but composed of corresponding parallelisms of ideas and expressions. To have added, to the production of these distinct and emphatic parallelisms, the difficulties of the acrostic, could have served no useful or artistic purpose. 3. In the last fact referred to, the introduction of parallelisms of thought and sentiment, may be found the most satisfactory reason for the absence of the acrostic. As long as the parallelisms were merely rhythmical, as in the first four songs, the alphabetical index served a good purpose in rounding off and defining the successive verses. Now it is no longer needed. We find here then an argument in favor of the theory advanced, in Additional Remarks to the Introduction, p. 23, in reference to the relation of the Acrostic to rhythmical parallelisms.

Is this chapter poetry or prose? Dr. Naegelsbach says, the acrostic is wanting because the contents are in prose.2 He certainly cannot mean that the chapter is prose, because the acrostic is wanting; and yet unless he implies this, he has not even suggested a reason for this most extraordinary assertion. This chapter has poetical characteristics, that the preceding chapters do not possess; besides having all that they do possess, except the acrostic, which in itself is unpoetical. 1. It has that unfailing mark of Hebrew poetry, of which the preceding chapters are nearly destitute, parallelisms of thought, one half the verse exactly and beautifully corresponding in its sentiment and form of construction to the preceding half, and successive verses connected by underlying analogies, comparisons, or relations, such as parallelisms involve. 2. The language is so unmistakably rhythmical as to be almost metrical. The first line of each verse never consists of more than four words, nor of less than three, counting compound words as one. The second line never consists of more than three words (unless in two instances, where Lam 5:12, and or Lam 5:16, may be joined to the word following them), and if it have two words only, those two are in that case invariably long words. In this song, if anywhere in Hebrew poetry, we can detect evidences of such metrical feet as the Hebrew language was capable of. 3. There is throughout the Song such assonance as cannot be accidental, and could only be allowed in poetry. The Song is full of rhymes. This may not justify us in calling it a strictly rhymed Song (as does Bellerman, Metr. d. Hebr., S. 220, quoted by Gerlach), but it is certainly a result of the evident regard to assonance in the choice of words. Thus in this Song that is composed of only 44 short lines, occurs 55 times, and 44 times as final letter of words; occurs 21 times as final letter of words: out of the 134 words the Song contains, 65, or only 2 less than one half, end in either or . 24, or more than half of the lines, end with , 17 end with , 9 end with . In 9 verses (1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17) both lines end with the same letter (or letters) and vowel point. 28 lines end with the same letter that terminates one (or both) of the lines of the verse immediately preceding or following. Other evidences of a studied assonance are apparent: such as ,, as terminations of Lam 5:3; ,, first words in the lines of Lam 5:4; as first word in second lines of verses 9, 10, making a parallelism in sound as well as in sense; ,, in near relation and parallelism, Lam 5:14-15, and possibly an equivalent for failure of rhyme in Lam 5:14; , as last word in first lines of Lam 5:15; Lam 5:17; etc. So obvious is the prevailing paronomasia in this Song, that the remark has been made, that the Song appears like the effort of a youth playing with words (quoted by Gerlach). To the slur contained in this remark, it may be replied, that no unskilled youth, even if capable of choosing his words so artfully, could have arranged them so as to give both harmony and sense, and thus produce a poem equal in fervor, force and beauty to this. But the fact that such an insult could be offered to this Song, proves that it is written in a style only adopted in poetry. 4. In spirit as well as in form, this chapter is poetry, and that of the highest order. There is nothing prosaic about it, not even in the recital of hard facts and detailed incidents. As the Song proceeds the lyre is tuned to higher chords than even inspired minstrels often reach, and Lam 5:14-19, are so exquisitely beautiful that we cannot imagine anything to excel them in all the Songs of Heaven and earth. I cannot repress the expression of these sentiments and be a silent instrument in giving to American readers, this strange opinion of an eminent man, that this chapter is a bit of prose writing, tacked on to a splendid poem, by the poor expedient of its containing twenty-two verses (though it is something new to write prose in verses). Were I more diffident of my own judgment, I might take refuge under the shadow of Dean Milman, who in culling from the Lamentations what he regards as specimens of the deepest pathos of poetry, gives us a metrical translation of nearly the whole of the 5th chapter (14 out of the 22 verses), while he selects only three verses from chap. 1, eight verses from chap, 2, three verses from chap, 4, and none from chap. 3. It is to be inferred that in his judgment, the fifth Song excels in its poetry the four Songs that precede it. I agree with him.

That the only connection of this chapter with the preceding four chapters is found in the corresponding number of its verses, without which it might be regarded as a supplement to those chapters, but not as an integral part of the Poem, is an opinion that will not sustain examination. 1. It is, as we have seen, lyrical in its structure, and thus assimilated to the preceding Song of Solomon 2. The Poem could not end with the fourth chapter. Such an ending were too painfully abrupt. Even as it is, the burden of Edom seems to be intruded at that place, and we only comprehend it, when we know that it was Jeremiahs habit to represent the security of the church of God, by depicting the destruction of its enemies. But to end the Poem with that threat against Edom, would seem to be impossible. Something more is needed, and that something is just what we have in the prayer of Lam 5:3. The only way to account for the omission of the usual prayer (see 1, 2, 3) at the end of the 4th Song, is by the fact that its omission was to be more than supplied by the 5th Song. Here is the groove into which the fifth Song is dovetailed so securely, that we cannot break the connection, without marring the harmony and completeness of the whole poem. 4. The structure of this last Song, gives the last needed touch to the manifest unity of the whole poem. The preceding chapters may be regarded as composing a poem not unlike the modern ode, in which great liberties in the versification are allowed. But the Ode, complete in its main parts, is wound up at last with a Hymn of prayer to God, constructed according to the strictest rules of lyrical poetry, metrical and harmonious, and forming an apt conclusion because it recites all that has been before said, briefly and forcibly,sums up, as it were, the whole case, and leaves it in the hands of God. Finally Dr. Naegelsbachs beautiful fiction of a crescendo and a decrescendo movement, does not need the flattening out of the Poem into a piece of prose writing, attached to what precedes only by the number of its verses. It is enough that the decrescendo movement, in the music of the Poem, is arrested at the close, and the Poets most plaintive lyre pours forth a final strain of impassioned, yet melting and delicious harmony.W. H. H.]

Footnotes:

[1][The opinion of Bertholf, that the Prophet either had no more time to spend in the troublesome choice of initial words, or that he grew tired of this trifling process and deliberately relinquished it, (quoted by Gerlach in his Intr. p. x.), is sufficiently refuted, not only by its own irreverence, but by what has been said in reference to the acrostic in Additional Remarks to Intr. pp. 23, 24.W. H. H.]

[2][We cannot misunderstand our author, for besides speaking of this as a prosaic chapter and comparing it with the preceding poetical chapters (see also Intr. pp. 3, 4, 5), he puts his new translation into good German prosewhile he has given us most beautiful metrical translations of the other four chapters.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:1

1Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Lam 5:1. . See Isa 38:3; Mic 6:5; Job 4:7.. See Lam 1:11. [Blayney: Forty-one MSS. and four Editions read with the Masora , with the paragogic. Henderson: The thus added to the Imperative, expresses the emotion of ardent desire on the part of the speaker.]. See Lam 3:30; Psa 74:22; Psa 89:51.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Lam 5:1. Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us,Remember, Jehovah, what has befallen us,consider and beholdlook and seeour reproach.[The word translated consider (see Lam 1:11), when followed by , to see, means to direct attention to a thing in order to see it. Blayney and Noyes translate, Look down and seewhich gives the sense, but the word does not express direction, but the intensity of looking.W. H. H.] This first verse constitutes the introduction. It contains the prayer, that Jehovah would regard the affliction and reproach fallen on Zion [the people], some features of which the Poet recounts in what follows. The Poet presents himself before God, as it were, and all that follows is to be regarded as addressed to God.

Lam 5:2-10

2, 3Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans 4and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; 5our wood is sold unto us. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have 6no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be 7satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne 8their iniquities. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us 9out of their hand. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the 10sword of the wilderness. Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Lam 5:2., frequent in Jer 2:7; Jer 3:19; Jer 12:7-9, etc., see Lam 1:20; Lam 4:6. Jeremiah uses in this sense , Jer 6:12. This word represents the transfer of property to another owner, in Isa 60:5 also. Jeremiah uses frequently, Jer 6:25; Jer 3:13; Jer 5:19, etc. Jeremiah uses only once, in the fem., , Jer 2:21.

Lam 5:3., Jer 5:28; Jer 7:6, etc.; in Lamentations only here. . See Isa 47:1; Jer 2:32; my Gr., 106, 3. [. = ohne, without, Naegels. Gr.] The Kri, is unnecessary.

Lam 5:4., Jer 6:7; Jer 46:7; Jer 50:38., Jer 6:30, etc., Jer 5:14; Jer 7:18, etc., Jer 15:13.. Ewald translates, our wood is sold for silver. He also takes in the sense of the Latin vineo, venire. But I do not think that is ever used in this sense. At the most, only 1Ki 10:14 could be cited, where the word is used with reference to the revenues.

Lam 5:5., see Lam 1:14., Jer. 19:18; Lam 1:6 : in the sense of driving, chasing, the word is not elsewhere found in Jeremiah. [It is doubtful if that is its sense here.W. H. H.], Jer 45:3, which place is very closely allied in sense to our place here, Jer 51:58.. The Hophal is found only here: Jeremiah uses only the Hiphil , Jer 14:9; Jer 27:11; Jer 43:6.

Lam 5:6. and are to be taken as Acc. localis, in answer to the question whither? See my Gr., 70, b. [There is no necessity of supposing an ellipsis of the preposition , as Henderson; nor any grammatical reason for translating, O Egypt, O Assyria, as Blayney does, diverting the prayer from God to these heathen nations.W. H. H.] see Lam 3:30.

Lam 5:7.. Four times in this chapter, the Masorites would read , where it is wanting in the word, Lam 5:3; Lam 5:5; Lam 5:7 twice. But the author generally uses Vav sparingly. Only once is the second clause of the verse begun with . In this verse, an error might arise from its use. If it were , some would be led to understand their non-existence, as the consequence of their sinning. See Jer 10:20. But this cannot be the authors meaning; for he immediately asserts that the generation now living has to bear the punishment. Their being no longer in existence, therefore, is the simple result of the course of nature. Jeremiah never uses. It represents bearing the burden of sin, Isa 53:4; Isa 53:11; comp. Jer 46:4; Jer 46:7., see Lam 2:14.

Lam 5:8., Jer 22:30; Jer 30:21, etc., see Gen 27:40; Psa 7:3; Psa 136:24; Jeremiah never uses the word, neither does it occur again in the Lamentations.

Lam 5:9.. ( pretii, see my Gr., 112, 5 a). See Lam 1:11; 2Sa 23:17; 1Ch 11:19., see Lam 1:21. [We have the future here, as the historical imperfect, implying the recurrence of what is related.W. H. H.], Lam 1:11. , which can only indicate the robber tribes of the desert (Gen 16:12), is found only here. [Calvin translates , drought, and wonders that any one ever thought of calling it sword. It may have the meaning of drought in Deu 28:22, though even there E. V. has sword. In this verse, all the Versions, and commentators generally, translate sword.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:10. occurs only in Niphal, and besides here only in three places, Gen 43:30; 1Ki 3:26; Hos 11:8. The sense is calefactum, adustum esse (see , Lam 1:20; Lam 2:11). The plural shows that is regarded collectively. [It also shows the preference in this Song for termination in . Yet, fifty eight MSS., and the Soncin. Bible read in the plural (Henderson).W. H. H.], see Lam 4:8., see Hos 7:6-7, is not found in Jeremiah, [nor any equivalent for it.W. H. H.], stus vehemens, Jeremiah never uses. It is found, besides here, only in Psa 119:53; Psa 11:6.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[Lam 5:2-10 describe the distressed condition of the people generally, and especially the sufferings caused by deficiency in the necessaries of life. Lam 5:2-3, describe their disinherited and bereaved condition.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:2. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliensforeigners. [Calvin: The land had been promised to Abraham four hundred years, before his children possessed it; we know that this promise had been often repeated, This land shall be to you for an inheritance. No land has ever been given to men in so singular a way as the land of Canaan to the posterity of Abraham. As, then, this inheritance had been for so many ages possessed by the chosen people, Jeremiah does not without reason complain that it was turned over to aliens.]Our houses to aliens. Many expositors (Vaihinger for instance) understand from the second clause of this verse, that not all the houses of Jerusalem had been destroyed, but those which still remained were at the disposal of the Chaldeans; which is the same as saying that they dwelt in them. They appeal to 2Ch 36:19, where the destruction of the palaces only is spoken of. Although in Jer 52:13; 2Ki 25:9, it is expressly said that all the houses of Jerusalem were destroyed, yet, they say, this is to be regarded as merely a rhetorical hyperbole, since elsewhere the houses of the great [the nobility] are alone specified. Compare Jer 52:13. We have, however, no evidence that the Chaldeans inhabited Jerusalem after its destruction; and Nehemiah (Lam 2:3) mourns that Jerusalem is , desolate, and its gates burned with fire. When it is said here that the houses were given up to the Chaldeans, this can only mean that they disposed of them as they pleased. In fact, they destroyed the houses, but carried away the movable property found in them as booty. Although the houses and their contents could be designated as an inheritance, yet by , inheritance, which is here distinguished from the houses, the land is especially intended (see. Lev 20:24; Num 16:14; Num 36:7-9; Jos 13:23; etc.). We may say, therefore, that , inheritance, and , houses, are related to each other substantially as fixed and movable property.

Lam 5:3. We are orphans and fatherlesswe have become orphans, fatherless [without a father,Calvin, Blayney, Boothroyd, Noyes, Gerlach]and our mothers are as widows. That the first words cannot be understood exclusively of the loss of their own fathers, is evident from the expression as widows.Pareau is of the opinion that widows and orphans indicate, in a general way only, as a proverbial formula, tritissimam sortem [a very sad lot], and appeals to Isa 1:17; Psa 94:6; Jam 1:27. But in all those places, widows and orphans in the strict sense of the terms, are to be understood. Thenius understands by the mothers, the wives of the King, who were with the little company among whom our song originated. But even if we allow, that as some of the Princesses of the royal family, according to Jer 41:10, escaped transportation, so also may some of the wives of the royal harem, yet we cannot suppose that the Poet indicated these as the mothers of himself and his companions, because they were not, in fact, their mothers, nor was it customary to call them so. Ewald refers orphans and fatherless to the loss of the sovereign (the father of his country, Lam 2:9; Lam 4:20) and of the theocracy, but widows to the communities and cities (Lam 1:1). This is without doubt correct, as far as this, that all the Israelites had, in this respect, become fatherless and their mothers widows. But why might not the Poet, at the same time, have alluded to the fact, that in the prevailing confusion most of the mothers could not certainly know whether their husbands were dead or alive, and therefore it could be correctly said of them that they were as widows (see Lam 1:1)? I believe, therefore, that Lam 5:3 embraces every species of orphanage that might have existed at that time. [There were so many orphans and mothers separated from their husbands among the people, that a Poet might well exclaim, Behold in us a people composed of fatherless orphans, whose mothers are as widows! But the particle of comparison attached to the last word, as widows, suggests the probability that the whole verse is intended metaphorically. We are like fatherless orphans and our mothers like widows. This is Gerlachs explanation.W. H. H.]

[Lam 5:4-10 relate to the general distress occasioned by the want of the necessaries of life and the oppression of their masters.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:4. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us (marg. cometh for price unto us). Our water we drink for money; our wood comes to us for payment. That the want of water before the capture of the city is not here intended, is evident from the expressions our water, our wood; for the prominence of this idea can only signify that the Jews were obliged to buy from their enemies the wood and water that were rightly their own; but this could have been the case only after the capture of the city. We perceive from the description, that the companies of the captives, in all cases narrowly watched, were not at liberty to go, at their own pleasure, to bring wood and water. But they were furnished, either with no provisions at all, or in insufficient quantities, so that in order to secure the necessaries of life, they were obliged to apply to their guards, who made them pay dearly for the services rendered them. It appears further from this passage, that the Poet has here in his eye that period of the captivity when the captives were still in their own land, else he could not say our water, our wood. There seems to be a rhetorical reason for the use of the perfect () in the first clause, and of the imperfect () in the second. For, grammatically considered, either the perfect or imperfect should be used both times, since the two acts are entirely homogeneous. But the Poet wished to bring variety into his period, perhaps also to avoid the clashing together of two tone-syllables, which would have happened, if it had been written . He could introduce this variety, since the limit between these two verbal forms is a fluctuating one, determined by the subjective conception of the speaker. For, in many cases, the same action can be regarded as already completed and as still in progress. See for example (Jos 9:8) and (Gen 42:7), my Gr. 84, 87. So here the drinking of water for money is represented by as something accomplished, being constituted by many acts of drinking, but by the fetching of the wood is represented as something not yet finished, something still continuing. We are at liberty to translate both tenses, so far as they are concerned, by the present or by the preterit. The context shows which the Poet intends. He evidently is describing the journey of the captives going into exile. But nothing indicates that he looks back upon it as already accomplished, that he would represent it as already terminated in the land of exile. Consequently, we are obliged to translate all the tenses, which refer to different incidents of the journey, in the present. [There is a studied effort in this Song, as shown in the preliminary note to this chapter, to multiply words ending in ,, and we may add in In the expressions Our water, our wood, the pronoun is added merely, if we may so say, for the sake of the rhyme, or, more correctly, the assonance, just as in Lam 5:9 he says, our bread. The writer could legitimately gratify the ear by this expedient, for what they bought and used certainly became their own. It is obvious, therefore, that the meaning of the verse can not turn on the use of the word our. If this had been intended to be emphatic, and to represent the water and the wood as their property before they bought it, then this verse should have immediately followed Lam 5:2, where the transfer of their property to new owners is represented. Otherwise, the third verse intrudes a new idea between two thoughts that are closely related, the loss of their inheritance and houses, and the necessity of purchasing what had been their own property. If, on the other hand, we take our text as a simple statement of the fact that they were obliged to purchase such common necessaries of life as water and wood, we are enabled to translate the preterit verb in the past indefinite time. The Prophet is by no means describing the incidents of the journey of the exiles from their own land. He is enumerating and heaping together en masse the various features of sorrow and suffering experienced by the un-happy people, without particular reference either to the time or place of their happening. Among other things that had happened was their having to pay money for the water they drank: and he uses the preterit tense, We have drunken our water for money,this is among the things that had happened, perhaps once only, perhaps oftener; but there was another hardship of more frequent occurrence, one often repeated, and that may have continued down to the time when he wrote, and this he expresses, as the Hebrew so constantly expresses the recurrence of events even after they are past, by the future form of the verb, which we may render as an historical imperfectour wood came to us, or was coming, that is, it came in that way only, for a price, or we may render it as a presentit comes still only for pay.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:5. Our necks are under persecution (marg. On our necks are we persecuted); we labor and have no rest.We are driven headlong [Ueber Hals und Kopf werden wir gejagt, lit. over neck and head (over head and ears, as we say in English) are we driven]; are we tired, rest is not permitted us. The Septuagint connects upon our necks, with what precedes, , our wood in exchange for our money came upon our neck. So also the Arabic version. The Syriac closes Lam 5:4 with . and refers to what follows, so that it also translates venerunt super collum nostrum, they came upon our neck, where either ligna, wood, or hostes, the enemy, may be regarded as the subject. Among the moderns, Aben-Ezra and J. Dav. Michaelis also connect the phrase upon our necks with what precedes. The latter gives the sense thus, ligna nostra pretio empta cervicibus nostris imposita in urbem importantur, our wood bought with a price and laid upon our necks is carried into the city. The explanation of the Syriac produces a very harsh zeugma in Lam 5:4, renders the following sentence unintelligible, and expresses a thought that may be termed at least unnecessary. The objections to the other versions are as follows. 1. , for pay, Lam 5:4 must be taken, either as dependent on a verb to be supplied (emta), or as belonging to , in the very unsuitable sense, that the Jews were paid for carrying the wood. 2. The symmetrical proportions of the verses are destroyed; Lam 5:4 is too long, Lam 5:5 too short. We will then follow the Masoretic division of the verses. But as thus arranged, this verse has undergone various interpretations. Pareau translates super cervicibus nostris insessores patimur, we bear sitters [riders] upon our necks. But cannot mean we are ridden, or we carry riders. As little can it mean naturally, we bear persecutors or oppressors, which would correspond with Pareaus idea, only without a figure. Others (Raschi, De Wette, Ewald, 1st ed., Meyer, Vaihinger, Engelhardt) translate on our necks the yoke, or the yoke on the neck are we persecuted. But as Thenius has remarked, the yoke here is a superadded idea entirely arbitrary. [Blayney reads , yoke, instead of the preposition , upon. But we must then, as he does, take the verb in a sense it cannot have of being burthened with, With the yoke of our necks are we continually burthened; or, as Boothroyd does, supply the preposition on and the verb is, and make an independent proposition of the first two words, The yoke is on our necks, we are pursued; or, as Noyes does, supply two prepositions, With the yoke upon our necks, we are driven.Henderson, without changing into , thinks that upon our necks we are persecuted expresses elliptically the great hardship to which the Jews were reduced in being compelled as captives to bear a heavy yoke on their necks; and translates, We are persecuted with a yoke on our necks. So William Lowth seems to understand the text and refers to Deu 28:48. We are driven to our work like the bullock that has a yoke about his neck (Adam Clarke).W. H. H.] All these explanations fail in this that they let depend, not immediately on , but very unnecessarily on an entirely different idea supposed to be concealed therein. Thenius and Ewald (2d ed.) have perceived the right sense, when they translate, on the neck were we pursued (so Ewald: Thenius expresses the same sense by the words, they pursued us over our necks, i.e. since they are ever close behind us). I translate, We are driven on over our necks, that is to say, so that the driving goes over our necks onwardsand this idea corresponds exactly with our German phrase, ber Hals und Kopf [lit. over neck and head, i.e. headlong]. Luther: ber Hals. [In full: Man treibt uns ber Hals.] Besides, cannot be taken in the sense of pursuing, for not fugitives, but captives are here spoken of, who are already in the hands of the enemies and are driven onward without mercy. This appears plainly from Lam 5:5; Lam 5:8. The meaning to drive, to chase, undoubtedly lies in the root (see the kindred roots , ,), and is as plain as daylight in such places as Lev 26:36 (the sound of a falling leaf shall chase them). Job 30:15; Isa 17:13. [It would be a relief to accept Dr. Naegelsbachs simple explanation, and translate, They drove us, or we were driven headlong, or as we would say in our colloquial English, heels over head, but there is no evidence that the Hebrew words are used in any such colloquial sense. The next best thing is to adopt the translation of Maurer, Thenius, Ewald, Owen and Gerlach, which Dr. Naegelsbach also approves of, On our necks were we pursued, i.e. our pursuers followed us so closely as to be, as it were, on our necks. We are hunted by pursuers who are ever hanging over our neck (Wordsworth). The objection to taking the verb in the sense of pursuing, on the ground that the people are here considered as captives and not fugitives, grows out of the incorrect interpretation of Lam 5:4, and involves an entire misconception of the intention of this Song. It is not the design of the Prophet to give a detailed account of successive and related events, but to heap up together, in one rapid and vehement recapitulation, all the wrongs, indignities and sufferings the people had endured, without reference to times or places.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:6. Whilst the Poet describes the onward march of the larger part of the people to the land of banishment, he is reminded that the people are, by this means, still more widely separated and torn asunder; for one part, by far the smaller part, has been compelled to turn southwards towards Egypt. [This verse confirms the opinion that the Prophet is not relating successive events in the order of their occurrence and in their relations to each other; but is stating independent facts and instances, all of which contribute to present to God an appeal for pity and mercy. There is no close connection, therefore, between Lam 5:5-6, such as Owen and Gerlach would find, when they say that Lam 5:6 relates what they did when so closely pursued. According to Dr. Naegelsbachs interpretation, that Lam 5:5 refers to the Jews on their way to Babylonia, driven before their captors, the connection of Lam 5:6 is impossible. While they were so closely pursued that their pursuers were on their necks, did even a small part of them miraculously escape and flee to Egypt? Dr. Naegelsbach does not mean to assert this; but his theory of interpretation would seem to demand it.W. H. H.]We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians to be satisfied with bread,Towards Egypt stretched we the hand,Towards Assyria,in order to be satisfied with bread. To stretch out the hand can mean here only, to stretch out the hand as a suppliant; see Jer 50:15; 1Ch 29:24. [Calvin: To give the hand, is explained in three ways: some say that it means humbly to ask; others, to make an agreement; and others, to extend it in token of misery, as he who cannot ask for help, intimates his wants by extending his hand. But the Prophet seems simply to mean that the people were so distressed by want, that they begged bread.] But in what sense did the Jews stretch out the hand to Assyria? They had submitted to this great power, not willingly, as they had thrown themselves into the arms of the Egyptians, but by compulsion. Yet they must, if they would live, stretch out their suppliant hand, to receive a morsel of bread from the hand of Assyria bestowing it upon them. But what power is intended by Assyria? It has been understood of Assyria strictly speaking, which carried the ten tribes into exile. But it would be strange, indeed, if the Poet here overlooked the Babylonish exile. That he says Assur, and not Babel, may be explained on the ground that he has in mind the Assyrian, as well as the Babylonish captivity. While Babel never stands for Assur and Babel, the name Assur is so used as to embrace both countries; see 2Ki 17:24; 2Ki 18:11; 2Ki 23:29; 2Ch 33:11. The brief words of our text exhibit also the fact, that Israel no longer existed as a nation, but was entirely given over to the power of the kingdoms of this world, on whose favor its very life depended; and, while the smaller part found itself in the power of Egypt, the larger part, which included both Israel, carried away into Assyrian exile, and Judah, deported to Babylon, is subject to Assur,to Assur in the widest sense of the term, understanding thereby, not only Assyria in the strict sense, but Babylon also. See also Jer 2:18. [Noyes is of the opinion that giving the hand, imports submission, as in Jer 50:15; to stretch out the hand to be bound, as it were. Thus, he remarks, in 2Ch 30:8, what is translated in the common version yield yourselves unto the Lord, is in the original give the hand to the Lord. The context here, nevertheless, favors the idea that the Jews were reduced in many instances to abject beggary, and entire dependence for the necessaries of life on these heathen nations, the greatest enemies their country had.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:7. Our fathers have sinned and are not: and we have borne their iniquities.Our fathers have sinned: they are not; we bear their sins. [There is no sufficient reason for rendering the last verb as a present. The English version is more literal.W. H. H.] Comparing this verse with Lam 5:16, a certain parallelism is observable. In both the sins of the people are asserted to be the cause of the calamities previously described. But Lam 5:7 says, Our fathers have sinned and we bear their guilt. Lam 5:16, on the contrary says, Woe to us, we have sinned. Here, as in Lam 1:5; Lam 1:8-9; Lam 1:14; Lam 1:18; Lam 2:14; Lam 3:42; Lam 4:6; Lam 4:12-14, the description of calamities endured constitute a principal feature in the confession of sin. As one paragraph ends with Lam 5:7, and another with Lam 5:16, Lam 5:8 begins a new paragraph. [This division separates verses closely allied. The subject down to Lam 5:10 is chiefly related to sufferings connected with the want of the necessaries of life. With Lam 5:11 begins a description of individual instances of outrage and cruelty (Lam 5:11-14), followed by a description of the effects of all these calamities, public and private, on the theocratic people who offer the prayer. Lam 5:16 is as intimately connected with what follows, as with what precedes it.W. H. H.] There is at least some truth in the assertion made in Lam 5:7. For the great catastrophe had been brought about, not only by the guilt of the last generation, but also by that of previous generations (Jer 3:25; Jer 15:4; Jer 16:11-12). But Lam 5:7, without Lam 5:16, would contain only a partial view of the truth. The two verses complete each other. [Wordsworth: The sins of their forefathers were visited upon them, because they themselves had sinned, as they themselves confess. There is, therefore, no reason for supposing, with some, that these words could not have been written by Jeremiah, being at variance with the doctrine in Jer 31:29.]And are not (, without , see Gr. notes above; they are not.) These words connect themselves rather with what follows, than with what precedes. Our fathers have sinned. Whilst they are no more, we bear their sins.

Lam 5:8. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hands.[None delivered from their hands.] Who are these servants? Satraps are suggested. So say those who understand Lam 5:5 of the residence of a part of the people in Palestine or elsewhere. But we see from Lam 5:5, that the subject of discourse is the march of the actually exiled hosts. Satraps, it is true, are the kings servants, but they are not merely servants, they are not slaves. That men of distinguished descent and high rank should stand under Satraps was a reproach, when considered in a theocratic point of view, but not to be regarded as a matter of sufficient importance to be mentioned in this place. Besides, in fact Gedaliah ruled in Judea, himself a Jew and, according to the testimony of Jeremiah (Jer 40:7-12), a well-disposed man. But that real slaves were employed for overseers and drivers of the marching captives, this was certainly in the highest degree hard and likewise disgraceful. [This again is to be regarded as one feature of the great variety of sufferings that befell the people. It is not necessary to suppose that the whole people were at any time under the lordship of slaves or under-servants. It is not necessary to suppose an exclusive reference to the bands of captives that were driven to Babylonia. It is enough that in their degraded state it often happened that they had to submit to domineering and harsh treatment from men that were themselves menials.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:9. We gat our bread withatthe peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.Rosenmueller refers this verse to the dangers which the corn-transports out of Egypt may have had to encounter in the wilderness. But is it supposable that corn was brought from Egypt, when the larger part of the people had been led away to Babylon, and the smaller part had themselves fled to Egypt? Ewald, on the other hand, finds in these words a remarkable indication, that most of the fugitives in Egypt dwelt at the northeastern border close to the desert, and so were compelled to wring their bread from the desert and its robbers. But when in the world was bread brought from the desert, even by those dwelling on the borders of Egypt, and not from the interior of the country? Thenius presumes that this Song was written amid the circumstances of one of those small companies that remained in Palestine and were scattered about in that land. These, falling in on their pasture-grounds with the warlike tribes sojourning among them, would be compelled to get their subsistence by fighting for it. But that supposition is confirmed neither by the history (observe Jer 42:1, all the people, etc.,), nor by the contents of our Song (compare Lam 5:8 especially, with the opinion of Thenius, that the little company, among whom the Song was written, preferred liberty in poverty, to dependence in prosperity, Lam 5:6). The view of Vaihinger rests on the same opinion, and differs from that of Thenius only in this, that he understands the bringing of bread to refer to merchant travellers who were in peril from Bedouin robbers. I am of the opinion, that the expedition here indicated, was an incident belonging to the experience of those Israelites who had not been led away to Babylon, and especially of those who had fled to Egypt. It is allowable to suppose, both from general reasons and particularly from Lam 5:6, that this one of the two parts of the people is intended. Much is touched upon in the Song, that happened to all in common (Lam 5:2-3; Lam 5:7; Lam 5:10-12); much that only befell those who suffered captivity (Lam 5:4-5; Lam 5:8); here (Lam 5:9) we have a description that suits only the condition of those fugitives to Egypt, who yet retained their freedom. But I refer the verse, not as Ewald to those already settled in Egypt, but to events and circumstances preceding their settlement. According to Jer 41:8, ten men bought their lives of Ishmael, the murderer of Gedaliah, at the price of provisions which they had hidden. From this we see that provisions were scarce and that there were bands of robbers who hunted for them. Is it not then in the highest degree probable, that the crowd which fled to Egypt (Jer 41:16-18), both while they were still in Palestine, and frequently when they were in the desert, could obtain what was necessary for subsistence only at the peril of their lives?[We gat our bread. Here again we have a future tense, ; intimating the frequent recurrence, and doubtless the continuance, at the time of writing, of this peril.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:10. Our skin was black like an oven. [So Broughton, Calvin and Henderson. See Psa 68:13.] Our skin is burnt [has been burnt] like an oven. [This sense is the one generally adopted, on the ground that it is more consistent with the effects of famine, and more congenial with the derivation and use of the Hebrew word. Blayney and Noyes translate the verb parched.W. H. H.]. The effect of hunger on the skin is compared to that of heat on the walls of the oven. Like these, that has become hot, dry, hard, cracked. There was hunger enough with the two parts of the people, who stretched out their hands, one to Assyria, the other to Egypt, until the one had arrived in Assyria and the other in Egypt.Because of the terrible (marg. terrors, or storms of) famine,because of the heat (or hotness, Gluten) of hunger. [Because of the burning (Broughton) or burnings (Calvin, Noyes). Gerlach translates the word raging, or fury (Wthen), and so it is rendered by Alexander (in Psa 11:6; Psa 119:53, the only other places where the word occurs), who remarks, that no English word is strong enough to represent the Hebrew except rage or fury. Blayney translates stormy blasts of hunger, and Hendersonthe hot blasts of famine.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:11-13

11They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.12, 13Princes are hanged by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Lam 5:11., see Lam 3:33. , see Jer 1:15; Jer 4:16; Jer 9:10; and elsewhere very frequently.

Lam 5:12. is found nowhere in Jeremiah. Jeremiah never uses; see Lev 19:15; Lev 19:32; Exo 23:3.

Lam 5:13., handmill, is . . See elsewhere Pro 12:4, and the verb Deu 11:8; Jdg 16:21; Isa 47:2, etc. Jeremiah uses neither the verb nor the substantive. with , Jer 6:21; Isa 8:15; Lev 26:37.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[Lam 5:11-13. The sufferings of individuals, of all ages and conditions, especially their degradation, are described. These verses still further confirm the opinion, that this Song belongs to no special time or locality, but that it is a general enumeration of the various evils the people had suffered, from the time when Jerusalem was invaded, to the time when the Prophet indited this Poem.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:11. In this and the following verses (to Lam 5:15) are described the sorrows which befell particular classes of persons at the capture of the city. These are incidents which partly belong to an earlier period of the history, and partly still continue in force. The violation of the women and the hanging up of the Princes are past events, but the pain they caused still survives.They ravisheddishonored. [Owen: There is here a delicate word for a disgraceful act. The words literally are,Women in Zion they humbled (or, were humbled). It is humbled by the Sept. and Vulg. They suffered not only the worst, but all sorts of indignities.W. H. H.].The women in Zion and the maidsvirginsin the cities of Judah. [Blayney, Boothroyd, Henderson and Noyes translate the first word matrons. The Hebrew word is as generic as our word women. Besides, this transfers the antithesis from Zion and the cities of Judah, where it belongs, to the distinction between matrons and maids, which the parallelism does not require. The women generally were humbled, even in Zion, yea and throughout all the cities of Judah.Calvin: He mentioned Sion rather than Jerusalem,it was indeed to state a part for the whole; but that place we know had been chosen by God that His name might be there worshipped. As, then, God had there His palace, that He might dwell in the midst of His people, it was a disgraceful sight in the extreme to see women ravished there, for the temple of God was thus violated.W. H. H]

Lam 5:12. Princes arewere [have been]hanged uphungby their hand [i.e. suspended by the hand.W. H. H.]. This has been explained in three ways. 1. The Princes hung themselves with their own hand. But since, according to Deu 21:23, he that is hanged is accursed of God, this is incredible. Why could they not have killed themselves in some other way? Calvin indeed surmises, that they were compelled to hang themselves. But would not this have been explicitly stated, if the Jews had been compelled to do it? 2. At their side [i.e. Princes were hung beside or near the cities (so Ewald), or at the side, or in near proximity to the humbled women]. But against this are (1) the masculine suffix, (2) and yet more the preposition ,it should be (1Sa 19:3; Pro 8:3; 1Ch 18:17; 1Ch 23:28). Only two places can be named, where may stand for , namely, 1Sa 21:14; Job 15:23. But in the first passage it is, , he raved in or under their hands; and in Job 15:23, the sense, as the connection shows, ishe knows that he himself (by his own hand) has prepared the day of darkness. Nothing else remains for us, therefore, but to translate, 3. by their hand, and to refer the suffix to their enemies. The sense, indeed, is somewhat feeble; but verbal and substantial arguments render this explanation necessary. [Gerlach adopts the same view. Besides the evident awkwardness of this construction, it is open to the very serious objection, that the enemies have not been mentioned in the preceding context, nor are they prominently in the mind of either writer or speaker. The preceding verse merely tells us that women in Zion and virgins in the cities of Judah had been humbled. But by whom? The natural inference is, by the public enemy. Yet this is not said; is not even inevitable, and if it were, the mind of the reader is occupied with the women who suffered, not with the men who inflicted the injury. The pronoun, if it refers to any subject in the preceding verse, must, it would seem, refer to the women, or possibly to the cities. But that it does not refer to either of these is evident from its gender, and from the absence of any intelligible sense in which it can refer to them. We must conclude that it refers to the persons immediately named in close and preceding connection, and who according to all fixed rules of grammar, must be its subject. If this is so, then it can only mean either, what Calvin says, that the Princes committed suicide, and that by hanging themselves, which as has been said is utterly incredible; or else, what the collocation of the words in the original naturally suggests, that the princes were hung up, i.e. suspended, by the hand, or their hand. The pronoun may properly be dispensed with, for its presence here seems entirely due to the preference of the writer for words ending in ; it belongs to the rhyme, or assonance, and is not intended to be emphatic. So the Vulgate translates, omitting the pronoun: Principes manu suspensi sunt.Henderson also omits the pronoun: but he overlooks the Niphal form of the verb and makes the enemy its subject. He translates, Princes they hung up by the hand.Boothroyd, more correctly, Princes were hung up by the hand. He supposes that the Princes and elders were first murdered and then hung up. Owen: The most obvious meaning of the words is, that Princes were hung or suspended by the hand, and not by the neck. Such a punishment. may have been a barbarity resorted to by the Chaldeans. This seems to be the meaning conveyed by the Versions and the Targum. If they were not tortured to death in this way, it is not unlikely that the sons of Zedekiah, and all the Princes of Judah were slain in Riblah, by being beheaded, and that their headless trunks were suspended by the hands on the walls of the city. Thus the headless, naked body of Saul, and the bodies of his three sons, were fastened to the walls of Bethshan (1Sa 31:8-12). It was a custom with the Persians, after they had slain, strangled, or beheaded their enemy, to hang their bodies upon poles or empale them. In this way they treated Hirstus of Miletum, and Leonidas of Lacedmon. See Herodotus, Lib. vi. c. 30; Lib. vii. c. 238 (Adam Clarke). Or, there may have been instances in which Princes were thus suspended, not after death, nor for the purpose of killing them, but as an ignominious and torturing punishment. It is said that no punishment is more common in the East. Has a master a refractory slave, several men are called, who tie the offenders hands and hoist him to the roof till he beg forgiveness (Comp. Comm.).W. H. H.] The faces of Elders were not regarded. This is said in allusion to Lev 19:32, Thou shalt honor the face of the old man, comp. Lev 19:15; Exo 23:3. Although in the places referred to, the word Elders is intended as a designation of age, not of dignity, yet we are obliged to take it in the latter sense here; because it is placed in parallelism with Princes, and because the aged in contrast with the youthful are spoken of in Lam 5:14.

Lam 5:13. They took the young men to grindthe young men are obliged to carry the mill[Noyes:Young men carried mill-stones]. The Vulgate translates, Adolescentibus impudice abusi sunt (same as, Adolescentes molitionem passi sunt). [Douay:They abused the young men indecently,which is explained by this note, i.e., made them grind naked in the mill. But the second clause of the verse is against any such interpretation of the first clause. The explanations, Juvenes ad molendum sumserunt, Young men were taken to grind, and Juvenes molas agitarunt or versarunt, Young men shook or turned mills, are verbally incorrect, for the verb does not mean agitare, to shake: to give it the sense of turning, would be necessary. But the simple literal meaning of the word [to lift,Gerlach:to carry], entirely suffices. For not only was the carrying of the hand-mills on the journey a heavy burden, but that they carried these implies that they were also compelled to turn them, i. e., to grind with them. As thus explained, the first clause corresponds with the second. And [The omission of the conjunction in this song, where it might be expected, makes its expression here more emphatic. Young men have been compelled to carry mill-stones, even boys, or mere children have fallen under the heavy burdens of wood they were forced to carry.W. H. H.] the children fell under the wood.Boys fall [properly, fell, or have fallen.W. H. H.] under the wood. The , the most blooming and strongest of the youth were obliged to carry the mill-stones (see Herz.R.-Enc. x. p. 82), the boys generally were required to drag the wood. [The most laborious and menial services were required of the Jewish youth and children.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:14-18

14The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music. The 15joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown Isaiah 16 fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! For this our heart Isaiah 17 faint; for these things our eyes are dim. Because of the mountain of Zion, which 18is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Lam 5:14. with following, Jer 7:34; Jer 16:9; Jer 31:36; Jer 36:29; Jer 48:33.. See Lam 3:14.

Lam 5:15. Jeremiah uses only once, Jer 49:25. The expression is found in Isa 24:8; comp. Hos 2:13. see Lam 5:2., see Amo 8:10. Jeremiah uses the word three times, Jer 6:26; Jer 16:7; Jer 31:13., see Psa 30:12; Jer 31:4; Jer 31:13.

Lam 5:16. , only elsewhere in Job 19:9. Jeremiah uses once, Jer 13:18. Jeremiah uses frequently; Jer 4:13; Jer 6:4; Jer 10:19; Jer 13:26; Jer 15:10; Jer 48:46. Also , Jer 4:31; Jer 45:3. [Owen insists on translating the particle , Woe is now to us. But to one ignorant of the Hebrew, the now would inevitably be taken in its temporal sense, which the Hebrew particle never has. The E. V. is followed by all the English translators, except Owen.W. H. H.] , see Jer 3:25; Jer 8:14; Jer 14:7; Jer 14:20.

Lam 5:17. , see Lam 1:13; Lam 1:22. occurs elsewhere only in Psa 69:24., see Lam 4:8.

Lam 5:18, , see Jer 12:11; Dan 9:17. relat., Lam 2:15., Jeremiah never uses the word. He expresses the same idea otherwise, Jer 9:10; Jer 10:22; Jer 49:33; Jer 51:37.Jeremiah never uses the Piel , see Psa 89:16.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[Lam 5:14-18 depict the depressing effects of these various wrongs and humiliations on the feelings and deportment of the people.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:14. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music. [The German language enables Gerlach to give a verbally literal translation: Die Aeltesten feiern vom Thor, die Jnglinge von ihrem Saitenspiel. We have no words in English that so accurately translate and . Noyes translation, which is also LuthersThe elders sit no more at the gate; the young men have ceased from their musicrestricts the meaning of the first clause, mistranslates the verb, and renders it necessary to supply a verb in the second clause. The idea is not merely that the elders no longer occupy their seats in the gates,but that they rest or cease from all those duties and pleasures that pertain to their age and dignity. While elders here designate old men, in antithesis to young men, it is not to the exclusion of the official elders, who are regarded as types and representatives of those past middle-life,of those who especially delighted in resorting to the gates of the city, whether their official duties called them there or not. Henderson: It is common in the East for aged men to meet in the open space without the gate of the city, to pass the time in narrating or hearing the news of the day, or the stories of bygone years. From this an easy transition is made to the jocund pastime of the young.W. H. H.] The gate was, as it were, the court of the elders of the people, and, at the same time, the principal place of social entertainment. See Winer, R. W. B. s. v. Thore. For this reason, and also on account of the second clause of the verse, we must consider, not only the discontinuance of public business, but the loss of that pleasure which the gate afforded to the older men. The young men from their music. Thenius remarks correctly that Jeremiah in the threatenings, Jer 7:34 and Jer 16:9, expresses himself concerning the loss of happiness in a way similar to this, and yet differing from what is said here. [To suppose this verse to refer especially to the city of Jerusalem (Calvin) is in itself absurd. There were no longer gates, elders, or young men in Jerusalem, of whom these things could be said. Throughout this song, the Prophet generalizes and does not particularize with reference to times and places.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:15. Whilst, as has been said, Lam 5:11-14 enter into details, Lam 5:15-16, generalize the facts. [Lam 5:14 is more closely connected with what follows than with what precedes it. It describes the disheartening effects, on the minds and conduct of the people, of what had happened. It does not state, as all the preceding verses do, some special cause of humiliation or suffering.W. H. H.] The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.[Ceased has the joy of our heart, changed to mourning our dance.Is ceased.Gataker: Heb. hath rested: the same term that was before, Lam 5:14, and it may seem to have some glance at such mirth and cheer, as they were wont to have at their solemn festivals and on their Sabbaths, Deu 16:11; Deu 16:14; Deu 28:47-48; 2Ch 29:36; Psa 42:4; Psa 81:1-2; Psa 92:1-2.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:16. The crown is fallen from our head [marg. The crown of our head. So Blayney, Boothroyd, Henderson, Owen. It is more literal, but bad English. The crown of the head, in English, is something very different from the crown on the head. The one cannot fall without the head it belongs to. The other may fall from the head; so here: Fallen has the crown from our head.W. H. H.] Woe unto us, thatforwe have sinned. I must regard the second half of this verse as a conclusion [i. e. of a paragraph, or one of the principal parts of the chapter], corresponding to that of Lam 5:7. I do not, therefore, believe that Lam 5:16 is to be connected with Lam 5:17, and that by the crown on our head is to be understood Jerusalem, as a diadem set upon Zion with its splendid palaces (Thenius), although the expression by itself could have such an interpretation. Rather, I believe that the first clause of Lam 5:16 is in very close connection with Lam 5:15; and that the first clause of Lam 5:16 declares, that not only all joy, but also all honor has forsaken Jerusalem. The crown on the head of Jerusalem had consisted in this, that she was great among the nations, a princess among the provinces, and perfect in beauty, the joy of the whole earth (Lam 1:1; Lam 2:15). [It confuses the sense to suppose that Jerusalem is the subject from whose head the crown has fallen. The people generally are the subject; the crown of our head has fallen. In the loss of independent nationality, and of all honor among the nations, who now treated them with the utmost contempt, the crown had indeed fallen from their heads. However intimately related are Lam 5:7; Lam 5:16, however striking and fine it would be, rhetorically considered, if each stood in the position of an emphatic conclusion to corresponding strophes (if this is poetry), or paragraphs (if it is prose); yet, in point of fact, each of these verses is too intimately connected with the verses immediately following it, to be separated from them without injuring the logical connection of the thoughts.W. H. H.]We have sinned! A gratifying advance is observable here, in so far as the people now openly and honorably confess their own guilt. See Lam 3:39-42.

Lam 5:17-18. These two verses constitute the introduction to the closing prayer, Lam 5:19-22. They refer to a fact which must be the cause of deepest pain to a heart truly attached to the theocracy,the desolation of the holy mountain. But this gloomy and dark image constitutes only the back-ground for those noble and consolatory thoughts with which the Bard (Snger) comforts himself in his prayer.

Lam 5:17. For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.On this account is our heart faint, therefore are our eyes become dim. For the reasons given above we refer the pronominal phrases , on this account (darob) [E.V., for this], and , therefore (darber) [E. V., for these things], to what follows in reference to Mount Zion in Lam 5:18. [The objections to this interpretation are insuperable. 1. In point of fact, the desolation of Zion was not the only, nor the absorbing cause of grief, as is evident from the whole of the preceding part of this Song, in which abundant and terrible causes of distress are given, without a single allusion to the desolation of Zion. 2. The second pronominal suffix (correctly translated in English Version, for these things) is plural, and must include more than the first suffix (for this thing), which is singular. It is obvious that both cannot refer to the single statement in Lam 5:18, that Mount Zion has become desolate. Nor can it be said, that two things are stated in Lam 5:18, namely, that Mount Zion is desolate; and that the foxes run upon it. For the latter statement is a mere expansion or illustration of the first: and it would be very absurd to make the latter a special and additional cause of grief, regarded as in any sense distinct from the first great fact that the mountain is desolate. 3. This interpretation involves a redundancy of relative expository phrases, all referring to the same thing, that is useless, inelegant, and utterly incongruous with the prevailing style of composition in the Lamentations, which is terse, compressed and remarkable for the absence of words not actually indispensable, as, for example, of the connecting (which the Masorites were so anxious to insert), and of the repeated verb, causing a constant recurrence of the Zeugma, see Lam 5:2-3; Lam 5:6; Lam 5:8; Lam 5:11; Lam 5:14; Lam 5:19. Is it likely that such a writer would say, on account of this thing (), on account of these things (), on account of () Mount Zion, etc., our heart is faint, our eyes are dim; using three relative expository phrases, where one would have sufficed? 4. By referring the verse to what precedes it, these relative phrases, instead of being redundant and cumbersome, become significant and impressive. For this (namely, that the crown has fallen from our head because we have sinned), our heart is faint; for these things (namely, all the evils that have been recited), our eyes are dim. We may then take Lam 5:18 as an additional reason for lamentation, translating , on account of, or take it as an independent, but not unrelated, thought, translating , as to: see remarks on that verse.W. H. H.]Our eyes are dim [our eyes have become dim]. We must regard weeping, according to Lam 2:11, as the immediate cause of the eyes becoming dim. [Weeping suggests itself as a sufficient physical cause, and if the Prophet means this, then our eyes have become dim, is a poetical way of intimating how greatly they have wept. But there is no allusion to tears in the context; the period of violent weeping, indeed, we may regard as past: and the parallelism is better carried out by regarding the dimness of the eyes as the effect of the faintness of the heart. So Noyes: our eyes are dim; i.e., through faintness the sight of our eyes departs. On the other hand, the eyes are said to be enlightened when the strength is restored and faintness departs. See 1Sa 14:29. We are not to restrict the thought to merely physical causes and effects. The faintness of the heart suggests a moral cause, the effect of which would be that moral dimness of sight which ensues, when God is no longer seen and hope expires. It is this underlying thought that connects Lam 5:17 with Lam 5:18.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:18. Because of the mountain of Zion, which is [has become] desolate, the foxes walk upon it. The Mount of Zion is here evidently intended, not in the restricted sense, but in the wider sense in which it includes Moriah. See Delitzsch on Psa 2:6; Psa 9:12; Psa 76:3, etc. [The name Zion is used throughout the Lamentations, with great uniformity and precision, of Jerusalem as the theocratic city, where God has His dwelling-place, and always with special reference to the most sacred precincts of that city, where were the Temple of God and the palace of the king. Here the word Mount makes the designation more plain. The whole city, doubtless, is intended; but it is the city regarded as the dwelling-place of God, the throne of the Theocracy. Probably the word is always used by the Prophets in this sense; and a regard to this fact will spare us the difficulties of determining whether Mount Moriah, the Temple mount, was included generically in Mount Zion, or is always to be distinguished from Mount Zion.W. H. H.]The foxes walk [have walked] upon it. Where these beasts live the habitations of men must have ceased to exist. See Psa 63:11; comp. Jdg 15:4; Eze 13:4. It may also be properly assumed, that if Jerusalem had been destroyed within a few weeks, those ravenous beasts were busily engaged roaming through its holy precints seeking for the carcases of the dead. [Foxes.. Jackals,Boothroyd, Wordsworth, Gerlach. See KittosCyc. Bib. Lit. If preying on dead men was mentioned, or even distinctly hinted at, we might be sure that the jackal, or wolf, or some other ravenous member of the canine species, is probably intended; for foxes are not addicted to this. A better reason for supposing that jackals are meant, is the plural form of the word (though this could be explained by the preference of the writer for terminations in ), as if they went about on the Holy Mount in companies; for the jackal is a gregarious, the fox a solitary animal. But the Hebrew , may mean, not walking about on the mountain, but walking in the frequentative sense, or living (see , Piel in Ecc 4:15) in the mountain. In this case the reference would be to these animals, whether foxes or jackals, having their burrows there, remaining there permanently and undisturbed. This gives a better idea of the utter desolation that reigned on Mount Zion, and is more consonant with the fact, that more than a few weeks must have elapsed since the city was completely destroyed and consumed to its foundations, and, therefore, there were no corpses there to invite the predatory excursions of the jackals.But what is the connection of Lam 5:18 with Lam 5:17? How is the preposition to be translated? Broughton very elegantly preserves the obscurity of the original; For this our heart is sick, for these things our eyes be dim. For Mount Sion which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it. We can translate , as in the preceding verse, on account of, and then this verse is immediately connected with the preceding verse, and assigns an additional reason, why the heart is sick, and the eyes dim, namely, that Mount Zion is desolate. That is the same as saying, that God has withdrawn from His people: their heart is faint and their eyes dim on account of past and present troubles, and also because there is no prospect of relief for them, for Gods house is destroyed, and Jehovah has forsaken His people. This is excellent sense, and were there no question as to the grammatical construction we might be satisfied with it. But we may translate , as to (Gerlach, ber), as to Mount Zion which has become desolate, the foxes have walked upon it. Thus rendered, this verse is independent of the preceding verse as to grammatical construction, but intimately related to it in sense. This is recommended by several considerations. 1. , by itself, rarely has the sense of on account of. 2. The , relativum, properly throws the idea connected with it into a parenthesis. If so, then the idea that Zion lies waste, is not the prominent idea, but is subordinate to what, in itself is an insignificant fact, that the foxes walk upon it. Surely that could not constitute the climax of their grief, who had to lament for dishonored women, princes, and elders, and the cruellest oppression of tender children! 3. If the foxes walking on Zion is a fact significant of something else of far deeper import (as in truth it is, though this method of construction does not suggest that interpretation), yet in such a case it is to be observed, that the should be repeated before the last clause. Our heart is faint, our eyes dim, Because of Mount Zion, because the foxes walk upon it. In every case the construction is awkward. 4. By taking in the sense of as to, we have perfect grammatical construction: As to Mount Zion, which has become desolate, the foxes walk uponit! 5. This at once suggests the real force of the expression, the foxes walk upon it, and gives dignity to what else would be an insignificant culmination point of the sublime grief expressed in what precedes. As to Mount Zion, from whence ought to come our help and salvation, the foxes have it now for their home! It is no longer the dwelling-place of God, and the refuge of His people. This is no sentimental effusion of grief, that the foxes roam where the proud and happy city once stood. It is the expression of a terrible truth, that Jehovah had forsaken His people; and what had been His dwelling-place, now laid waste and destroyed, is the home of wild beasts. 6. This explanation is favored by the emphatic declaration that follows in Lam 5:19, and especially by the emphatic expression of the personal pronoun: Thou, Jehovah art forever. Thy dwelling-place is the home of the wild beasts, but Thou Thyself dost still exist, dost still reign, and Thy people pray Thee to return to them, and have mercy upon them.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:19-22

19Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; thy throne from generation to generation. 20, 21Wherefore dost thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time? Turn thou 22us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Lam 5:19.[Blayney: The LXX., Syr., Vulg. and Arabic all express the conjunction at the beginning of this verse. Two MSS. read , and so it is found in the notes of the celebrated printed Bible, No. 300], frequently in Jer 1:15; Jer 3:17, etc. Jeremiah never uses. He says only once , Jer 50:39. [The writer who only once used a common expression with a common preposition, is the very one who would be likely only once to use the same expression with another preposition.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:20., Jer 3:5; Jer 50:39., Jer 2:32; Jer 3:21, etc., Jer 2:13; Jer 12:7, etc. Jeremiah never uses. See Psa 23:6; Psa 93:5.

Lam 5:21.The verb (except here, used only in Piel and Hiph.) is not found in Jeremiah., see Jer. 30:30.

Lam 5:22., Jer 14:19; Jer 2:37; Jer 6:30, etc., Jer 37:5. Jeremiah uses twice, Jer 18:13; Jer 48:16; never. [Poor little , slighted by Jeremiah twice! takes its revenge by having the last word to say against his authorship of the Lamentations.W. H. H.]

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Lam 5:19-22. This short prayer contains four thoughts. 1. A positive source of consolation; the throne of the Lord stands immovably fast, Lam 5:19. 2. A question: Why then should the Lord forget His people forever? Lam 5:20. 3. A petition: that the Lord would re-establish His people spiritually and temporally, Lam 5:21. 4. A negative source of consolation: the Lord cannot be angry forever, Lam 5:22.

Lam 5:19. Thou, O LORD,Thou, Jehovah. [Blayney, Boothroyd, Noyes:But Thou, Jehovah. See Textual notes above. Whether the originally belonged to the text or not, the emphatic expression of the personal pronoun , and the parallelism between Lam 5:18-19, involve the sense of but, yet, or as to, before the pronoun. As to Zion, it is desolate,but Thou endurest forever, or as to Thee, though Thy dwelling-place is gone, Thou endurest.Gataker indicates this in this brief note. But, or Yet, to be supplied.W. H. H.].Remainest forever,[lit., sittest forever. But when this is said of God or of human monarchs, it always refers to their occupying the throne; see Psa 61:8 (Psa 61:7); Psa 9:5 (Psa 9:4), Psa 9:12 (Psa 9:11); Zec 6:13. The king sits, the subject stands. The instant mention of the throne, shows that this must be the meaning here. Not Gods continual existence, but His uninterrupted sovereignty over His creatures. Henderson and Noyes translate, sittest as king. But this seems to lower the thought to a comparison with human monarchs. Though God is called and is a King, yet it is not as any ordinary king that He occupies the throne Gerlach translates, Thou art enthroned forever. This produces a slight tautology. Thou reignest forever (Gataker), may, perhaps, be as accurate a translation of the word, as our English affords.W. H. H.].Thy throne from generation to generation. See Psa 45:7; Psa 89:5; Psa 93:2. In opposition to the desolation of the external sanctuary, the Poet holds up before himself the consolation, that the Lord Himself nevertheless sits firmly on His throne and His kingdom remains immovable. The heathen could destroy the Temple; to the Lord Himself they could do no harm. See Psa 9:8 (Psa 9:7); Psa 29:10, Psa 146:10; Psa 125:1.

Lam 5:20. Wherefore dost thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time? (marg. for length of days). Why shouldest Thou forever forget us, and forsake us for long time? It ought to be distinctly observed, that it is not said , Thou hast forgotten,, Thou hast forsaken. The Poet does not ask, Why hast Thou forgotten and forsaken us forever? But why wouldst or shouldst Thou forsake us forever? That He would do this, the Poet cannot believe. See Psa 74:2 (1); Psa 77:8-10 (Psa 77:7-9). [As Owen has suggested, we are undoubtedly to regard this as a prayer for present and immediate relief. The Prophet well understood that the captivity would not end before seventy years. That for that time at least Zion must remain desolate. He also firmly believed that after that time, the people would return to their own land, and God would dwell on Mount Zion. He could not therefore ask, with any reference to the possibility of such a thing, if God intended to forsake the Jewish people forever? But what He does ask is, if He would forever or always (, constantly, continuously) forget and forsake for length of days, for a long period of time, or for all their life-time, that suffering generation of His people? Would He leave them in their present misery without any relief, any show of mercy? Though Zion was desolate, and God had withdrawn His theocratic presence from the people, and the Prophet knew that He would not in that sense return to the people again, till that sinful generation was dead, yet, he says, Thou still art God, Thou reignest forever, Thy throne remains unmoved by any mundane events,why then shouldst Thou continuously, persistently forget us and completely abandon us to our present sorrow? The pronoun us here, embraces the persons of those embraced by the us in the preceding verses of the Song. Had he intended the people as such, and not the people individually considered, he would probably have used some such designation as the daughter of Thy people, or simply Thy people. The prayer as thus interpreted was answered. Long before the captivity ended, God had mercy on the sufferers, gave them favor in the eyes of men, and relieved them from many of their distresses. The verse then ought to be translated, Wherefore shouldst Thou always forget us, shouldst Thou abandon usi.e. to our present miseryfor length of days, that is, for any long but indefinite period of time?W. H. H.]

Lam 5:21. Turn Thou us unto Thee, O LORDJehovahand we shall be turned. The Poet well knows that a restoration is possible; but he also knows its conditions. He has before his eyes what is said in Jer 31:16-22; Jer 3:1-4; Jer 3:12, in which the idea [to turn] is employed in a variety of ways.The words [turn us and we shall turn] are a direct quotation from Jer 31:18. See remarks on that passage. Comp. Psa 80:4 (3), 8 (7), 20 (19). The question is whether the Poet prayed only for temporal, or only for spiritual restoration? It is in point of fact not imaginable, that there could be one without the other. But he knows that in order to either kind of restoration, the Lord must take the initiative. And especially, first of all, He must lead back the people to Himself. Only when the Lord has accomplished thisbut then most certainlywill the people return back to the Lord and to the place of His gracious presence and so be restored to the old covenant relationship. [There are three ways of understanding this prayer, which Dr. Naegelsbach has not distinguished with his usual admirable perspicuity. 1. It can be understood as a prayer for the restoration of the old condition of things, involving a return to their own land. Owen: The meaning of this sentence is, says Grotius, Restore us to Thy favor, that we may be restored to our ancient stale. Were this evidently the meaning, the rendering ought to be thus,Restore us, O Jehovah, to Thyself, that we may be restored. It is obvious that the words so translated do not express what is claimed for them. Restore us to Thyself, that we may be restored, can only mean that we may be restored to Thyself. This might involve as a consequence the return of the ancient state. But if that had been the main idea, it would have been differently expressed. Besides people are apt to pray for what they most need and are likely to get. The pressing need of the people now, was instant relief from suffering. This they might have without a return to their land. The latter they could not expect for themselves, and were sure that it would come eventually to a future generation. 2. In a strictly theocratic sense. That God would bring them back to Himself and they be restored to His favor and blessed with all the blessings of the covenant. This would not involve necessarily an immediate return to their own land; and gives a good sense. Yet it does not seem fully to express the natural meaning of the words. Nor is it grammatically correct to take in a passive, instead of an active sense. 3. It can be regarded as a prayer for converting grace. Turn Thou us to Thyself and we shall turn, i. e. to Thee. This is the simplest and most natural translation. It is consistent with the fact, that the people throughout this Song, while speaking collectively, are yet regarded as individuals. It harmonizes with the evident meaning of Lam 5:20. It is such a prayer as was eminently proper in their circumstances. It is consistent with the whole doctrine of the Bible in regard to converting grace, or the grace of repentance. Finally, it prepares the way for the final petitition, renew our days as of old.W. H. H.].Renew our days as of old. The construction is a prolepsis. Renew our days, i.e.vitam, vit conditionem,Job 10:5, so that they may be as they were formerly. [This petition is general and comprehensive. It reaches forward to the time when all they had possessed and enjoyed would be theirs again as a people,Country, Temple, Priest, Prophet, and King. But it does not require the instant or even speedy fulfilment of these things; nor does this petition afford any ground for the argument (Owen) that the preceding petition must be of the same purport.W. H. H.]

Lam 5:22. But Thou hast utterly rejected us; (marg. For wilt Thou utterly reject us?) Thou art very wroth against us.Or hast Thou wholly rejected us, and art exceedingly angry with us? The verse contains, as remarked above, a negative fundamental statement. The meaning of the conjunction [but, except, unless] is, it may be then that. See Gen 28:17; Isa 42:19; Pro 3:12; my Gr. 110. 4, note, Ewald, 356. The idea of realization is to be supplied before the conjunction, from the foregoing prayer; this will be done, unless Thou mayest have utterly abandoned us. [Calvin:Except Thou hast wholly rejected us, and hast become very angry with us.Boothroyd puts the first clause interrogatively, For wilt Thou altogether cast us off? Thou hast been wroth against us exceedingly. But both verbs are preterites, and neither can be taken in a future sense. For the same reason, the verbs cannot be translated as Noyes renders them, taking both clauses interrogatively, For shouldst Thou utterly reject us? Shouldst Thou be so exceedingly wroth against us? We must either accept the sense of Dr. Naegelsbachs translation, with which Calvin and Gerlach agree, or accept the text of the English Version, with which agree Sept., Syr., Arab., Vulg., Targ., Broughton, Blayney, Henderson, and Owen, an imposing weight of authority. If we adopt the latter sense, then we must accept of Owens as the only possible explanation, that the reference is to themselves as individuals, not as representatives of the Jewish race. They knew that God had not utterly rejected the nation. They knew that as a nation, they would be restored to their land. In either case, the opinion that this prayer is a prayer for immediate relief as individuals, and not for final restoration as a nation, is evident. For, if we adopt the sense of the text of the English version, we cannot believe that Jeremiah meant to announce the utter rejection of the nation; and if we prefer the sense of the margin of the English version, we cannot believe that Jeremiah would close this magnificent poem with a question involving the possibility of Gods utter rejection of the whole nation. Rather, we must regard these closing words as one last plaintive cry for mercy,unless Thou hast utterly rejected us, who are now in misery, and hast become exceedingly angry with us, so that Thy wrath cannot be appeased, and the mercy, we implore in vain for ourselves, is to be reserved for another and more pious generation of Israelites.W. H. H.]

The Hebrew codices repeat, for the purpose of synagogue reading, after Lam 5:22, the words of Lam 5:21, as they do also [repeat the verse before the last, after the last verse] at the close of Isaiah, Malachi, and Ecclesiastes, in order to close with consolatory words. See Delitzsch, Is. p. 651. [Hugh Broughton:Turn us, O Eternal, unto Thee, and we shall return; renew our days as of old. The Lam 5:21 is one of the four which, in the Massoreth Bible, are printed as a postscript for better memory. Another is the last save one in Ecclesiastes, another the last save one in Esay, the fourth the last save one in Malachi, as I noted upon Ecclesiastes. These sayings contain the main of the writers. That in Ecclesiastes biddeth us look for all happiness in the world to come, that of Esay telleth how all Moyses policy shall end. That of Malachi showeth how John Baptist shall begin the New Testament. And this of Jeremy telleth that God will begin a new state for his people. Upon that they studied in Babylon fifty years, and they made themselves a golden age, knowing that the kingdom of Christ was in suffering. Afterwards they are plainly told of the true kingdom, and be renewed, as of old. This verse was given in the beginning of the captivity for a comfort that way. Wordsworth: Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned. A very appropriate prayer for Israel weeping over the ruins of Jerusalem,destroyed first by the Chaldean armies, and next, on the anniversary of the same day, by the power of Rome, for its sins. Israel says, Turn Thou us, O Lord, and we shall be turned; and the Apostle of Israel, the great Hebrew of the Hebrews, St. Paul, says, Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn unto the Lord, the veil shall be taken away (2Co 3:15-16). May He hasten the time! Then the dirge of Lamentation will be changed into a jubilee of joy.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Lam 5:1. Remember, O LORD. It is unworthy of the majesty of God to impute the fault of forgetfulness to Him, but He may be entreated to be mindful or to remember, in order to render speedy assistance to the needy, and thus make manifest what [viz. His remembrance] was before concealed. Rhabanus in Ghisler., p. 213.

2. Lam 5:1. [Consider, and behold. Calvin: The words, though brief and concise, yet contain a useful doctrine, that God is pleased to bring help to the miserable when their evils come to an account before Him, especially when they are unjustly oppressed. It is indeed certain, that nothing is unknown to God, but this mode of speaking is according to the perceptions of men; for we think that God disregards our miseries, or we imagine that His back is turned to us when He does not immediately succor us. But He is simply to be asked to look on our evils, as soon as He is pleased to look on the evils we suffer, aid is at the same time prepared for us.Our reproach. Calvin: There is mention especially made of reproach, that the indignity might move God the more; for it was for this end that He took the people under His protection, that they might be for His glory and honor, as Moses says. As then, it was Gods will that the riches of His glory should appear in that people, nothing could have been more inconsistent than that, instead of glory, they should have nothing but disgrace and reproach. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet makes a special mention of the reproach of the people.]

3. Lam 5:1. He does not say, Remember, O Lord, our enemies, that they may suffer as their deeds deserve, but, Be mindful of what has happened to us, as if he would say in effect, Remembering the evils which we suffer take them away, but overlook the doers of them. When he says, What has happened, or what has been done to us, he discriminates between what we suffer and what is natural [normal], for these evils are not natural or normal, but accidental, resulting from the manifold effects of sin. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 213.

4. Lam 5:1. The cross seems all the lighter when we lament over it to a true, confidential friend, and show him how it pains us, and he with brotherly sympathy or good advice, removes from us a part of our burden. But men cannot always help us, however sincerely they desire to do so. But he who commends his affairs to God, complains to the right and faithful Helper, who has invited us to pray to Him (Psa 13:6; Psa 27:8; Psa 37:5; Psa 55:23; Sir 2:11). Egid. Hunnius. In adversity we should not, with the Papists, fly for assistance to the dead, who are ignorant of our afflictions (Isa 63:16😉 nor, with the superstitious and profane, to magicians and wizards (Isa 8:19-20); but, after the example of the church in this passage, we should fly to the Lord (Hos 6:1-3 [E. V. Hos 5:15 to Hos 6:2]; 2Ch 20:12). Frster.

5. Lam 5:2-16. Because everything contained in this list of evils was long before predicted to the Israelites with the greatest exactness [lit. to a very hairs breadth] in the ancient Mosaic list [of curses], contained in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, we learn from the agreement of the Mosaic list with the manifest eventu or fulfilment in the captive people of Judah, how the threatenings, contained for us in Gods word are to be regarded, not as mere empty, inefficient words to terrify us, but for an undoubted, sure, and certain reckoning and list, whereby Gods temporal and eternal wrath from Heaven against the ungodly is revealed and threatened, as it is written in the first chapter of Romans. Egid. Hunnius. This is useful, that we may carry the cup straight, and look well to ourselves, lest it may happen to us in the same way that faith comes to be experience. Cramer.

6. Lam 5:2. That these things may not happen to us also, let us be pious, upright, and temperate in the acquisition, possession, and use of our property; in reference to which Paul admonishes us in 1Co 7:30-31, that while we are in the world, we should not use the world [Vulg.], that we may have worldly possessions, but should possess them as though we had them not. Besides that, threefold woe of Habakkuk (Lam 2:6) presses hard upon us. Use is commendable, abuse criminal. Frster.

7. Lam 5:3. Our mothers are as widows. By mothers are intended the seven synagogues, which are known to have been established principally on the Mount Olives, from which flowed the milk of doctrine. But in the time of the siege or of the Chaldean ravages, their children having been removed, they were abandoned and consumed with fire. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 214.

8. Lam 5:4; Lam 5:6; Lam 5:9-10. We learn especially how God punishes the misuse of His gifts of plenty and abundance when, for instance, men are not thankful to God in times of profusion and cheapness, but squander uselessly His gifts, wine and fruits of the earth, by gormandizing and carousing, gluttonizing and guzzling, banqueting and tippling; then God withdraws His blessings and gifts; food becomes scarce so that it is not easily procured; and He sends a famine so that water and precious bread can hardly be obtained, as was the case with the Jewish people. But they had well deserved it by their rioting, which the Prophet Isaiah long before rebuked, when he enumerated, among other gross vices of the house of Judah, drunkenness also, and called down a woe upon it (Isa 5:11-13, comp. Amo 6:4-7) But the punishment terminates not in temporal poverty. Excessive indulgence in eating and drinking is such a pernicious vice that a man forfeits thereby his part in the Kingdom of Heaven (1Co 6:9-10), and must be deprived of eternal happiness, and must suffer thirst with the rich drunkard eternally in the flames of Hell (Luke 16; Isa 5:14). Egid. Hunnius.

9. Lam 5:6. According to the real meaning of the Hebrew, the church weeps for her children, when members of Christ and ministers of the altar, for the sake of earthly things, give the hand to those more powerful or to worldly men, who are rendered foul by the blackness of their [ill-gotten] wealth or other crimes. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 216.

10. Lam 5:7. Undeservedly, O Roman, must thou pay the penalty for the sins of thine ancestors. Horace, Odes, B. III., Ode 6. Already have we sufficiently expiated the perjury of the Laomedonian Troy with our blood. Virgil. Georg. I., 501, 2. This is rightly lamented in the church also, that when the priests and the princes of the earth are delinquent, for their faults, as it were, the people are punished. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 218. When their kings act the fool, the Greeks are punished. Horace.

11. Lam 5:7. [Pools Annot.: We must not understand this in the same sense as Eze 18:2, where God reflecteth upon them for using a proverb to this sense. It is the Prophet who here speaketh, and in the name of the godly Jews, who would not excuse themselves as if they suffered merely for their forefathers sins. But the Prophet confesseth and bewaileth that God had punished their iniquities and the iniquities of their forefathers together; and it was better with their forefathers who had sinned, and were dead and gone, than with them, upon whom the punishment of their iniquity did abide, and was like so to do for a long time.Our fathers have sinned, and are not. Calvin: Our Prophets object was to turn God to mercy; and to attain this object he says, O Lord, Thou indeed hast hitherto executed just punishment, because our fathers had very long abused Thy goodness and forbearance; but now the time has come for Thee to try and prove whether we are like our fathers; as then, they have perished as they deserved, receive us now into favor. We hence see that thus no quarrel or contention is carried on with God, but only that the miserable exiles ask God to look on them, since their fathers, who had provoked God and had experienced His dreadful vengeance, were already dead.And we have borne their iniquities. Calvin: When he says that the sons bore the iniquities of the fathers, though it be a strong expression, yet its meaning is not as though God, without reason, punished their children and not their fathers; for unalterable is that declaration, The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father the iniquity of the son; but the soul that sinneth it shall die (Eze 18:20). It may yet be said that the children are loaded with the sins of their fathers, because God, as He declares by Moses, extends His vengeance to the third and fourth generation (Exo 20:5). And He says also in another place, I will return into the bosom of children the iniquity of their fathers (Jer 32:18). God then continued His vengeance to their posterity. But yet there is no doubt but that the children who had been so severely punished, bore also the punishment of their own iniquity, for they deserved a hundred deaths. But these two things well agree together, that God returns the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children, and yet that the children are chastised for their own sins. Henry: They acknowledge the reproach of sin which they bear. This comes in, in the midst of their complaints, but may well be put in the front of them. This is not here a peevish complaint, or an imputation of unrighteousness to God, like what we have in Jer 31:29; Eze 18:2, but a penitent confession of the sins of their ancestors, which they themselves had also persisted in, for which they now justly suffered. Thus they submit themselves to the Divine justice, and refer themselves to the Divine pity. And, truly, the sins God looks back upon in punishing, we must look back upon in repenting, and must notice all that will help to justify God in correcting us. And if we be penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes will pity, and soon return in mercy.]

11. Lam 5:8. Here occurs a lesson concerning slavery, in reference to which we must hold, that it may be regarded as belonging to the law of nations, but cannot be considered as belonging to the law of nature, because man was created and born for a state of liberty, but slavery is the punishment of sin, as is evident from Gen 9:25, where slavery was legally imposed upon Ham, who is, as it were, the patriarch of slaves. Frster.[Servants have ruled over us. Clarke: To be subject to such is the most painful and dishonorable bondage:

Quid domini faciant, audent cum talia fures?
Virg. Ecl. iii. 16.

Since slaves so insolent are grown,
What may not masters do?]

12. Lam 5:11-14. We see by means of a passage relating to the Jews of that same period, when women begin to be haughty and virgins proud, that they are brought to dishonor and shame (Isa 3:16-24). We see and learn also, when princes and chief men and the nobles in a land and nation boast of their position and worth, what perchance sometimes happens to them on that account. Likewise when the old men or elders in the gates, or in their courts, let every sort of unrighteousness go free and for the sake of reward and gifts pervert the right, and yet will not allow their jurisdiction to be amended, as the elders in Judah would not be rebuked by the Prophets, then we see and learn, what follows thereon, that God lets the court and court-houses at last be reformed by the warriors with the broad axe, that court and judges may be converted, and court-houses lie in dust and ashes. Further, if the young men make too much of their sports, and young women of their songs and dances, we see and learn that God can cast the instruments of music out of their hands, and change their songs and dances into woful lamentations, as happened to the wilful youth among the Jewish people: to those who, before the Babylonish captivity, treated that matter too lightly, misused their music in their feasts and entertainments, so that the Prophets, Isaiah in his fifteenth chapter, Amos in his sixteenth, as also Jeremiah and others, were compelled to preach against it with all their might. But because their preaching was not heeded, God sent the Babylonians, who stopped their proceedings, so that their pipes fell into the ashes, and their stringed instruments into the dirt, and they at Babylon had to hang up their harps on the willow-trees that were there, as is said in Psalms 137, and to carry instead of them mill-stones and wood, till they stumbled and fell under their burdens. Egid. Hunnius.

13. Lam 5:13. The children fell under the wood. The reason for this, according to our explanation was, because they were unwilling to believe on the Christ hanging on the wood. Hence one of the Apostles says, The cross is foolishness to the Gentiles, and to the Jews a stumbling-block. So then, they fell down under the wood, because they were unwilling to acknowledge that life which hangs upon the wood in order to destroy death. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 218.

14. Lam 5:14. Music. Music is an unsuitable mode of expression for grief. Another saying of Rhabanus in Ghisler., p. 221. [And one wholly unworthy of repetition; especially impertinent as a comment on a lyrical dirge that sang its sorrows with the accompaniment of musical instruments. The young men gave up their merry, jovial songs, to stand weeping around their aged Prophet, as he poured out the lamentations of the church, in measured cadences, that added the melting pathos of music to his words and helped to relieve their swelling hearts of some of their tumultuous grief.W. H. H.]

15. Lam 5:16. The crown is fallen from our head. When the church loses the grace of faith, her crowning honor falls from her head, because she exchanges the Lord of glory for the perfidy of falsehood. But that the Lord is indeed the crown of the church, Isaiah testifies, when he says, In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory and a diadem of joy to the residue of His people (Isa 28:5). Virtually the crown on our head vanishes, when His good-will is lost. In reference to which the Prophet sings in congratulatory strains, With the shield of Thy goodwill Thou hast crowned us, O Lord, Ps. 5:13 (Psa 5:12). Paschasius. [Calvin: By the crown of the head he no doubt understands all those ornaments, by which that people had been adorned. They had a kingdom and priesthood, which were like two luminaries or two precious jewels; they had also other things by which the Lord had adorned them. As, then, they were endued with such excellent things, they are said to have borne a crown on their head. But a crown was not only taken for a diadem,it was also a symbol of joy and of honor; for not only kings then wore crowns, but men were crowned at weddings and feasts, at games also, and theatres. The Prophet, in a word, complains; that though many ornaments did belong to the people, yet now they were denuded of them all: The crown, he says, has fallen from our head.]We can use this plaint to-day, not inappropriately, with regard to the condition of the Roman empire; and that it may be restored, by Divine favor, to its integrity and splendor, we should devoutly pray. Frster.

16. Lam 5:16. The crown has fallen from our head. Here arises a question, How can this be reconciled with the promise or prophecy of Jacob, in Gen 49:10? The Rabbins have given it as their opinion, that the prophecy of Jacob must be understood thus,The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, until the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, comes, who will cast down the sceptre of Judah. To this we answer, firstly; That their banishment was only a punishment for an inconsiderably short time. Again it happened, that after the Babylonish captivity they had again their own regent in their own country. Besides, God so wonderfully ordered it, that in the midst of the Babylonish captivity this sceptre of Judah made itself plainly visible. Whereas Daniel and his companions, who were of the royal lineage, and also of the house of David, were not only elevated to high position at the Babylonian court, but Daniel was appointed at Babylon one of the chiefest princes over the whole land (Daniel 3). Add to this, that Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, must be raised up again from the dust, and honored and treated as a king. Egid. Hunnius.

17. Lam 5:16. [Woe unto us, that we have sinned! Calvin: When we are pressed down by adversities, Satan will excite us to sorrow, and at the same time hurry us on to rage, except this doctrine comes to our minds, that we have to do with God, who is a righteous Judge. For the knowledge of our sins will tame our pride, and also check all those clamorous complaints, which the unbelieving are wont to utter when they rise up against God. Our evils, then, ought to lead us to consider Gods judgment and to confess our sins.Scott: As wasting wars, terrible famines, and heavy oppressions or persecutions come upon nations, for the sins of former and present generations, when their appointed measure of iniquity is filled up: so the accumulating sins of a mans whole life will be punished with tremendous vengeance at last; except he obtain an interest in Him, who bare our sins in His own body on the tree. The wrath of God turns the sinners mirth into mourning, his liberty into bondage, and his honor into disgrace: for this the crown is fallen from our heads, and woe unto us that we have sinned!]

18. Lam 5:17. Rightly is the heart said to be made sorrowful on account of sin, because where iniquity takes possession of the heart and burdens it, it is no longer the habitation of the Holy Spirit; but the whole mind is obscured by the mist of sin, while the grace of the Most High Paraclete disdains to shed abroad its enlightening influences in that mind. For the Holy Spirit of knowledge flees from deception (fictum, i.e. ficturam, fraudem), and wisdom will not enter a malevolent soul. Rhabanus, in Ghisler., p. 221.

19. Lam 5:18. The foxes walk upon it.The same fate which Mount Zion formerly experienced, many Mount Zions, i.e. churches, experience to-day, which a few years ago were enthusiastically devoted to the Lutheran faith, but now, alas for their wretchedness! the foxes run about them destroying the vineyards (Son 2:15). Frster.

20. Lam 5:19-21. After Jeremiah has related copiously and in detail all his own sorrows and those of his people, he closes at last with a prayer, to be a lesson to us, that we should do likewise. And as Jeremiah did not permit himself to be deterred from prayer by his own sins and those of the people, which were more in number than the sands of the sea, nor frightened from it by the grievous wrath of God; so we also, neither on account of our sins, nor yet because of the wrath of God, should restrain prayer. Wrtemb. Summarien.

21. Lam 5:19. Thou, O LORD, remainest forever. His is an eternal continuance. But that Being (Esse) which exists, is that Being (Esse), in which the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father exist, so that they have a common eternity and are essentially one forever. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 223. [Fausset: (Psa 102:12). The perpetuity of Gods rule over human affairs, however He may seem to let His people be oppressed for a time, is their ground of hope of restoration.Calvin: When we fix our eyes on present things, we must necessarily vacillate, as there is nothing permanent in the world; and when adversities bring a cloud over our eyes, then faith in a manner vanishes, at least we are troubled and stand amazed. Now the remedy is, to raise up our eyes to God, for however confounded things may be in the world, yet He remains always the same. His truth may indeed be hidden from us, yet it remains in Him. In short, were the world to change and perish a hundred times, nothing could ever affect the immutability of God. There is, then, no doubt but that the Prophet wished to take courage and to raise himself up to a firm hope, when he exclaimed, Thou, O God, remainest forever. By the word sitting or remaining, he doubtless meant that the world is governed by God. We know that God has no body, but the word sitting is to be taken metaphorically, for He is no God except He be the Judge of the world.]

22. Lam 5:19. [Thy throne from generation to generation. Calvin: The throne of God designates the government of the world. But if God be the Judge of the world, then He doeth nothing, or suffereth nothing to be done, but according to His supreme wisdom and justice. The throne of God is set in opposition to chance or uncertain changes which ungodly men dream of; for when they see things in great confusion in the world, they say that it is the wheel of fortune, they say that all things happen through blind fate. Then the Prophet, that he might not be cast down with the unbelieving, refers to the throne of God, and strengthens himself in this doctrine of true religion,that God nevertheless sits on this throne, though things are thus confounded, though all things fluctuate; yea, even though storms and tempests mingle as it were heaven and earth together, yet God sits on His throne amid all these disturbances. However turbulent, then, all the elements may be, this derogates nothing from the righteous and perpetual judgment of God. This is the meaning of the words; and hence fruit and benefit may be easily gathered.]

23. Lam 5:20. Wherefore dost Thou forget us forever? Not that God could have lost the treasures of memory or of knowledge; but because He delays, on account of some hidden purpose, to render aid immediately, while He seems to contemn those who pray to Him and offers no consolation to their hearts. By reason of human frailty, the mind burdened with troubles thinks God forgetful. For forgetfulness closes the fountain of charity, quickly takes away the faculty of compassion, blunts the edge of the grace that is to be conferred, and does not allow immediate assistance to those who are placed in misery. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 224. [Calvin: He seems here to expostulate with God; but the faithful, even when they patiently bear their evils, and submit to Gods scourges, do yet familiarly deposit their complaints in His bosom, and thus unburden themselves. We see that David prayed, and no doubt by the real impulse of the Spirit, and at the same time expostulated, Why dost Thou forget me perpetually? Psa 13:1. Nor is there a doubt but that the Prophet took this complaint from David. Let us, then, know, that though the faithful sometimes take this liberty of expostulating with God, yet they do not put off reverence, modesty, submission, or humility. For when the Prophet thus inquired why God should forever forget His people and forsake them, he no doubt relied on his own prophecies, which he knew had proceeded from God, and thus he deferred his hope until the end of the seventy years, for that time had been prefixed by God. But it was according to human judgment that he complained in his own person and in that of the faithful, that the affliction was long; nor is there a doubt but that he dictated this form of prayer to the faithful, that it might be retained after his death. He, then, formed this prayer, not only according to his own feeling, and for the direction of those of his own age; but his purpose was to supply the faithful with a prayer after his own death, so that they might flee to the mercy of God. We now, then, perceive how complaints of this kind ought to be understood, when the prophets asked How long? as though they stimulated God to hasten the time; for it cannot be, when we are pressed down by many evils, but that we wish help to be accelerated; for faith does not wholly strip us of all cares and anxieties. But when we thus pray, let us remember that our times are at the will and in the hand of God, and that we ought not to hasten too much. It is, then, lawful for us on the one hand to ask God to hasten; but, on the other hand, we ought to check our impatience and wait until the suitable time comes. Both these things the Prophet no doubt joined together when he said, Why shouldest Thou perpetually forget us and forsake us?]

24. Lam 5:21-22. Since the people in their prayer longed so earnestly for their fatherland, that they might be permitted to return home again, we should take example from this, in what fashion we should yearn after the heavenly fatherland, out of which we have been driven by sin and transgression, and thrust into this empty Babylon of a sinful world. In Psalms 126 the unspeakably great joy is described, which the Jews will experience when they return again into their fatherland, out of the Babylonish house of slavery and imprisonment. If the people of God so rejoiced and exulted with loud shouts of joy, over the return to their earthly fatherland, how much greater joy there will be, when the elect are actually in the great blessed home-gathering, brought into the eternal, imperishable Jerusalem. Egid. Hunnius.

25. Lam 5:21. Whom the Lord hath converted, that one will assuredly be saved, but whom He hath despised, no man can correct, Ecc 7:13 [Vulg.]. But when he says, Renew our days as from the beginning, he seems to ask this, that as from the beginning He made the first Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob devoted to Himself in the plenitude of their faith, and love, that He would therefore make them [who offered this prayer] also faithful and devoted to Himself, by bestowing upon them the same gifts, which was promised to them in the advent of Elias, by the Prophet Malachi, as many think (Mal 4:5). Rhabanus in Ghisler., p. 224.

26. Lam 5:21. Turn Thou us unto Thee. Except by grace no backslider can be converted; because it is of ourselves that we have fallen, but of God that we rise again. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 224. [Henry: They here pray for converting grace, to prepare and qualify them for mercy; Turn us to Thee, O Lord. This implies an acknowledgment of their own weakness and inability to turn themselves, and that the cause of their distance was in themselves. There is in our nature a bent to backslide from God, but no disposition to return to Him, till His grace works in us both to will and to do. So necessary is that grace, that we may truly say, Turn us, or we shall wander endlessly; and so powerful and effectual is that grace, that we may as truly say, Turn us and we shall be turned; for it is a day of Almighty power, in which Gods people are made willing and obedient.] And we shall be turned. When we are converted, we are recalled to the beginning of renovation; but when that is attained, we will be renewed. Paschasius in Ghisler., p. 224. Renew our days as of old. God has been ready to change His sentence, if thou hadst been willing to change thy wickedness by penitence. Ambrose on Luke, in Frster. [William Lowth: Do Thou give us the grace of conversion and amendment, and then Thou wilt remove Thy heavy judgments, and restore us to that happiness and prosperity which we formerly enjoyed.]

27. Lam 5:22. He did not utter these words as if despairing of the salvation of his people, but that he might manifest his excessive grief on account of the prolonged humiliation and rejection of his nation. For he saw by the Spirit of prophecy, that the Jews themselves, at the advent of Christ, would not believe. But of the ultimate conversion of his nation he entertained no doubt,but believed most fully that in the seed of Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed; in which universal promise themselves also are certainly comprehended. Rhabanus in Ghisler.

28. Lam 5:22. As long as we wander here in this world, we shall be called upon to observe the condition of the condemned and lost, and when we see it, we will indeed mourn over it. Yet the Church of Christ is everywhere to be found, if men seek her, and she triumphs over all death. In her also many ages perish; we shall mourn for her in time, but will be comforted in eternity, for our mother is that Jerusalem, which is from above, which is free. She is eternal, and those who here suffer for sin and have comfort only in grace, they are citizens of that eternal city. Diedrich. [Scott: Though we should mourn over the miseries of the world, and the low estate of the Church, yet the true Zion, to which believers are come, cannot be desolated, but remaineth for ever, even as the throne of our God in Heaven. This inheritance cannot be forfeited or alienated; nor can our mansions be possessed by strangers; or our relation to God, as espoused and adopted into His family, abrogated; or the liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free, taken from us; the freeness of our salvation, disannulled; or our joy and glorying in Christ, made void. Various tribulations may make our hearts faint and our eyes dim: but our way to the mercy-seat of our reconciled God still is open; and we may beseech Him not to forsake or forget us; and plead with Him to turn, and renew us more and more by His grace; that our hopes may revive and our consolations abound as in the days of old. For the eternal and unchangeable God will not utterly reject His Church or any true believer, whatever our trials, fears or lamentations may be. Let us then, in all our troubles, put our whole trust and confidence in His mercy; let us confess our sins, and pour out our hearts before Him; and let us watch against repinings or despondency, whatever we suffer, or witness of the troubles of our brethren; for this we surely know, that it shall be well in the event with all who trust, fear, love and serve the Lord.]

29. [Prayer. Calvin: Grant, Almighty God, that as Thou didst formerly execute judgment so severe on Thy people,O grant, that these chastisements may at this day teach us to fear Thy Name, and also keep us in watchfulness and humility, and that we may so strive to pursue the course of our calling, that we may find that Thou art always our leader, that Thy hand is stretched forth to us, that Thy aid is ever ready for us, until, being at length gathered into Thy celestial kingdom, we shall enjoy that eternal life, which Thine only-begotten Son has obtained for us by His own blood. Amen.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. Lam 5:1. If we say. Remember, O LORD, consider and behold, this supposes that he Lord can, in some way, forget something or not see it. But in fact He is omniscient and omnipresent. If then He sometimes, in some way, seems not to know or to see something, this is to be regarded as a test (Prfung) imposed upon us. He would then be awakened, as it were, He would be urged to think of these things and to look upon them. This reserve on the part of God has a twofold design. He would thereby, first of all, bring us to a knowledge of ourselves. For then only will we urge another, who will not hear us, with unceasing importunity, to render us assistance, when we find that we have not in ourselves, even with our utmost exertion, the means of relief. Secondly, God would thereby prove our faith. Compare the parables of the unjust Judge (Luk 18:2-8) and of the friend who knocks at midnight (Luk 11:5-10). On this text, therefore, a sermon might be preached with reference to The wise purposes which God has in view, when He long closes His ears to our prayer. He would by this means, 1. lead us to self-knowledge; 2. try the strength of our faith.

2. Lam 5:1-7. These verses would afford a text, in times of severe chastisement by the hand of foreign enemies, for a sermon on the theme, The cry of need of a people severely oppressed by an enemy. 1. This is a cry justified by the facts (Lam 5:2-6). 2. A penitential cry (Lam 5:7). 3. A believing cry (Lam 5:1).

3. Lam 5:8-16. On these verses also a sermon could be preached in the days of a great national calamity brought about by the oppression of the public enemy. The thought might be extracted from these verses, that the separate items of suffering correspond with the sins that have been perpetrated (per quod quis peccat, per idem punitur et ipse, Wis 11:16). Theme: The just judgments of God. I. What they consist in. 1. Because we allowed ourselves to be ruled by our sins, now servants rule over us. 2. Because we despised the bread of life, which was freely and generously proffered to us, we must ourselves seek, with great difficulty, to get our daily bread. 3. Because we hungered not after righteousness, we must now suffer great pain from bodily hunger. 4. Because we crucified not our lust and passions, our wives and daughters are become the victims of the lusts of others. 5. Because we honored not our old men and rulers, our Princes and Elders are now ill-treated by foreigners. 6. Because the youths and boys would not bear the easy yoke of the Lord, they must now bear the heavy yoke of our enemies. 7. Because old and young had been too much addicted to worldly pleasure, they must now relinquish all joy, even that which in itself is innocent and allowable (Lam 5:14-15). 8. Because we have not striven after the crown of life, the crown of earthly honor is dashed from our head. II. Whereto they should excite us. 1. To genuine lamentation over our sins. 2. To believing invocation of Divine grace and mercy.

4. Lam 5:15-16. Frster remarks, These verses afford material for an address to be delivered in a time of public mourning, or at the funeral of a prince or any man of illustrious merit in the commonwealth, either ecclesiastical or civil.

5. Lam 5:17-22. In times of great internal or external distress of the church, these words would afford a text for a sermon, and the theme thence deduced is, The complaint and consolation of the Church. I. The complaint. 1. The cause of it (Lam 5:18). 2. The expression of it (Lam 5:17). II. The consolation. 1. The power of the Lord of the Church is not shaken. 2. He has not rejected His Church forever, but will re-establish it, (a) inwardly, (b) externally.

6. Lam 5:21-22; Lam 3:24-26, preached upon by Cuno Maurice Zimmermann, when pastor in Dbeln; How God the Lord renews His Church. 1. Behold with adoration and thanksgiving how He did it in the days of Luther 2. Behold with rapture and obedience, how He does it in our day. In My last six official sermons in Dbeln, in the year 1863. Leipzig, Teubner, 1864.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

In this Chapter the Prophet puts a close to his lamentations in prayer; and a most sweet and gracious prayer it is!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.

I cannot sufficiently admire the strain of reasoning and of pleading with the Lord, which the Prophet here useth in prayer. Reminding the Lord of their relationship, by virtue of God’s covenant with their fathers, and at the same time, spreading before the Lord the ill treatment they received from the heathen; these became blessed pleas in prayer. Reader! there are no arguments now (for it is the same in all ages) that we can bring before the throne, but what hath first come to us from the throne. God’s covenant love in Christ, and the everlasting and unceasing efficacy of Christ’s blood and righteousness; these are they which must be our sole dependance, when the enemy from without, or sin within, bring the soul into trouble!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Sin’s Garden

Lam 5

If we would work our way up to this text, it will be through a very dreary course of reflection. Probably there is nothing like this chapter in all the elegies of the world. For what is there here more than elegy? There is a death deeper than death. The blank verse is noble, but the moral sentiment is horrible. Let us not deceive ourselves by blank verse. We do not know anything finer than these lines, or many of them, regarded simply as poetry; but when we look into the morality, the poetry is a facial sheen that dies. There is no substance in it. Here is a prayer that never got itself into heaven. Blessed be God, there are some prayers that never get higher than the clouds. Perhaps they ease the uttering heart for the passing moment evaporation lessens the volume of water; but in reality there are some prayers that have no answer. This may be one of them. Look at it Behold how internally rotten it is.

“Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us” ( Lam 5:1 ).

No man can pray who begins in that tone. There is not one particle of devotion in such an utterance. “What is come upon us.” It is a falsehood. It is putting the suppliant into a wrong position at the very first. The cry is not “Remember, O Lord, what we have done, what we have brought upon ourselves, what fools we have been, and how we have broken all thy commandments”; then out of such sorrow there would have arisen the noble music of supplication that would have been answered. But these poor creatures come as if they were quite the injured parties. Behold us; thou knowest our excellence, thou knowest that we deserve all heaven, and yet by some curious action of circumstances here we are, little better than beasts of burden, crushed into this humiliation by Egyptian or Assyrian or other tyranny: Lord, see what has happened to the excellent of the earth! So long as men talk in that tone they are a long way from the only tone that prevails in heaven “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

“Consider, and behold our reproach” ( Lam 5:1 ).

How possible it is for penitence to have a lie in the heart of it; how possible it is for petitions addressed to heaven to be inspired by the meanest selfishness! Our prayers need to be taken to pieces, to be reduced to their elements by a fine analysis; then I think we should never offer them we ourselves should deem them worthless, and cast them away to be forgotten. But let us take the statement as it is here written, and let us note well the inventory which is particularised by these persons, who are very careful to note all that they have lost. Let us see what claim they make upon the bank of heaven to restore to them the property that has been taken away. Read the bill; it is a bill of particulars:

“Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens” ( Lam 5:2 ).

Here is material dispossession. If the inheritance had been retained, would the prayer have been offered? Probably not. If the houses, well-built, and well-furnished, and well-pictured, had been retained, would there have been any cry of distress? Perhaps not; for it is always difficult to pray in a palace. A palace has gilt enough and paint enough to stifle any prayer. It is when men get dispalaced and disrobed that they begin to wonder whether it is not time to be religious.

“We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows” ( Lam 5:3 ).

Here is personal desolation. If the fathers had lived, would the prayers have been offered? If the husbands had lived, would the desire of the heart have turned towards God? Why, all this is rottenness. This is poetry without argument; this is not logic on fire, this is not morality going up in incense: this is a self-reproaching and self-condemnatory plea.

“We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us” ( Lam 5:4 ).

Here is social humiliation. The emphasis is upon the pronoun, “Our” water, the water that we have in our own gardens, water taken out of the wells which our own fathers did dig. We have to buy our own wood, to go to our own forest, and actually lay down money for the timber that has been growing on the estate for countless generations! What an awful lot! what a sad doom! If it had been otherwise, where would the prayer have been? where would the confession, such as it is, have been? If the water had been plentiful and the timber had been untouched, where would these vain wretches have been? Would they have been at church?

“Our necks are under persecution; we labour, and have no rest” ( Lam 5:5 ).

Here is a sense of grievous oppression. What do the men complain of? They complain of the yoke; it is on the neck, and it excoriates them, it chafes them; they cannot bear this unfamiliar burden. We labour who were never meant to toil; our backs were never made to stoop we were made to stand upright and look round and see that other people laboured; and, behold, we we have to work for our bread!

“Servants have ruled over us” ( Lam 5:8 ).

Here is an inversion of natural position. The greater the man, the greater the ruler, should be the law in social administration. Let me have a great man to direct me, superintend me, and revise my doings, and it shall be well with me at eventide. Men will judge according to their quality. The great judge will be gracious, the noble soul will be pitiful, though I bring him but a bungling return at the closing of the day; he knows my weakness, he will remember that I have been working under a spirit of fear and under the stress of great difficulty, and he will cheer me, though I am ashamed to look upon my own work. But the servant will be hard upon me, the slave will not pity me. He is a slave though he wear the golden chain; he never could rise above the level of servility. He is a mean hound to begin with, not because of what he is officially, but because of what he is naturally. Some kings have been slaves; some noblemen have been servants. We are only speaking of the soul that is a slave, and whenever the slave mounts his horse he gallops to the devil.

Read this fifth chapter and look upon it as a garden which sin has planted. This is what sin does for the world. This is what sin always does. This is what sin must do. Here we are not dealing with accidents or casualties, very singular and unexpected occurrences; we are dealing with the great philosophy of cause and effect, sowing and reaping: Be not deceived, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; and man would complain if that law were inverted. It is the sinner that would complain if that law were not a statutory law of the universe. No, quoth he, we must have something more solid than to sow one thing and not know what other is going to be reaped: if I am to live in this universe, I must know what the statutory law is. And the Lord says, The statutory law is, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Good! quoth the sinner. He goes out to sow his seed, and he reaps his harvest accordingly; but when this great law is applied to morals he complains. He wants to get drunk, and have no headache; he wants to steal, and not to be imprisoned; he wants to do wrong, and then to have his own way, and to be accounted an excellent man. Thus souls trifle with themselves. In the common field they will have statutory regulations, or they will complain of the eccentricity of Providence; but in morals they want to have their own way in everything in the matter of personal gratification and indulgence, and to escape all the penalties of enormity. God will not have it so. This is the garden which sin has planted. All these black flowers, all these awful trees of poison, sin planted. God did not plant one of them. It is so with all our pains and penalties. It is so with this halting mind, that cannot keep steadfast to its own logic and remember its own conclusions, to obey them in all their force and urgency. It is so with this treacherous memory. Once it remembered everything, now it remembers nothing; it has forgotten the mother’s name. It is so with that bad luck in business, with that misfortune in the open way of life. What is all this? All this goes back to a moral seed-time. Why not lace that fact? We are reaping what has been sown by ourselves or by our forerunners. It is quite right to remember our ancestors in this particular. The men who made this plaint did hot forget that element. Said they, “Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.” That is too much; that is making religion irreligious; that is committing the falsehood of exaggeration. It is quite true that our fathers have sinned, and that we in a sense bear their iniquities, and cannot help it, for manhood is one; but it is also true that we ourselves have adopted all they did. To adopt what Adam did is to have sinned in Adam and through Adam. Why theologise about some immemorially historic Adam when we have taken up all his bad doings and endorsed them every one? We need not go behind our own signature; we have signed the catalogue, we have adopted it, and therefore we have to account for our own lapse in our own religion.

Wondrous it is how men turn to God in their distresses. The Lord said it would be so “In their affliction they will seek me early,” So we have God in this great plaint, and what position does God occupy in it? He occupies the position of the only Helper of man. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us.” There are times when we know that there is only one God. When we begin theologising, we can do wonders with the Deity, but when we are all cut to pieces and have no more help left in us, then we simplify our theology and go direct to the Eternal himself. There is no calling out here for sacraments and for connecting links with the divine throne. When the soul is mad with self-accusation, it finds God or creates him. We know men best in their agony.

Here God is represented, in a sense, as being the only possible Source of such punishment. No mere man could have inflicted a penalty so vast, so penetrating, so immeasurable as this. We may know God by the vastness of the hell which he digs, or which he permits us to dig. Here the men are afflicted at every point; there is not one little spot left on which the stinging thong has not fallen. All gone! The inheritance has gone, and the houses are gone; orphanage and fatherlessness and widowhood are present; water is bought and wood is sold, the neck is under the yoke and the hands are given to toiling; the Assyrian claims every finger, and the Egyptian has a lien upon every energy. Who could have inflicted so vast a punishment? Only God. And God is represented as the only eternal Power “Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.” How great we are in adoration or reverence! How poor we are in obedience! Let it be a question of exalting God, and even the mouth of a sinner may be opened in blank verse, even the tongue of a liar may forge great polysyllables; but let it become a question of acquiescence in the divine will, obedience to the divine law, then selfishness triumphs over righteousness.

Then comes the cry for old days “Renew our days as of old.” There is a sense in which the old days were better than these. What is that peculiar religious fascination which acts upon the mind and leads us back again into the nursery? We cry for the days of childhood, when we were unconscious of sin, when we played in the wood, when we gathered the primroses, when we came back from bird-nesting and summer joys. Oh that these days would come back again in all their blueness, in all their simple joyousness! sometimes the soul says. “Renew our days as of old” when our bread was honest. Since then we have become tradesmen, merchants, adventurers, gamblers, speculators, and now there is not a loaf in the cupboard that has not poison in the very middle of it. Our bread is a lie; the bed on which we rest at night is a bed full of thorns. We are richer at the bank, but we are poorer in heaven. God pity us! “Renew our days as of old” when our prayers were unhindered, when we never doubted their going to heaven and coming back again with blessings; when we used to pray at our mother’s knee we never thought that the prayer could fail of heaven. We were quite sure when we said “God bless father and mother, and brother and sister,” that God blessed them straight up into heaven, and all the angels smiled when they heard the cry, and God moved all the heavens to bring the blessing down. Now we are theorising about it, and doubting, speculating, and controversialising about it. Oh for the old child-days, when God was in every flower and in every bird, and when all the sky was a great open Bible, written all over in capitals of love! The old days will not come. Still we can have a new youth; we can be born again. That is the great cry of Christ’s gospel. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” and thus get the true childhood. He who is in Christ Jesus is a new creature, a little child; old things have passed away, and all things have become new; we have a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness. When we have passed the touch of God the Holy Ghost, when we have been washed in his laver of regeneration, oh, how green the earth is, and how blue the kind heaven! The poorest beggar becomes a brother because our overflowing love shuts nobody out. If we would have back our old times we must have back our old selves, when we were in our low esteem, consciously poor, broken-hearted on account of sin. When we get these old experiences we shall get back all the lost love of God.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XIII

JEREMIAH’S LAMENTATIONS

Lamentations 1-5

We will now take up a brief survey of the book of Lamentations. This book belongs to the third division of the Old Testament, known as the Writings, the Greek Hagiographa. The book of Lamentations is grouped with four other small books and these five are known by the Jews as the Meghilloth. These five books are Songs of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. They are read at special seasons of the year by the Jews, and the book of Lamentations was read, and is still read, on the anniversary of the fall of Jerusalem, which occurred on the ninth day of the fourth month of their year, corresponding to about our August 9. For 2,200 or 2,300 years this book has been read in their assemblies at this time. Not only has it been read, but it has also been quoted by thousands and tens of thousands of Jews who tarry at the Jewish wailing place in Jerusalem. It has voiced the sorrow of the Jewish people over the destruction of their city and its Temple for more than 2,000 years. It will continue to do so until the Jews are brought to Christ and realize that there is no need for the Temple and the ritual; that these were done away by Jesus Christ.

Tradition says that shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, when Jeremiah was partly free, he sat down in a quarry, a few miles north of Jerusalem near the road to Damascus, and there composed these lamentations. The authorship of Jeremiah has been questioned by the critical school, but this tradition goes back as early as the third century before Christ, and the Septuagint Version says at the beginning of this book that Jeremiah wrote these words. The book itself is an elegy on the fall of the city of Jerusalem. Its theme is the destruction of the city and it voices the dismay and sorrow that fell upon the nation at that awful event.

A fine example of an elegy in modern literature is Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard. Lamentations is also an elegy but composed by a prophet, and as such it has been rather unpopular, is seldom read, seldom used, and seldom preached from.

The form of the book which is not brought out in the translation, is that of an acrostic poem, except the last chapter. The first letter of the first Hebrew word in each verse begins with a corresponding letter in the Hebrew alphabet. There are twenty-two verses each in Lamentations 1-2. In Lam 3 , sixty-six verses, a multiple of twenty-two. In the fourth, twenty-two. In the fifth, twenty-two.

Now, in Lam 1:1 , the first word begins with the first Hebrew letter of the alphabet. In Lam 1:2 the first letter of the first word is the second Hebrew letter, and so on through the alphabet. Lam 2 is the same. In Lam 3 , the three first lines begin with the first letter, and the second group of three lines begins with the second letter, and so on to the end of that chapter.

The writer chose the word which contained the right letter at the beginning of that word. In many cases it was doubtless a difficult task. Some can hardly imagine Jeremiah taking the time to do that, and yet it is the tradition that he did. It seems to them that his state of mind would hardly lend itself to such a mechanical arrangement of his verse and his thought, but the book is before us, and the tradition is that Jeremiah wrote it, and we must take it as it is. Lam 5 is not written in the acrostic form. The first four chapters only are thus arranged.

Now, the style, or form of the verse, is peculiar. The Hebrews had a form of verse, or stanza, which they used to express sorrow and which is called “the lament,” or “the dirge.” The form of the stanza is this: The first line is of average length, the second line a little shorter; also the next verse, or stanza, has the first line longer than the second, and so on all through the poem, which gives a peculiar funeral dirge effect to their song with a pathetic and melancholy cadence as they repeat it.

I call attention here to a few of these. Notice in Lam 1:1 : How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations) She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!

Thus, a large part of the poem has that peculiar, pathetic, melancholy, dirge like cadence which expresses, perhaps more accurately than any other form of poetry could express, the feeling that animated the hearts of those people.

The following is an outline of the contents:

I. The desolation and misery of Jerusalem (Lam 1Lam 1Lam 1 ).

1. The poem bewails the solitude and desertion of the city; her people are in exile, the enemy has seized her treasures, her glory is departed (Lam 1:1-11 ). Almost every point of view from which one can look at it is given; almost every possible expression of feeling and emotion are brought out here.

2. The city herself declares the severity of the affliction (Lam 1:12-16 ). Lam 1:12 is regarded as a messianic expression in Handel’s Messiah, and may be likened unto the suffering of Jesus Christ. It is the voice of the city expressing itself through the prophet, calling attention to the unparalleled sorrow through which it has passed.

3. She acknowledges Jehovah’s righteousness and prays for retribution upon her foes (Lam 1:17-22 ).

II. Jehovah’s anger with his people (Lam 2Lam 2Lam 2 ).

1. The stress is laid on the causes of the suffering. Jehovah is her enemy; he has cast off his people, his land, and his sanctuary. That is brought out in Lam 2:3 and others. As in other verses of the poem, he turns the kaleidoscope of his imagination upon the awful event and presents it in almost every phase (Lam 2:1-9 ).

2. The agony of the people in the capital, the contempt of the passers-by, and the malicious triumph of her foes (Lam 2:10-17 ). Here is doubtless one of the most terrible pictures of a siege to be found in all literature. He speaks about the virgins of Jerusalem; then he speaks about his own sorrow, then about the young children, the babes starving and crying to their mothers for bread and wine.

3. The nations are invited by the prophet to entreat Jehovah on behalf of its dying children. It responds in the prayer of Lam 2:18-22 .

III. The nation’s complaint and its ground of consolation (Lam 3Lam 3Lam 3 ).

1. They bewail their calamities (Lam 3:1-20 ). Here he seems to call up every phase of it, and uses almost very figure to describe suffering. This section is paralleled in almost every line with some statement of Job where he describes his sufferings. I call attention to Lam 3:19 : “Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.” This is the origin of that expression, Sinners whose love can ne’er forget, The wormwood and the gall.

2. They console themselves by the thought of God’s compassion and the grace he may have in the visitation (Lam 3:21-39 ). Here we have some jewels in this poem. Lam 3:22 is one: “It is of Jehovah’s loving-kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” That means that they are not totally consumed because of the mercy of Jehovah. Jeremiah had said that he would not make a full end, because “his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” A man who could write that after going through the horrors through which Jeremiah passed, while he was looking upon the deserted city, his own loved capital, has achieved one of the greatest victories of faith that man can possibly achieve.

Everything had been taken away from Jeremiah except his life and God. He had nothing. Then he said, “The Lord is my portion,” i.e., “He is enough for me.” Another beautiful expression is Lam 3:27 : “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” This is a fine saying and contains a fine philosophy.

3. The people are invited to confess their guilt and turn to God in penitence (Lam 3:40-54 ). Here we seem to be reading out of Jeremiah’s own experience. This passage expresses how Jeremiah felt when he was put down into that dungeon, but they did not cut off his life.

4. He becomes more hopeful (Lam 3:55-57 ).

5. A confidential appeal for vengeance on the nation’s foes (Lam 3:58-66 ). That is Jeremiah still. Almost every time he is under persecution and affliction he calls for vengeance.

IV. Zion’s past and present contrasted (Lam 4Lam 4Lam 4 ).

1. The former splendor, and present humiliation of Zion and its inhabitants (Lam 4:1-11 ). He contrasts first, the gold that has become dim, the pure gold that is changed. Then the precious sons of Zion are mentioned. Their condition at present is contrasted with their condition in the past. “The daughter of my people” is also mentioned and her condition in the past contrasted with the present. “Become cruel like an ostrich in the wilderness.” The infant, the nursing child, is different now. “Its tongue cleaveth to the roof of its mouth for thirst.” They that have been reared up in scarlet, now embrace the dunghills, searching for some morsel to appease the pangs of hunger. Her mothers are also contrasted with their past condition.

2. Priests and prophets are so stained by guilt that they find no resting place even among the heathen (Lam 4:12-16 ). Lam 4:13 : “Because of the sins of her prophets and iniquities of her priests that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.” As a result of that they wander as blind men in the streets; they are polluted with blood. Men cannot touch their garments; they say, “Depart ye, unclean, depart! depart! touch not.” When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They shall no more sojourn here.” They were so vile that even the heathen nations spurned them.

3. The people cannot escape their pursuers. Egypt has disappointed them, and Zedekiah, the anointed of Jehovah, has failed (Lam 4:17-20 ). Zedekiah, the anointed of the Lord, was captured by the Chaldeans and treated as if he were little more than an animal.

4. Though Edom may triumph for awhile, Israel’s punishment will be completed and the cup will be passed to the foes (Lam 4:21-22 ). There is sarcasm here: “The cup shall pass through unto thee also; thou shall be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.”

V. The nation’s appeal for Jehovah’s Compassionate Regard (Lam 5Lam 5Lam 5 ).

(As we said, this chapter of the poem is not acrostic; is a little different from the other chapters; and may have been written later, a few years after the people had been in exile.)

1. He calls upon Jehovah to consider the affliction of the people, indicating the nature and severity of that affliction (Lam 5:1-18 ). Here, again, over and over in a great many different ways and fashions and forms and figures he reiterates the same sad truths and presents the same great sorrows. In Lam 5:7 he voices the sentiments of the people that are suffering, both those in the city and those in exile. The complaint was heard by Ezekiel away off in Babylonia! Our fathers sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities. That cry and complaint both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had to meet and answer. It was the cry that the people had to suffer for the sins of their fathers, and of which they were innocent. See Eze 18 .

2. Zion’s desolation brings to his mind, by way of contrast, the thought of Jehovah’s abiding power, and on the ground of this he repeats his appeal for help (Lam 5:19-22 ).

This is the greatest elegy ever written, though it begins in the greatest heights of confidence at the end.

Jeremiah was an ardent patriot, one of the greatest patriots of history. The Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, was worldfamed, but no Kossuth loved his country and suffered more for it than Jeremiah, no Garibaldi ever fought and bled for his nation with truer heart than did this prophet, and no George Washington ever fought and prayed and worked and toiled more than did Jeremiah for his land. But even Jeremiah could not stay the inevitable; he could not save Jerusalem. Savonarola could not save Florence, nor could Kossuth save his country.

Jeremiah was a statesman-prophet, a prophet to the other nations as well as to Israel. He did not confine himself to the narrow realm of his own little nation and country; he saw what was going on throughout all the world and saw God’s hand in history. He was bigger than his people. He took in all the known world in his horizon. He foresaw what was coming and he gave advice to all the nations.

His nature was deeply emotional. No man had greater tenderness of heart than Jeremiah; no man could sympathize more with his people. No man could be more overpowered with sorrow over their sins and their destruction. He even prayed that his eyes might be a fountain of tears, pouring forth their grief and sorrow and if possible wash away the sins of the people. Some of the greatest depths to be found in all human experiences are to be found in Jeremiah. He was the most human and most outspoken of all the prophets. He was not afraid to lay bare his heart. He allows us to see down into its very depths. He laments, he complains, he even complains to Jehovah, and writes his complaints in the inspired Word. He calls for vengeance upon his foes. He feels like accusing God for having called him into the prophetic work. When in the depths of despondence, he curses the day he was born, and actually censures his mother for having brought him forth. He even considers the question of quitting the ministry altogether. He was like a weaned child that has its struggle and cries, but by and by it rests upon its mother’s bosom. So in the latter part of Jeremiah’s life he is at rest, calm and patient. He has had his fight and is quiet. How human he was!

His nature was one of surpassing strength. It is generally considered that one of the fundamental things in Jeremiah’s character was weakness. The fact that when he was called to the ministry he said, “I cannot speak, I am a boy, I am only a youth,” does not mean that he was fundamentally weak. It is not a sign of weakness, that a man has a sense of weakness when called to such a work. The keener our sense of weakness, the stronger we are, because it makes us feel our dependence upon God, and we go to him for strength and he is with us and helps us by his Spirit.

Jeremiah was a strong man, one of the strongest the world has ever known from the moral point of view. He never shrank from his duty, even when it brought him face to face with death. There was a fire within him which burned, and when it burned Jeremiah spoke forth, no matter what it cost. The word of God was the very essence of his being. He even tried to prevent the inevitable, and fought for forty years against it the inevitable, that Judah should perish. He has been described as “a figure cast in brass, dissolved in tears,” which expresses better, perhaps, than any other statement, his character. Though all the world was against him he never flinched, he never shrank, he maintained a consistent attitude all that period of nearly fifty years, and never failed.

His prophetic insight was of the profoundest kind. No man saw deeper into humanity than Jeremiah. He was the first man to say, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” He got a vision of the higher moral truths of the new dispensation of Jesus Christ, and in his prophecy of the new covenant he reaches greater heights than any other prophet. He saw true religion as no other man had seen it. His grasp of truth was so deep that he became absolutely dependent upon God, and was satisfied to lean on him alone because his people were against him. He was a sublime optimist. His prophecy of the restoration is sufficient comment upon that. He saw the better age clearer than any other prophet; he pictured a better covenant, a new dispensation.

His emotional nature is shown in his literary style, which is free from many adornments, has a great many common figures in it and does not compare with the beauty of Isaiah, nor with the finished and literary elegance of Ezekiel. It expresses his emotional nature. He repeats, he has many favorite phrases. At times he is poetic and there are in the book of Jeremiah a great many passages that are classic and immortal. His style resembles that of the book of Deuteronomy, the highest type of hortatory eloquence, for Jeremiah was influenced mightily by the Book which was discovered in the early part of his career.

From being the most despised of all the prophets, he came to be considered the greatest of all. In the book of 2 Maccabees where Judah is in doubt and difficulty, there appeared to him in vision a man, resplendent in beauty, magnificent in physique, with excellent glory beaming from his countenance. He gives to Judah a golden sword with which to smite his foes. It was Jeremiah. This is only a legend, but it shows the estimation in which he was held. When Jesus Christ came preaching and teaching, the people knew not who he was; some said he was John the Baptist, some said he was Elijah, some said he was Jeremiah. They never mistook him for Ezekiel, Isaiah, or Daniel.

He, in several respects, resembled Jesus Christ:

1. Both appeared at a similar crisis in the history of Israel forty years before the end of the nation and the Temple.

2. Both were persecuted for predicting the fall of the ceremonial institutions and the ritual.

3. Both were at variance with the accepted orthodoxy of the time, and were regarded as heretical and dangerous.

4. Both showed that there could be a religion without a Temple and ritual, and thus saved religion in the downfall of these institutions.

5. Both made the way open for a positive statement of new doctrine.

6. Both suffered most at the hands of the religious leaders of the time.

7. Both lived lives of seeming failure, and died at the hands of their countrymen.

8. Both might have the words of Isaiah applied to them (Isa 53:3 ): “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not.” Also to both may be applied Lam 1:2 : “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me.”

QUESTIONS

1. To what division of the Old Testament does this book of Lamentations belong, how is it grouped, and what its special uses by the Jews?

2. What the testimony of tradition and the Septuagint concerning its authorship, what its theme, what its character as literature, and what its artistic features?

3. What can you say of its style, or form of verse? Illustrate.

4. Give the outline of the book.

5. What can you say of Jeremiah as a patriot?

6. What of him as a statesman?

7. What of his emotional nature?

8. What of him as human?

9. What of his strength of nature?

10. What of his prophetic insight?

11. What of his optimism?

12. What of his style?

13. What of his rank among the prophets? Illustrate.

14. What of his resemblances to Christ?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Lam 5:1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

Ver. 1. Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us. ] This last chapter is a brief recapitulation a of what had been said in the four former, that they might be the better remembered and considered by the reader. The ancient Greek and Latin Bibles style it “Jeremiah’s prayer.” Herein the prophet, or rather the Church, layeth open, as a lazar, b her sores and sufferings, and beggeth to be remembered and considered of God. Not that either forgetfulness or inobservance can be found in him, for all things, both past and future, are present with him, but these are metaphoric expressions, and he alloweth us to be his “remembrancers.”

Consider, and behold. ] Heb., Behold and see Affectum cum effectu coniuncture significat.

Our reproach. ] This is that which man’s nature is most impatient for. To the saints it is so much the more grievous, because they do quarter arms with Christ.

a Propheta per repetit omnia mala supra commemorate, et remedium petit a Domino. – Figueir.

b A poor and diseased person, usually one afflicted with a loathsome disease; esp. a leper.

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

Lamentations Chapter 5

Lam 5 .

The last chapter differs from all before in that the alphabetic series drops, though there are evidently twenty-two verses as in other cases, with the modification we have seen in chapter 3 and its triplets. Internally also the elegy approaches more to the character of a prayer as well as a compressed summing up of the sorrows detailed before.

Hence, says the prophet, “Remember, O Jehovah, what hath happened to us; behold, and look on our reproach. Our inheritance is turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens.” (Ver. 1, 2.) It was not merely a human or natural feeling of their loss and degradation. We must bear in mind that Israel had the land of their possession from Jehovah. No doubt they expelled or subjugated the Canaanites. According to men they held by right of conquest. But a deeper fact lay underneath the successes of Joshua. Strength was given from God to put down the most corrupt race then on the face of the earth who had intruded into a land which He had from the first destined and given by promise to the fathers. For when the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the bounds of the tribes according to the number of the sons of Israel. Alas! they took the blessing not as promises by faith on the ground of God’s grace, but under the condition of their own fidelity to the law – a condition necessarily fatal to the sinner. Hence the disasters, and finally ruin, which Jeremiah here groans out to God. But the title, in which Moses (Deu 32:8 ) had thus declared His purpose as to His people, is to be noted; for it is His millennial name more specially than any other, and hence that by which Melchizedek is characterized, who typifies the day of blessing after the victory is won over the assailing and previously triumphant kings of the Gentiles. Thus there is assured hope in the end for the scattered and peeled people of God. Meanwhile how bitter the sight of their inheritance transferred to the foreigners, their houses to strangers!

“We are orphans and without a father, our mothers [are] as widows.” (Ver. 3.) Even this did not convey a vivid enough picture of their desolation. The common possession of all, the freest uses of their land, belonged to hard masters. “Our water have we drunk for money; our wood cometh for a price. On our necks [i.e. with a yoke on them] are we persecuted; we toil and have no rest.” (Ver. 4, 5.) What slaves so abject? And this Jeremiah who did not go to Babylon stayed long enough to see, and feel, and spread in sorrow before God. “To Egypt we gave the hand and to Asshur to be satisfied with bread.” (Ver. 6.) But neither could effectually help, still less could either resist the king of Babylon; and this because of Israel’s sins which had so long called for an avenger. “Our fathers sinned [and are] not; and we bear their iniquities.” (Ver. 7.) This, we know, was become a proverbial complaint about this time. (Eze 18 .) But God tried them on their own ground, with precisely the same result of ruin because of their evil. For if fathers and children are alike sinful, the punishment is due whether for those or for these: come it must if God judges. How much better then to repent than to repine and murmur, only aggravating the evil and ensuring vengeance on such accumulating rebellion against God!

“Slaves rule over us: no one delivereth us out of their hand. With our lives* we bring in our bread because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skins* glow like an oven because of the hot blasts of famine. Women have they ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah. Princes were hung up by their hand; the faces of elders they honoured not. Young men they took to the mill, and boys fell under the wood. Aged men have ceased from the gate, young men from their song. The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown of our head is fallen: woe now unto us, for we have sinned! Because of this our heart is faint; for these our eyes are dim; because of the mount of Zion which is desolate, foxes walk about on it.” (Ver. 8-18.) Such is the dismal state so pathetically described by a heart crushed under grief which could not exaggerate the prostration of God’s ancient people. Sex, age, condition, place – nothing spared, and nothing sacred. Every word carries weight, not a particular which is not an intolerable burden. How overwhelming for the heart which justly feels everything!

* The plural is given by many excellent MSS.; probably softened into the singular by the rest.

Thus mournfully had Jeremiah’s warnings been executed. As Shiloh had been profaned, so now the place of Jehovah’s choice, the mount Zion that he loved. The outward indefectibility of His dwelling on earth is but the fond dream of the men whose unrighteousness, holding the truth in unrighteousness, will surely bring on its judgment from the enemy under the righteous dealing of God.

What then is the resource of the faithful? Never the perpetuity of what is visible, never the first man, but the Second. “Thou, O Jehovah, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.” (Ver. 19.) Hence the righteous cry with the assurance that His ears are open, even though He tarry and justly rebuke sin especially in those that bear His name, in whom He will be sanctified by His judgments till they by grace sanctify Him in their hearts.

God however will have His blows felt; and faith does feel and gather blessing even in the grief, while it looks onward to the day. The foolish pass on and are punished, harden themselves and perish in unbelief. “Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever? – forsake us for a length of days?” (Ver. 20.) But there is no despair, though the way was then dark before the true light shone; for the heart pleads, “Turn thou us unto thee, O Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. For certainly thou hast utterly rejected us, thou hast been exceedingly wroth with us.” (Ver. 21, 22.) To own our own sins and God’s judgment is the constant effect of the Spirit’s work in the heart, the sure pledge of coming and better blessing in store for us from the God of all grace.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

The acrostic gives way before the outburst of emotion in prayer. The only connection with it is the number of the verses (twenty-two, corresponding with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet).

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 5

Fifth lamentation:

Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans, fatherless, our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money ( Lam 5:1-4 );

We had to pay for a drink of water.

and our wood is sold to us. Our necks are under persecution: we labor, we have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. We got our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine ( Lam 5:4-10 ).

As a result of the starvation that the skin just turning black and leathery.

They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah ( Lam 5:11 ).

The enemies had come in. It must have been a horrible thing. The fathers to see their wives and their young daughters ravished by the enemy, raped and all and then murdered.

Princes have been hung by their thumbs: the faces of elders were not honored. They took the young men to grind in bondage, and the children had to carry the wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim. Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it. Thou, O LORD, remains for ever; thy throne from generation to generation. Wherefore does thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long a time? Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old ( Lam 5:12-21 ).

Therein is the answer, “Oh God, turn our hearts to Thee. Renew that relationship that we once had with You.” You remember Jesus said to the church of Ephesus, “I have this against thee, in that you have left your first love. Remember from whence you have fallen and repent and do thy first works over.” Oh God, return us to that first love. Lord, return us unto thee. But he ends with a sad note of dejection.

But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very angry against us ( Lam 5:22 ).

What a sad, tragic book that never needed to be written had the people only hearkened unto the voice of God. This whole black period of history needed not to be. God warned them over and over and over again. He sent His prophets, warning them over and over of the destruction that was going to come, but they would not give heed to the word of God or to the warnings from God. But God is faithful, and that which God declared He did. And today God is warning this world of His judgment, which is going to fall. And that which happened to Jerusalem is going to happen to this whole godless world.

There is coming a devastation, a holocaust, such as the world has never seen before or will ever see again. Jesus in describing the days that are coming said, “And in that day, there shall be a Great Tribulation such as the world has never seen before or will ever see again.” The only safe place for you to be is in Christ. If you are in Christ He will keep you from that hour that is coming upon the earth. But if you’re outside of Christ, as in Hebrews, “There remains only that fearful looking forward to the fiery indignation of God’s wrath which will devour His adversaries. For if he who despised Moses’ law was put to death, of how much worse punishment do you suppose he is accounted worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of God? And is accounted the blood of His covenant, wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and has done despite to the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who has said, ‘It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God'” ( Heb 10:27-31 ).

God has promised His judgment is going to come upon this wicked world. God is faithful and will keep His promise. But Jesus said, “Pray ye always that you’ll be accounted worthy to escape all of these things and to stand before the Son of man” ( Luk 21:36 ). And I am praying and believing God to answer my prayer that I will escape this great time of tribulation when the wrath of God is poured out upon the earth, and I expect to be standing before the Son of man when it all happens.

Book of Revelation, chapter 5, “And there was in the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne, a scroll with writing within and without and sealed with seven seals. And I heard the angels say with a great voice, ‘Who is worthy to take the scroll and loose the seals thereof?’ And I, John began to weep, sob convulsively because no one was found worthy to take the scroll or to loose the seals. And the elder said unto me, ‘Weep not, behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to take the scroll and to loose the seals.’ And I turned and I saw Him as a Lamb that had been slaughtered. And He came forth and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat upon the throne. And the twenty four elders brought forth their golden vials full of odors, which were the prayers of the saints. And they offered them before the throne of God and they sang a new song saying, ‘Worthy is the Lamb to take the scroll and loose the seals, for He was slain and has redeemed us by His blood. Out of every nation and tribe, and tongue and people, and He has made us unto our God, kings and priests and we’re going to reign with Him on the earth'” ( Rev 5:1-10 ).

You see, that’s where I plan to be. Standing before the Son of God, singing of the worthiness of the Lamb who died for me, who has redeemed me from among the families of the people on the earth. Only the redeemed church can sing that song. Angels can’t sing that song; they haven’t been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. That’s not the song of Israel, because they come from all of the nations and family of people on the earth. That’s the song of the redeemed church before the throne of God. Angels can sing the chorus. They do. A hundred million join in, plus millions of others, as they say, “Worthy is the Lamb to receive glory and honor and dominion and might and power and authority.” They join the chorus, but they can’t sing the verse, that’s yours.

“And when He loosed the first seal, I heard a voice that said, ‘Come,’ and I saw a white horse and his rider going forth upon the earth, conquering and to conquer” ( Rev 6:1-2 ). There begins the Great Tribulation. And he begins then from chapter 6 on through to chapter 18 describing the events that are going to take place upon the earth when God judges man for their wickedness and for their sin. God is faithful. He’s going to do it. There is only one safe place for anyone to be. That’s in Christ Jesus. I’m glad I’m there. I don’t expect to be any place else. I don’t want to be. Why should I be? I’m so happy here in Christ.

Shall we pray.

Father, we thank You for that secret place abiding in the presence of the Almighty, dwelling in Christ. Oh, Father, how we thank You that You have provided for us a place of refuge, safety in Christ. Lord, I pray for those that are here tonight who are not in Christ. Oh God, may they seriously consider the faithfulness of God, even as He kept His word and destroyed Jerusalem, so will He keep His word and judge this world. For God is faithful. Lord, may we turn from our sin, from our idolatries, from our wicked ways, and may we serve the Lord with our whole heart. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

If you’re not sure that you’re a child of God, I wouldn’t leave this place tonight until I was. I mean, I’m serious. We’re living in desperate days. And really as Jeremiah exhorts, it’s time really that we just not cease in prayer unto God. For the people round about us, we will make intercession for our nation, for each other, for these are truly the last days, and Satan is going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And he’s ripping off an awful lot of those from the church. Leading them into life, a life of sin. A life of self seeking, living after pleasure, and walking after the flesh. And the mind of the flesh is death. I wouldn’t leave tonight until I had a deep assurance that things are square between God and me.

You can go back to the prayer room as soon as we’re dismissed. Some of the pastors will go back there and pray with you.

God bless, God keep, and may God lay upon your heart the awareness of the day and the hour in which we live, and the need of an all out effort in our service for Jesus Christ. And may the Lord use you in a very special way, as His instrument to bring His love to this needy world. In Jesus’ name. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Lam 5:1-22

The current distress under

Babylonian Captivity

(Lam 5:1-22)

Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach. Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, Our houses unto aliens. We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us. Our pursuers are upon our necks: We are weary, and have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread (Lam 5:1-6).

The inhabitants of Judah that had been left after the Babylonian siege prayed unto Jehovah. They asked Jehovah to look to them and behold their condition. Judah was deprived of property, protection, and they had to buy their water and food from their conquering foes. Judah was continuously pressed into hard labor now that she had been defeated.

Our fathers sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities. Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand. We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine. They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah. Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored. The young men bare the mill; And the children stumbled under the wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music. The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head: Woe unto us! for we have sinned (Lam 5:7-16).

Judah was not being punished solely for their father s sins, but for her sins, too (cf. Lam 5:16). While it was true that the Lord proclaimed His wrath to be poured out due to the sins of Manasseh (cf. 2Ki 23:26), it was equally true that Judah paid the penalty for their own gross sins (please read Jer 16:11). Further plight of Judah is given. First, they complained that servants (i.e. the Chaldeans) ruled over them as opposed to self government and freedom. Secondly, they had to risk their lives to gain food from the wilderness. Thirdly, they were blackened by hunger for want of food. Fourthly, Judah s virgins were raped and the princes of the nation strung up by the hands in death for the public eye to see.

Under such circumstances there is no laughter, humor, joy, nor happiness. Finally, the people of Judah proclaimed, woe unto us! For we have sinned. Surely the purpose of divine wrath had been accomplished in the hearts of God’s people (cf. Lam 4:22). The Lord only desired that Judah acknowledge her iniquity, yet for years she refused. Now, after all that Jeremiah had prophecied had come to pass, the people were left without excuse and in shame and humility proclaimed, we have sinned.

For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim; For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk upon it. Thou, O Jehovah, abidest for ever; Thy throne is from generation to generation. Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, [And] forsake us so long time? Turn thou us unto thee, O Jehovah, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old. But thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us(Lam 5:17-22).

Interestingly it is noted by those of Judah that the earthly habitation of Jehovah (Zion) had been destroyed, yet Jehovah and His throne abide for ever. A final plea of restoration based upon their turning from their sinful deeds is given. At present, Jehovah had rejected His people in His anger at their sins.

Jeremiah Pleads for Restoration

Questions on Lam 5:1-22

Open It

1. If you could help a group of people defeated by war and suffering, what group would you help and how would you help them?

2. If you had the ability to change one thing about your past in order to improve your present circumstances, what change would you make?

Explore It

3. What did the people ask the Lord to do? (Lam 5:1)

4. What was the predicament of Gods people? (Lam 5:2-18)

5. What were the Jews compelled to do? (Lam 5:4-6)

6. What consequences were other generations forced to bear? (Lam 5:7-10)

7. How did the poet describe the shamefulness of sin? (Lam 5:11-18)

8. What was the attitude of Gods people? (Lam 5:15)

9. Why did the Jews face such awful retribution? (Lam 5:16)

10. What had become of the Davidic dynasty? (Lam 5:17-18)

11. How did the writer describe Gods throne? (Lam 5:19)

12. What were the longings of Gods people? (Lam 5:20-22)

Get It

13. When you face trouble, at what point do you turn to the Lord for help?

14. What is easy or difficult about facing the consequences of our sin?

15. What previous sins committed by others in your family still affect you now?

16. When was the last time you felt sorrow for sins?

17. What is the value of a penitent attitude?

18. What is your attitude toward the Lord when He disciplines you?

19. Why would God forsake His people?

20. In what ways do you need to be restored to the Lord?

21. What words would you use to describe Gods faithfulness?

Apply It

22. When can you spend some time this week examining your life for sin and seeking Gods forgiveness?

23. What “family sin” or tendency do you want to focus on changing, and what would be one step you could take toward change?

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The final poem is an appeal out of sorrow to Jehovah. Speaking on behalf of the whole nation, the prophet called on Jehovah to remember. He described the actual desolation, telling of the affliction of all classes of the people-the women, the maidens, the princes, the elders, the young men, the children, and of the consequently prevalent sorrow, recognizing that all this was the result of sin.

Then, in a last brief and yet forceful word, he prayed Jehovah to turn the people unto Himself. This he introduced by a declaration of his confidence in the perpetual enthronement of Jehovah. It was a cry which recognized the last helplessness of man, namely, his inability even to repent. “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned.”

The final word of the Lamentations was a wail out of the then existing distress. “But Thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us.”

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Chapter 5 – “THOU, O LORD, REMAINEST FOREVER!”

The detailed story of Judah ‘s sufferings is spread out before the Lord in this last chapter, but the soul is stayed upon the fact that One remains, when all else is swept away. There is rest and confidence despite the wretched circumstances brought about by sin and waywardness. Everything has been gone over before God, and in Him the hearts of Jeremiah and of the few who are left of his people can find repose. He has not failed in all that He foretold as to the woes entailed by their wicked ways. He will not fail in carrying out His promises as to future deliverance and restoring mercy. The last few verses connect closely with the theme of chapter 3:22-26.

The entire portion takes the form of a prayer, rather than a lamentation. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach” (v.1). It is a great relief for the troubled heart to feel that there is One in heaven who observes every trial to which His children are subject, and that He has ordered all according to His infinite wisdom and love. There is rest in knowing that His eye is looking on, and that He is no unconcerned spectator.

Confidently, as knowing His deep interest in them still, though they have failed so grievously, they enumerate the causes of their anguish and reproach. “Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens” (v.2). The goodly land, unappreciated, had passed under the dominion of the Gentiles. It was not that God delighted to have it so; but that His own might realize the folly of departing from Him.

“We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows” (v.3). This gave them special title to the care of Him who is the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widow. In so speaking of themselves they express their own utter helplessness, and their confidence in Him who had been the Guide of their youth. So earnest a plea would not be despised. None ever called upon Him in vain when in felt need, and truly repentant.

“We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us” (v.4). All that this world has for the soul away from the Lord comes high. It may seem as though much is to be gained by taking one’s own way and casting the fear of God behind the back. Satan will suggest, too, that it costs too much to live for God, and will allure with tempting baits the already unhappy heart that has begun to lust after other things; but it will only be to prove in the end that disobedience to God is a costly indulgence, an unholy luxury, if we may use the term, that none can really afford. They who here complain that they have drunken their water for money, had foolishly forsaken Him who is “the Fountain of living waters” (of which all might drink freely), and had hewed out for themselves cisterns that could hold no water (Jer 2:13). When they sought it from the enemies of the Lord, a price was put upon it that it burdened them to pay. And then, of all that they purchased so dearly, it could be said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again;” while Jehovah’s living water satisfies the weary soul. Departure from God is the most foolish and worst investment any child of grace ever made.

“Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest” (v.5). How could it be otherwise? Was rest to be found in taking their own way? It could not be. “Thou hast made us for Thyself,” said Augustine of Hippo, “and our souls can never be at rest until they rest in Thee.” It is the most egregious folly to seek for it anywhere else. That worldlings should make such a mistake is no cause for surprise: they have never known anything better than the alluring enticements of Satan’s realm: but for one who has shared in the deep, true peace which the Spirit gives to those that obey Him, to turn his back upon the only source of rest and seek it in the world from which he was once delivered, is an anomaly beyond explanation, save on the ground of hidden backsliding of heart long before. Such we know was the case of Judah . Their heart went out after unholy things first; then the feet soon followed. But they found, like the dove sent forth out of the ark, no rest for the sole of their feet. A raven, type of the evil nature in every man, could rest upon a floating carcass, while feeding on the carrion; but the clean, pure dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit and of the new nature which all God’s children have received, could find neither rest nor food in such a scene, but must needs return to the ark, a type of Christ, for both.

“We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread” (v.6). But Egypt soon failed them, and Assyria only oppressed them. All human props broken, the remnant were cast upon God alone, on whom they should have counted from the first.

Continuing in their confession, they own, “Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities” (v.7). They were the children of wayward fathers, and had gone astray in the same unholy paths. Bitterly they complain that servants had borne rule over them, and there was no deliverer. At the peril of their lives they brought in their bread, “because of the sword of the wilderness” (v.8-9). Famine-stricken, their skin became “black like an oven.” The women of Zion and the maids of the cities of Judah were devoted to shame by the ravishers of the idolatrous armies. Princes were ignominiously hanged up by the hand; the elders were dishonoured; while the young men and children were taken to be household servants (vers.13).

The place of judgment and the place of merriment were alike vacant. The elders were no longer seen in the gate, and the song of the youths had ceased. The joy of their heart had ceased, and their dance was turned into funereal gloom. The voice of the mourner had usurped the place of the voice of the singer (v.14,16).

Realizing keenly the immediate connection between their wrongdoing and their woes, they cry in contrition and penitence, “The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!” (v.16). Thanks to a merciful God, blessing is not far away when the soul thus bends to the rod and confesses the justness of the punishment. “The Lord will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever.” The surest way to find deliverance from God’s governmental rod is humbly to bow in His presence, and frankly acknowledge how fully deserved the chastisement has been.

Judah had been brought very low; but He who cast them down can lift them up, when the needed lesson has been laid to heart and borne its fruit. Fainting in heart, with tear-dimmed eyes, “because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,” and a habitation for foxes, they look up to Him from whom all their past blessings had come, and who found it necessary to pass them through all their sorrows: knowing He is their only resource, they exclaim, “Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; Thy throne is from generation to generation” (v.17-19). Everything else may have been swept away, but He remains forever.

What unspeakable consolation, dear fellow-saint, is in this precious fact for every tried and suffering child of God! Circumstances may be very hard; blow upon blow may strike; disaster follow disaster; until the stricken heart has not one earthly thing left to cling to. In such an hour Satan would fain lead the soul to that God too is gone: that it is no longer the object of His care, that He has left it to die alone. But no! It cannot be. Faith looks up and shouts, “Thou, O Lord, remainest!” for He abides the same “yesterday, and to-day, and forever.”

There is an authentic incident related of a widowed Christian women who lived in Scotland years ago. Left with several dependent “bairns,” she was at length reduced to great straits, and in order to feed and clothe her little household was obliged to practise the strictest economy. Yet withal, her heart was fixed upon the Lord, and both by precept and practice she taught the lesson of trust and confidence to her children.

But there came a day when the purse was flat and the cupboard bare. In the meal-barrel there was only left a handful of flour; and, like the widow of Zarephath, she went to get it to make a morsel of food to satisfy the craving of the hungry little ones, knowing not where the next would come from. As she bent over the barrel, scraping up the last of the flour, her heart for a moment gave way, and in a paroxysm of doubt the hot tears began to fall, and she felt as one utterly forsaken. Hearing her sobs, her little boy Robbie drew near to comfort. Plucking at her dress till he attracted her attention, he looked up into her face with wonder, and asked, in his quaint Scotch dialect, ” Mither, what are ye greetin’ (weeping) aboot? Doesna God hear ye the scrapin’ o’ the bottom o’ the barrel, mither?” In a moment her failing faith reasserted itself. Ah, yes, God did hear. All else might be gone, but He remained, and His Word declared her every need should be supplied. And so it was; for help was provided from a most unexpected source, when the last of what she had was gone.

It is the time of trial that tests faith; and never more so than when one is aware that the trial has been brought on by one’s self. The spared of Judah feeling this, go on to ask, “Wherefore dost Thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time?” (v.20.) But in confidence they add, “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old” (v.21). If He shall turn them, all will be well. They are unable to trust themselves. They had ever been treacherous and false; but He can make them willing in the day of His power. Then they shall be as He would have them.

It would seem that neither in the Authorized nor in the Revised Versions is the last verse adequately rendered. As it stands in both, it would imply that they were hopeless of any recovery, and considered their rejection to be final and their prayer unavailing. “But Thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us” is the way both read. But the margin of the R.V. is suggestive. It reads: “Unless Thou utterly rejected us and art very wroth.” But we much prefer the interrogative of another translation. “For hast Thou utterly rejected us?” they ask; and the very question implies a confidence that it is otherwise, as Jeremiah well knew; though they justly add, “Thou hast been wroth against us exceedingly.” This was indeed true, but already His fierce anger was passing away. He was soon to arise, to be their Deliverer once more. This came to pass in part when, by permission of Cyrus, all who had heart enough for it returned to the cities from which their fathers and some of themselves had been carried captive.

But the day of Judah ‘s lamentations will never be truly over until the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings, to dry their every tear, and to restore them to the land promised to Abraham for an inheritance forever. Then shall Zion put off her sackcloth; and, adorned with her beautiful garments, shall become the queen city of the world, when her King shall reign and prosper.

“In that day,” in place of lamentation and wailing, “shall this song be sung in the land of Judah : We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (Isa 26:1-4). Then Jerusalem ‘s mourning will be accomplished; her warfare will be ended!

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Lam 5:16

I. The secret of man’s perfection may be summed up in these short words: Love to God. The secret of man’s sin may be stated as shortly: Defect of love to God. As the former implies truth and holiness, and purity of motive, and unity of will with His will; so this latter implies the departure of all these graces. But not only this: the heart allows no vacuum. Sin is not a negative only, but a positive condition. Where love has departed there the opposite of love enters, viz., selfishness, with all its baneful consequences. And the essence of selfishness is, that a man lives, not for and in another, be that other his neighbour or his God, but for and in himself.

II. This selfishness, arising out of defect of love to God, and, in God, to others, is not an act, or a series of acts in man, but a state, out of which spring, as the symptoms out of a disease, those sinful acts of selfishness which we call sins. Selfishness has turned love into lust, dignity into pride, humility into meanness, zeal into ambition, charity into ostentation; has turned family and friendly love into partizanship, patriotism into faction, religion itself into bigotry. It penetrates into and infiltrates every thought, every desire, every word, every act; so that whatsoever is of it, and not of faith, is sin.

III. Man placed under love, though in bond and covenant to God and his neighbour, was really and essentially free, a child of God’s family; his will and God’s will being one, law became to him liberty. But under selfishness, though he has broken loose from covenant with God and his neighbour, he is to all intents and purposes a slave; in bondage to his own desires and passions, which he ought to be, and wishes to be, ruling.

IV. Sin is no work, no creation, of God. It is essentially a departure from God-a departure in the root of our being; a departure begun in our parent stock, and thence propagated down through all us, the branches. And this departure can only have begun by an act of the will of man. God created us free, gave our first parents a command to keep, which very fact implied that they had power to break it. Sin had its practical beginning in the will of man. And this beginning we read of in Scripture in the history of the Fall.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iv., p. 5.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 5 The Prayer of Hope

The lamentations end with a prayer: Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us; consider and behold our reproach. It is the prayer of confession and of hope, which reaches the heart of the God of Israel. The prophet, in behalf of the nation, pours out his confession: The crown is fallen from our head; woe unto us that we have sinned. And there is hope in the Lord who remaineth, whose throne is from generation to generation. The prayer, Turn Thou us unto Thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. (Lam 5:21) will some day be blessedly answered. The Eightieth Psalm contains the same prayer a number of times, and there He is mentioned who will yet save His people Israel from their sins. Let Thy hand be upon the Man of Thy right hand, upon the Son of Man whom Thou madest strong for Thyself. So will not we go back from Thee; quicken us and we will call on Thy Name. Turn us again O LORD God of hosts, cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

The prophet now presents in this chapter the whole affliction of the people to God, as an object of compassion and mercy. This is an onward step in the path of these deep exercises of heart. He is at peace with God; he is in His presence; it is no longer a heart struggling with inward misery. All is confessed before Jehovah, who is faithful to His people, so that he can call on God to consider the affliction in order that He may remember His suffering people according to the greatness of His compassions. For Jehovah changes not (Lam 5:19-21). The sense of the affliction remains in full, but God is brought in, and everything having been recalled and judged before Him, all that had happened being cleared up to the heart, Jeremiah can rest in the proper and eternal relations between God and His beloved people; and, shutting himself into his direct relations with his God, he avails himself of His goodness, as being in those relations, to find in the affliction of the beloved people an opportunity for calling His attention to them. This is the true position of faith–that which it attains as the result of its exercises before God at the sight of the affliction of His people (an affliction so much the deeper from its being caused by sin).

This book of Lamentations is remarkable because we see in it the expression of the thoughts of the Spirit of God, that is, those produced in persons under His influence, the vessels of His testimony, when God was forced to set aside that which He had established in the world as His own. There is nothing similar in the whole circle of the revelations and of the affections of God. He says himself, How could He treat them as Admah and Zeboim? Christ went through it in its fullest extent. But He went through it in His own perfection with God. He acted thus with regard to Jerusalem, and wept over it. But here man is found to have lost the hope of God interposing on His peoples behalf God would not abandon a man who was one of this people, who loved them, who understood that God loved them, that they were the object of His affection. He was one of them. How could he bear the idea that God had cast them off? No doubt God would re-establish them. But in the place where God had set them all hope was lost forever. In the Lords own presence it is never lost. It is in view of this that all these exercises of heart are gone through, until the heart can fully enter into the mind and affections of God Himself indeed, this is always true.

The Spirit gives us here a picture of all these exercises. How gracious! To see the Spirit of God enter into all these details, not only of the ways of God, but of that also which passes through a heart in which the judgment of God is felt by grace, until all is set right in the presence of God Himself. Inspiration gives us not only the perfect thoughts of God, and Christ the perfection of man before God, but also all the exercises produced in our poor hearts, when the perfect Spirit acts in them, so far as these thoughts, all mingled as they are, refer in the main to God, or are produced by Him. So truly cares He for us! He hearkens to our sighs, although much of imperfection and of that which belongs to our own heart is mixed with them. It is this that we see in the book of Lamentations, in the Psalms, and elsewhere, and abundantly, though in another manner, in the New Testament (Synopsis of the Bible).

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Remember: Lam 1:20, Lam 2:20, Lam 3:19, Neh 1:8, Job 7:7, Job 10:9, Jer 15:15, Hab 3:2, Luk 23:42

behold: Lam 2:15, Lam 3:61, Neh 1:3, Neh 4:4, Psa 44:13-16, Psa 74:10, Psa 74:11, Psa 79:4, Psa 79:12, Psa 89:50, Psa 89:51, Psa 123:3, Psa 123:4

Reciprocal: Job 10:15 – see Psa 13:3 – Consider Psa 25:18 – Look Psa 31:7 – for Psa 42:9 – because Psa 89:41 – he is Psa 119:153 – Consider Psa 132:1 – remember Jer 51:51 – are confounded Lam 3:50 – General Mic 6:16 – therefore Act 4:29 – behold

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Lam 5:1. The prophet is still lamenting the distressful conditions of his people in the siege. According to 2Ki 25:1-3 the siege lasted two years and threw the city of Jerusalem Into the horrors of famine and pestilence. These forms of distress had been predicted as a warning more than once (Isa 14:30; Jer 14:12); now the people cry unto the Lord for mercy.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Lam 5:1-6. Consider, and behold our reproach Which we suffer from the heathen nations. Our inheritance is turned to strangers Namely, to the Babylonians and others, to whom our lands are given. We are orphans and fatherless All the chief men being carried away to Babylon, lest they should make any fresh attempts to shake off the Babylonish yoke, all that were left in Judea were poor people, destitute of almost every thing. We have drunk our water for money, &c. When our country was in our own possession, we had free use of water and wood, both which we are now forced to buy. Our necks are under persecution We are become slaves to our enemies, who make us labour incessantly. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, &c. We have been obliged to stretch out our hands to the Egyptians and Assyrians for bread to support us. Whether the expression here used implies their begging it of them, or buying it with money, is not quite plain.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

REFLECTIONS.Jeremiah in this last elegy continues the subject in more minute details; and having no hope for the present, he consoles himself with hope in the latter day. Psalms 85. Hosea 3. The insults to women and to virgins are named among the first of the final calamities; and the general who allows of this must expect mutiny and revolt from the men who violate laws with impunity.

The cruelty to the elders nailed up by their hands, was inflicted also upon Tyre, where eight thousand were nailed up and crucified in various ways. The elders ceased from the gates, for wrongs have no redress in war.

Woe to Jerusalem! Woe unto us, for we have sinned. Our ruin is owing to ourselves; sin is the source of all our calamities. Every painful effect should still be traced up to this cause; and it becomes us seriously to lay it to heart.

When men have departed from God, his renewing grace is necessary to bring them back. Turn thou us, and we shall be turned. Men are bent to backslide, but loth to return, and unable of themselves to do it. How necessary then is it, that those who are convinced of sin should offer up earnest supplications to God, that he would convert them: and if he exert his mighty power, how long and how deeply soever they have revolted, their souls will be restored, and led in the paths of righteousness.

The unchangeableness of God is the comfort of his afflicted people. It is their duty to imitate the prophet in pouring out their complaints before the Lord: and, to encourage their hopes, to fix their thoughts on Gods eternity, his perpetual dominion, and unchangeable glories. The changes of the world affect not him; he sees, directs and overrules them all. He is the same when the world is in confusion and the church in danger, as when all things are easy and happy. Let this preserve our peace, and animate our hope in every distressing case, that the Lord shall reign for ever, and thy God, oh Zion, throughout all generations. Well, though the glory thus depart from the earthly Zion, the Lord God and the Lamb are the light of Zion above.

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

Lamentations 5. A Prayer.This chapter differs much from the previous four. It is not a Lament, but one long pleading; and it is not the chant of an individual, but of a company, a plural, we. It may be called a hexameter poem, having six and not five beats in each of its twenty-two lines; it keeps, however, to this alphabetical number of lines, although it is not an alphabetic acrostic. Possibly, the composer intended to think out later other initial words for his lines, and thus to make them acrostic: so it may be an acrostic in the making. But it may perhaps have been appended to the book as a sort of satire on the alphabetic fancies of chs. 14. It is not deeply spiritual, and yet at the close there comes a pathetic and even affectionate appeal to God.

The cry in Lam 5:1 opens the prayer; then in Lam 5:2-18 follows the long list of sufferings set out before God. This length is suspicious, extended by measure as it seems, and then cut off so as not to exceed the exact number of twenty-two verses. First in the list is lamented the subjection of Judah to Egypt and to Assyria. If the view we have suggested of the date is correct, these two great names stand for the Neo-Grecian powers, Egypt under the Ptolemies in the south, and Syria ruled by the Seleucids on the north. After the Assyrian Empire had fallen (607), the name Assyria continued to be used for its successors (e.g. Ezr 6:22 and Isa 11:11*, Isa 19:23 ff.); and here it probably stands for Syria. We observe how interested our writer is in the government: he is a courtier.

Lam 5:7 is remarkable for the blame it lays for all the sufferings upon the ancestors now long gone: the theologising mind of the writer is concerned with the doctrine of inherited sin: that theory had already arisen in Ezekiels day, but it grew more painful as the centuries passed, until it burdened sadly the men around Jesus. In Lam 5:8-18 are minute details of the troubles: famine, disease, womens shame, dishonour done to dignities, slave-toil laid even on children, who have no pleasures now. There are no courts of justice, where the white-haired elders preside; and, worst of all, the crown has gone. The sacred city is a haunt of foxes! And why is this? How can Yahweh rule His people without an earthly throne?

This leads to the Envoi in Lam 5:19-22. Surely Yahweh cannot forsake His people for ever, else He would be left all alone. Now a noble faith is kindled, finding expression in words learned from the fine Psalms 80, Turn us again, O Yahweh. So a singular courage awakes, and lays upon Yahweh the task of initiating restoration. We would return, but Thou must give the compelling spirit, else we can do nothing. A holy familiarity breaks into a loving, trusting reproach. Hast Thou really altogether thrown us away? Art Thou so bitter against us? That cannot be. So the chant ends in great confidence. God abides: tomorrow and all the days for ever shall manifest His gracious way. The later Rabbis understood the singers heart, and they arranged here at the end of the book a corrective for the saddening tone of the whole; for they directed that, at public readings of Lamentations, Lam 5:21 should be read aloud again when Lam 5:2 had been ended. This was right; for the simple, good courtier did not mean to leave his peoples hearts all in the dark. He believed in the sure rule of God, he had caught the apocalyptic spirit, that wide outlook which is not bounded by to-day, but lays hold on eternal life. These lamenting singers were not far from the Kingdom of God. Jesus was born of them: He could find audience among them. Vastly more beautiful certainly were His soul, His purpose, and His thought than those of the lamenting men among whom He came: but these Lamentations are a background against which He is grandly seen.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

5:1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: {a} consider, and behold our reproach.

(a) This prayer as is thought, was made when some of the people were carried away captive, others such as the poorest remained, and some went into Egypt and other places for comfort, though it seems that the prophet foreseeing their miseries to come, thus prayed.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

A. A plea for remembrance 5:1-18

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Jeremiah called on Yahweh to remember the calamity that had befallen His people, and to consider the reproach in which they now lived (cf. Lam 3:34-36). The humbled condition of the Judahites reflected poorly on the Lord, because the pagans would have concluded that He was unable to keep His people strong and free. Jeremiah implied that if Yahweh remembered His people, He would act to deliver them (cf. Exo 2:24-25; Exo 3:7-8).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

AN APPEAL FOR GODS COMPASSION

Lam 5:1-10

UNLIKE its predecessors, the fifth and last elegy is not an acrostic. There is little to be gained by a discussion of the various conjectures that have been put forth to account for this change of style: as that the crescendo movement which reached its climax in the third elegy was followed by a decrescendo movement, the conclusion of which became more prosaic: that the feelings of the poet having been calmed down during the composition of the main part of his work, he did not require the restraints of an exceptionally artificial method any longer; that such a method was not so becoming in a prayer to God as it had been in the utterance of a lament. In answer to these suggestions, it may be remarked that some of the choicest poetry in the book occurs at the close of this last chapter, that the acrostic was taken before as a sign that the writer had his feelings well under command, and that prayers appear repeatedly in the alphabetical poems. Is it not enough to say that in all probability the elegies were composed on different occasions, and that when they were put together it was natural that one in which the author had not chosen to bind himself down to the peculiarly rigorous method employed in the rest of the book should have been placed at the end? Even here we have a reminiscence of the acrostic: for the poem consists of twenty-two verses-the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

It is to be observed, further, as regards the form of this elegy, that the author now adopts the parallelism which is the characteristic note of most Hebrew poetry. The Revisers break up, the poem into two-line verses. But more strictly considered, each verse consists of one long line divided into two mutually balancing-parts. Thus, while the third elegy consists of triplets, and the fourth of couplets, the fifth is still more brief, with its single line verses. In fact, while the ideas and sentiments are still elegiac and very like those found in the rest of the book, in structure this is more assimilated to the poetry contained in other parts of the Bible.

From beginning to end the fifth elegy is directly addressed to God. Brief ejaculatory prayers are frequent in the earlier poems, and the third elegy contains two longer appeals to God: but this last poem differs from the others in being entirely a prayer. And yet it does not consist of a string of petitions. It is a meditation in the presence of God, or, more accurately described, an account of the condition of the Jews spread out before God in order to secure His compassion. In the freedom and fulness of his utterance the poet reveals himself as a man who is not unfamiliar with the habit of prayer. It is of course only the delusion of the Pharisees to suppose that a prayer is valuable in proportion to its length. But on the other hand, it is clear that a person who is unaccustomed to prayer halts and stumbles because he does not feel at home in addressing God. It is only with a friend that we can converse in perfect freedom. One who has treated God as a stranger will be necessarily stiff and constrained in the Divine presence. It is not enough to assure such a person that God is his father. A son may feel peculiarly uncomfortable with his own father, if he has lived long in separation and alienation from his home. Freedom in the expression of confidences is a sure measure of the extent to which friendship is carried. Of course some are more reserved than others; but still as in the same person his different degrees of openness or reserve with different people will mark his relative intimacy of friendship with them, so when a man has long accustomed himself to believe in the presence and sympathy of God, and has cultivated the habit of communing with his Father in heaven, his prayers will not be confined to set petitions; he will tell his Father whatever is in his heart. This, we have already seen, was what the elegist had learnt to do. But in the last of his poems he expresses more explicit and continuous confidences. He will have God know everything.

The prayer opens with a striking phrase “Remember, O Lord,” etc. The miserable condition of the Jews suggests to the imagination, if not to the reason, that God must have forgotten His people. It cannot be supposed that the elegist conceived of his God as Elijah mockingly described their silent, unresponsive divinity to the frantic priests of Baal, or that he imagined that Jehovah was really indifferent, after the manner of the denizens of the Epicurean Olympus. Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor even theology wholly determines the form of an earnest mans prayers. In practice it is impossible not to speak according to appearances. The aspect of affairs is sometimes such as to force home the feeling that God must have deserted the sufferer, or how could He have permitted the misery to continue unchecked? A dogmatic statement of the Divine omniscience, although it may not be disputed, will not remove the painful impression, nor will the most absolute demonstration of the goodness of God, of His love and faithfulness; because the overwhelming influence of things visible and tangible so fully occupies the mind that it has not room to receive unseen, spiritual realities. Therefore, though not to the reason still to the feelings, it is as though God had indeed forgotten His children in their deep distress.

Under such circumstances the first requisite is the assurance that God should remember the sufferers whom He appears to be neglecting. He never really neglects any of His creatures, and His attention is the all-sufficient security that deliverance must be at hand. But this is a truth that does not satisfy us in the bare statement of it. It must be absorbed, and permitted to permeate wide regions of consciousness, in order that it may be an actual power in the life. That. however, is only the subjective effect of the thought of the Divine remembrance. The poet is thinking of external actions. Evidently the aim of his prayer is to secure the attention of God as a sure preliminary to a Divine interposition. But even with this end in view the fact that God remembers is enough.

In appealing for Gods attention the elegist first makes mention of the reproach that has come upon Israel. This reference to humiliation rather than to suffering as the primary ground of complaint may be accounted for by the fact that the glory of God is frequently taken as a reason for the blessing of His people. That is done for His “names sake.” Then the ruin of the Jews is derogatory to the honour of their Divine Protector. The peculiar relation of Israel to God also underlies the complaint of the second verse, in which the land is described as “our inheritance,” with an evident allusion to the idea that it was received as a donation from God, not acquired in any ordinary human fashion. A great wrong has been done, apparently in contravention of the ordinance of Heaven. The Divine inheritance has been turned over to strangers. The very homes of the Jews are in the hands of aliens. From their property the poet passes on to the condition of the persons of the sufferers. The Jews are orphans; they have lost their fathers, and their mothers are widows. This seems to indicate that the writer considered himself to belong to the younger generation of the Jews, -that, at all events, he was not an elderly man. But it is not easy to determine how far his words are to be read literally. No doubt the slaughter of the war had carried off many heads of families, and left a number of women and children in the condition here described. But the language of poetry would allow of a more general interpretation. All the Jews felt desolate as orphans and widows. Perhaps there is some thought of the loss of God, the supreme Father of Israel. Whether this was in the mind of the poet or not, the cry to God to remember His people plainly implies that His sheltering presence was not now consciously experienced. Our Lord foresaw that His departure would smite His disciples with orphanage if He did not return to them. {Joh 14:18} Men who have hardened themselves in a state of separation from God fail to recognise their forlorn condition: but that is no occasion for congratulation, for the family that never misses its father can never have known the joys of true home life. Children of Gods house can have no greater sorrow than to lose their heavenly Fathers presence.

A peculiarly annoying injustice to which the Jews were subjected by their harsh masters consisted in the fact that they were compelled to buy permission to collect firewood from their own land and to draw water from their own wells. {Lam 5:4} The elegist deplores this grievance as part of the reproach of his people. The mere pecuniary fine of a series of petty exactions is not the chief part of the evil. It is not the pain of flesh that rouses a mans indignation on receiving a slap in the face; it is the insult that stings. There was more than insult in this grinding down of the conquered nation; and the indignities to which the Jews were subjected were only too much in accord with the facts of their fallen state. This particular exaction was an unmistakable symptom of the abject servitude into which they had been reduced.

The series of illustrations of the degradation of Israel seems to be arranged somewhat in the order of time and in accordance with the movements of the people. Thus, after describing the state of the Jews in their own land, the poet next follows the fortunes of his people in exile. There is no mercy for them in their flight. The words in which the miseries of this time are referred to are somewhat obscure. The phrase in the Authorised Version, “Our necks are under persecution,” {Lam 5:5} is rendered by the Revisers, “Our pursuers are upon our necks.” It would seem to mean that the hunt is so close that fugitives are on the point of being captured; or perhaps that they are made to bow their heads in defeat as their captors seize them. But a proposed emendation substitutes the word “yoke” for “pursuers.” If we may venture to accept this as a conjectural improvement – and later critics indulge themselves in more freedom in the handling of the text than was formerly permitted-the line points to the burden of captivity. The next line favours this idea, since it dwells on the utter weariness of the miserable fugitives. There is no rest for them. Palestine is a difficult country to travel in, and the wilderness south and east of Jerusalem is especially trying. The hills are steep and the roads rocky; for a multitude of famine-stricken men, women, and children, driven out over this homeless waste, a country that taxes the strength of the traveller for pleasure could not but be most exhausting. But the worst weariness is not muscular. Tired souls are more weary than tired bodies. The yoke of shame and servitude is more crushing than any amount of physical labour. On the other hand the yoke of Jesus is easy not because little work is expected of Christians, but for the more satisfactory reason that, being given in exchange for the fearful burden of sin, it is borne willingly and even joyously as a badge of honour.

Finally, in their exile the Jews are not free from molestation. In order to obtain bread they must abase themselves before the people of the land. The fugitives in the south must do homage to the Egyptians; the captives in the east to the Assyrians. {Lam 5:6} Here, then, at the very last stage of the series of miseries, shame and humiliation are the principal grievances deplored. At every point there is a reproach, and to this feature of the whole situation Gods attention is especially directed.

Now the elegist turns aside to a reflection on the cause of all this evil. It is attributed to the sins of previous generations. The present sufferers are bearing the iniquities of their fathers. Here several points call for a brief notice. In the first place, the very form of the language is significant. What is meant by the phrase to bear iniquity? Strange mystical meanings are sometimes imported into it, such as an actual transference of sin, or at least a taking over of guilt. This is asserted of the sin-offering in the law, and then of the sin-bearing of Jesus Christ on the cross. It would indicate shallow ways of thinking to say that the simple and obvious meaning of an expression in one place is the only signification it is ever capable of conveying. A common process in the development of language is for words and phrases that originally contained only plain physical meanings to acquire in course of time deeper and more spiritual associations. We can never fathom all that is meant by the statement that Christ “His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.”. {1Pe 2:24} Still it is well to observe that there is a plain sense in which the Hebrew phrase was used. It is clear in the case now before us, at all events, that the poet had no mystical ideas in mind. When he said that the children bore the sins of their fathers he simply meant that they reaped the consequences of those sins. The expression can mean nothing else here. It would be well, then, to remember this very simple explanation of it when we are engaged with the discussion of other and more difficult passages in which it occurs.

But if the language is perfectly unambiguous the doctrine it implies is far from being easy to accept. On the face of it, it seems to be glaringly unjust. And yet, whether we can reconcile it with our ideas of what is equitable or not there can be no doubt that it states a terrible truth; we gain nothing by blinking the fact. It was perfectly clear to people of the time of the captivity that they were suffering for the persistent misconduct of their ancestors during a succession of generations. Long before this the Jews had been warned of the danger of continued rebellion against the will of God. Thus the nation had been treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath. The forbearance which permitted the first offenders to die in peace before the day of reckoning would assume another character for the unhappy generation on whose head the long-pent-up flood at length descended. It is not enough to urge in reply that the threat of the second commandment to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation was for them that hate God; because it is not primarily their own conduct, but the sins of their ancestors, in which the reason for punishing the later generations is found. If these sins were exactly repeated the influence of their parents would make the personal guilt of the later offenders less, not more, than that of the originators of the evil line. Besides, in the case of the Jews there had been some amendment. Josiahs reformation had been very disappointing; and yet the awful wickedness of the reign of Manasseh had not been repeated. The gross idolatry of the earlier times and the cruelties of Moloch worship had disappeared. At least, it must be admitted, they were no longer common practices of court and people. The publication of so great an inspired work as the Book of Deuteronomy had wrought a marked effect on the religion and morals of the Jews. The age which was called upon to receive the payment for the national sins was not really so wicked as some of the ages that had earned it. The same thing is seen in private life. There is nothing that more distresses the author of these poems than the sufferings of innocent children in the siege of Jerusalem. We are frequently confronted with evidences of the fact that the vices of parents inflict poverty, dishonour, and disease on their families. This is just what the elegist means when he writes of children bearing the iniquities of their fathers. The fact cannot be disputed.

Often as the problem that here starts up afresh has been discussed, no really satisfactory solution of it has ever been forthcoming. We must admit that we are face to face with one of the most profound mysteries of providence. But we may detect some glints of light in the darkness. Thus, as we have seen on the occasion of a previous reference to this question, the fundamental principle in accordance with which these perplexing results are brought about is clearly one which on the whole makes for the highest welfare of mankind. That one generation should hand on the fruit of its activity to another is essential to the very idea of progress. The law of heredity and the various influences that go to make up the evil results in the case before us work powerfully for good under other circumstances; and that the balance is certainly on the side of good is proved by the fact that the world is moving forward, not backward, as would be the case if the balance of hereditary influence was on the side of evil. Therefore it would be disastrous in the extreme for the laws that pass on the punishment of sin to successive generations to be abolished; the abolition of them would stop the chariot of progress. Then we have seen that the solidarity of the race necessitates both mutual influences in the present and the continuance of influence from one age to another. The great unit Man is far more than the sum of the little units men. We must endure the disadvantages of a system which is so essential to the good of man. This, however, is but to fall back on the Leibnitzian theory of the best of all possible worlds. It is not an absolute vindication of the justice of whatever happens-an attainment quite beyond our reach.

But another consideration may shed a ray of light on the problem. The bearing of the sins of others is for the highest advantage of the sufferers. It is difficult to think of any more truly elevating sorrows. They resemble our Lords passion; and of Him it was said that He was made perfect through suffering. {Heb 2:10} Without doubt Israel benefited immensely from the discipline of the Captivity, and we may be sure that the better “remnant” was most blessed by this experience, although it was primarily designed to be the chastisement of the more guilty. The Jews were regenerated by the baptism of fire. Then they could not ultimately complain of the ordeal that issued in so much good.

It is to be observed, however, that there were two currents of thought with regard to this problem. While most men held to the ancient orthodoxy, some rose in revolt against the dogma expressed in the proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge.” Just at this time the prophet Ezekiel was inspired to lead the Jews to a more just conception, with the declaration: “As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” {Eze 18:3-4} This was the new doctrine. But how could it be made to square with the facts? By strong faith in it the disciples of the advanced school might bring themselves to believe that the course of events which had given rise to the old idea would be arrested. But if so they would be disappointed; for the world goes on in its unvarying way. Happily, as Christians, we may look for the final solution in a future life, when all wrongs shall be righted. It is much to know that in the great hereafter each soul will be judged simply according to its own character.

In conclusion, as we follow out the course of the elegy, we find the same views maintained that were presented earlier. The idea of ignominy is still harped upon. The Jews complain that they are under the rule of servants. {Lam 5:8} Satraps were really the Great Kings slaves, often simply household favourites promoted to posts of honour. Possibly the Jews were put in the power of inferior servants. The petty tyranny of such persons would be all the more persistently annoying, if, as often happens, servility to superiors had bred insolence in bullying the weak; and there was no appeal from the vexatious tyranny. This complaint would seem to apply to the people left in the land, for it is the method of the elegist to bring together scenes from different places as well as scenes from different times in one picture of concentrated misery. The next point is that food is only procured at the risk of life “because of the sword of the wilderness”; {Lam 5:9} which seems to mean that the country is so disorganised that hordes of Bedouins hover about and attack the peasants when they venture abroad to gather in their harvest. The fever of famine is seen on these wretched people; their faces burn as though they had been scorched at an oven. {Lam 5:10} Such is the general condition of the Jews, such is the scene on which God is begged to look down!

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary