V. (1) REMEMBER, O LORD. — The fact that the number of verses is, as in Lamentations 1:2; Lamentations 1:4, 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 eleg... [ Continue Reading ]
TURNED. — Used here as in the sense of _transferred._ HOUSES. — In Jer. Iii. 13, the Chaldæans are said to have burnt the houses of Jerusalem, and those of the great men elsewhere; here, therefore, the “houses” spoken of are those of the farmers and peasants in the country.... [ Continue Reading ]
OUR MOTHERS ARE AS WIDOWS — _i.e.,_ their husbands, though living, were carried into exile, and they were as destitute as though they had been deprived of them by death. The Chaldee paraphrase gives the same meaning to the last clause also, “We are like orphans.”... [ Continue Reading ]
OUR WATER... OUR WOOD. — The point of the complaint lies in the possessive pronoun. The Chaldæan conquerors were in possession of the country, and the very necessaries of life, which had been looked on as the common property of all, were only to be had for money. In the Hebrew of the first clause th... [ Continue Reading ]
OUR NECKS ARE UNDER PERSECUTION. — Better, _were under pursuit: i.e.,_ the enemies were pressing close on them, always, as in our English phrase, at their very heels.... [ Continue Reading ]
WE HAVE GIVEN THE HAND. — The recognised phrase for submission (Jeremiah 1:15). “Assyria,” as in Jeremiah 2:18; Ezra 6:22, stands for “Babylon.” The people had been forced by sheer pressure of hunger to submit to one or other of these princes. “Egypt” refers, probably, to the fugitives who had sough... [ Continue Reading ]
WE HAVE BORNE THEIR INIQUITIES. — The words seem at first parallel to the proverb of the “sour grapes” in Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18:2. Here, however, it is followed in Lamentations 5:16 by a confession of personal guilt, and the complaint is simply that the former generation of offenders had passed... [ Continue Reading ]
SERVANTS HAVE RULED OVER US. — The Chaldæans, it would seem, added insult to injury, sending as rulers those who had filled menial offices in the courts of their kings. (Comp. Jeremiah 39:3.)... [ Continue Reading ]
THE SWORD OF THE WILDERNESS. — Another element of suffering is hinted at. Those who were left in the land were attacked, as they gathered in their scanty harvest, by the nomad tribes of the wilderness. Amalekites, Midianites, and others. (Comp. Jeremiah 40:14.)... [ Continue Reading ]
OUR SKIN WAS BLACK...-Better, _fiery red,_ and for “terrible famine,” _the fever-blast of famine._ The words paint the hot fever of hunger rather than the livid paleness of exhaustion.... [ Continue Reading ]
PRINCES ARE HANGED... — The words point to the shameless exposure of the bodies of the dead. (Comp. the treatment of Saul and his sons in 1 Samuel 31:10.) This was the common practice of the Assyrian kings (_Records of the Past, i._ 38). Neither age nor dignity (both are implied in the word “elders”... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY TOOK... — Better, _Young men bear the mill: i.e.,_ were not only set to grind the handmill, which was itself the work of a menial slave, commonly of women, but were made to carry the mill itself, probably as they marched along with the Chaldæan armies on their way to Babylon. (Comp. Isaiah 47:2... [ Continue Reading ]
HAVE CEASED FROM THE GATE. — The gate in an Eastern city was the natural place of meeting for the elder citizens as for counsel and judgment (Ruth 4:1; Joshua 20:4), and also for social converse (Job 29:7; Proverbs 31:23). The “music” of this verse and the “dancing” of the next point to a like inter... [ Continue Reading ]
THE CROWN IS FALLEN. — The phrase is naturally symbolic of degradation, and need not be restricted to the destruction of the Temple or the devastation of Jerusalem. WE HAVE SINNED! — The confession of personal sinfulness produced by the contemplation of the miseries of the people contrasts, as has... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THIS... FOR THESE THINGS. — The first clause refers to the loss of national honour indicated in Lamentations 5:16; the latter, to all the horrors named in Lamentations 5:8.... [ Continue Reading ]
FOXES. — Better, _jackals,_ who are thought of as haunting the ruins of Jerusalem. (Comp. Psalms 63:10.)... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU, O LORD, REMAINEST. — Literally, _Thou sittest: i.e.,_ as the next clause shows, upon a throne. The lamentation is drawing to its close, and the mourner finds comfort in the thought of the eternity of God (Psalms 102:12), and therefore the unchangeableness of His purpose of love towards His peo... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREFORE DOST THOU FORGET... — This was the problem of the mystery of suffering then, as it has been at all times. Jehovah had seemed forgetful of His people, indifferent to their miseries.... [ Continue Reading ]
TURN THOU US... O LORD... — The answer to the problem was found in man’s submission and in prayer. He could not turn himself, and so re-establish the old filial relation. He could ask God to turn him, and he felt that the prayer would not be asked in vain.... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT THOU HAST... — The Authorised version represents the mourner as falling back from the hopeful prayer into the depths of despair. For “but” we should, however, read _unless._ The hypothesis of utter rejection is just stated as the only thing that could prevent renewal and restoration, and it is s... [ Continue Reading ]