Lamentations 1:3

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. JUDAH IS GONE INTO CAPTIVITY - (, "Judah was carried away captive out of his own land"). BECAUSE OR GREAT SERVITUDE - i:e., in a state "of great servitude," endured from the Chaldeans. "Because" is made by Vatablus indicative of the cause of her captivity-namely, God's judgment upon her because of her having "afflicted" and unjustly brought into "servitude" the manumitted bondservants (Jeremiah 34:8). Maurer explains it, 'Judah has left her land (not literally "gone into captivity") because of the yoke imposed on it by Nebuchadnezzar.' She findeth no...

Interpreters apply this, but in my view improperly, to the captivity of the people; on the contrary, the Prophet means that the Jews had been scattered and sought refuges when oppressed, as they were often, by the tyranny of their enemies, and then by degrees he advances to their exile; for he could not have said all things at the same time. Let, then, the order in which he speaks be observed: before he bewails their exile, he says that Judah had been scattered; for many, fleeing the cruelty of enemies, went into voluntary exile. We have before seen that many concealed themselves with the Moabites; nor is there a doubt but that many went into Egypt: in short, there was no country in which some of the Jews were not fugitives. The real meaning, then, of the Prophet here is, that the Jews had migrated, that is, had left their own country and fled to other countries, because they were subje...

1-11 The prophet sometimes speaks in his own person; at other times Jerusalem, as a distressed female, is the speaker, or some of the Jews. The description shows the miseries of the Jewish nation. Jerusalem became a captive and a slave, by reason of the greatness of her sins; and had no rest from suffering. If we allow sin, our greatest adversary, to have dominion over us, justly will other enemies also be suffered to have dominion. The people endured the extremities of famine and distress. In this sad condition Jerusalem acknowledged her sin, and entreated the Lord to look upon her case. This is the only way to make ourselves easy under our burdens; for it is the just anger of the Lord for man's transgressions, that has filled the earth with sorrows, lamentations, sickness, and death....

Verse Lamentations 1:3. _BETWEEN THE STRAITS._] She has been brought into such difficulties, that it was impossible for her to escape. Has this any reference to the circumstances in which Zedekiah and the princes of Judah endeavoured to escape from Jerusalem, _by the way_ _of the gates between the two walls_? Jeremiah 52:7....

BECAUSE OF ... - i. e. the people, not of Jerusalem only, but of the whole land, “is gone into exile to escape from the affliction and laborious servitude,” to which they are subject in their own land. PERSECUTORS ... BETWEEN THE STRAITS - Rather, “pursuers ... in the midst of her straits.” The Jews flee like deer to escape from the invading Chaldaeans, but are driven by them into places from where there is no escape....

EXPOSITION LAMENTATIONS 1:1 A WAIL OF DISTRESS FOR JERUSALEM. LAMENTATIONS 1:1, LAMENTATIONS 1:2 The fate of Jerusalem is described in language which resembles here and there that used in Isaiah of fallen Babylon (Isaiah 47:1, Isaiah 47:8). It is probably the finest passage in the whole bock, and has inspired some grand lines in Mr. Swinburne's picture of

JUDAH IS GONE INTO CAPTIVITY,.... Not only Jerusalem the metropolis of Judea was destroyed, but the whole country was ravaged, and the inhabitants of it carried captive into Babylon: BECAUSE OF AFFLICTION, AND BECAUSE OF GREAT SERVITUDE; because of their sins in oppressing and afflicting their poor brethren, and retaining them in a state of bondage after their seven years' servitude, contrary to the law of God; for which they were threatened with captivity, Jeremiah 34:13; so the Targum, "the house of Judah went into captivity, because they afflicted the fatherless and the widows; and because of the multitude of service which they caused their brethren the children of Israel to serve, who were sold unto them; and they did not proclaim liberty to their servants and maidens, who were of the seed of Israel:'' or, "through affliction

CHAPTER 1 JERUSALEM'S GREAT DESOLATION AND THE SORROW OF HIS PEOPLE The chapter begins with an outburst of grief over Jerusalem's desolation. Once she was a populous city; now she is solitary. Once she was great among the nations, like a princess among provinces, and now she is widowed. Then in the next verse we hear her weeping; she weeps all night long; none is there to comfort her; her friends have turned against her, they have become her enemies. She was disobedient to her Lord, she rejected His Word, she gave up her holy place as His separated people and now “she findeth no rest.” The Lord's hand is upon her for the multitude of her transgressions. The hopeful note we find in Lamentations 1:8. Here is confession of her guilt and shame; here is humiliation and appeal to the Lord on account of the enemy. “See, O LORD, and behold; for I am become vile.” Such humiliation and

LAMENTATIONS 1. THE FIRST LAMENT. This is an alphabetical acrostic poem in twenty-two stanzas of three lines each, with five Heb. beats in each line. It has two equal parts: Lamentations 1:1 (Aleph to Kaph), the singer's account of Zion's sorrows, and Lamentations 1:12 (Lamedh to Tau), a soliloquy thereon by the city herself. In detail: Lamentations 1:1 tells of a Zion once populous, now widowed; her nights full of weeping, unconsoled by former lovers who are now all faithless. The people have migrated, to escape taxings (note that they are not exiled, as had been the case in 586 B.C.), but even abroad they are harried; no pilgrims are thronging the roads, as they had been wont to do in the day

AMONG THE HEATHEN. Reference to Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 28:64; Deuteronomy 28:65). HEATHEN. nations. PERSECUTORS. pursuers. BETWEEN THE STRAITS. Like. hunted animal driven where there is no escape. Same word as in Psalms 116:3; Psalms 118:5. Occurs only in these three places. Compare Lamentations 1:6....