Lamentations 1:8

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. JERUSALEM HATH GRIEVOUSLY SINNED; THEREFORE SHE IS REMOVED - (auticipated by Solomon in , "If they sin against thee, and thou be angry ... and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives"). IS REMOVED - as a woman separated from the congregation of God for legal impurity, which is a type of moral impurity. So ; end; ; , etc. THEY HAVE SEEN HER NAKEDNESS - they have treated her as contumeliously as courte...

Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what he had briefly referred to, even that all the evil which the Jews suffered proceeded from God’s vengeance, and that they were worthy of such a punishment, because they had not lightly offended, but had heaped up for themselves a dreadful judgment, since they had in all manner of ways abandoned themselves to impiety. This is the substance of what is said. We hence learn that the Prophet did not compose this song to lament the calamity of his own country as heathens were wont to do. An example of a heathen lamentation we have in Virgil: — “Come is the great day and the unavoidable time Of Dardania: we Trojans have been; Ilium has been, And the great glory of the Teuerians: cruel Jupiter has to Argos Transferred all things: the Danai rule in the burnt city.” (130) He also repeats the same sentiment in other words: —...

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....

GRIEVOUSLY SINNED - literally, “Jerusalem hath sinned a sin,” giving the idea of a persistent continuance in wickedness. REMOVED - Or, become an abomination. Sin has made Jerusalem an object of horror, and therefore she is cast away. YEA, SHE SIGHETH ... - Jerusalem groans over the infamy of her deeds thus brought to open shame, and turns her back upon the spectators in order to hide herself....

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

JERUSALEM HATH GRIEVOUSLY SINNED,.... Or, "hath sinned a sin" r; a great sin, as the Targum; the sin of idolatry, according to some; or of covenant breaking, as others; though perhaps no particular sin is meant, but many grievous sins; since she was guilty of a multitude of them, as in Lamentations 1:5; THEREFORE SHE IS REMOVED; out of her own land, and carried captive into another: or, is "for commotion" s; for scorn and derision; the head being moved and shook at her by way of contempt: or rather, "for separation" t; she being like a menstruous woman, defiled and separate from society: ALL THAT HONOURED HER DESPISE HER; they that courted her friendship and alliance in the time of her prosperity, as the Egyptians, now neglected her, and treated her with the utmost contempt, being in adversity: because they have seen her nakedness

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

GRIEVOUSLY SINNED. Note the Figure of speech _Polyptoton_ Hebrew. sinned. sin. Thus well rendered. See note on "weepeth sore" (Lamentations 1:2). SINNED. Hebrew. _chata'_. App-44. IS REMOVE D. separated as unclean....

_is become_(mg. _is removed) as an unclean thing_ Targ. _has become a wanderer_, but the text is doubtless right....