Lamentations 5:13

They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood. THE YOUNG MEN ... GRIND. The work of the lowest female slave, grinding at the mill, was laid on young men. So Samson was made to grind in the Philistine prison-house (; ). THE CHILDREN FELL UNDER ... WOOD - mere children had to bear burdens of wood so heavy that they sank beneath them....

I cannot proceed farther now....

1-16 Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him who bare our sins in his own body on the tree....

Verse 13. _THEY TOOK THE YOUNG MEN TO GRIND_] This was the work of female slaves. Isaiah 47:2....

THEY TOOK THE YOUNG MEN TO GRIND - Or, “The young men” have borne the mill, a menial and laborious task usually performed by slaves (compare Isaiah 47:2). THE CHILDREN FELL UNDER THE WOOD - Or, lads have stumbled under burdens of wood. By lads are meant youths up to the age of military service; another form of menial labor....

EXPOSITION LAMENTATIONS 5:1 INSULT UPON INSULT HAS BEEN HEAPED UPON JERUSALEM. LAMENTATIONS 5:2 OUR INHERITANCE. The land had been "given" to Abraham (Genesis 13:1; Genesis 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 wa

THEY TOOK THE YOUNG MEN TO GRIND,.... In the mill, which was laborious service; and which persons were sometimes put to, by way of punishment; and was the punishment of servants; see Judges 16:21. Some render it, "the young men bore the grist" x; carried the corn, the meal ground, from place to place. The Targum is, "the young men carried the millstones;'' and so Jarchi, they put millstones upon their shoulders, and burdens so as to weary them. Ben Melech, from their Rabbins, relates, that there were no millstones in Babylon; wherefore the Chaldeans put them upon the young men of Israel, to carry them thither. The Vulgate Latin version is, "they abused the young men in an unchaste manner;'' suggesting something obscene intended by grinding; see Job 31:10; but the

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.” (Lamentations 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 Th

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. 1- 4. It is not deeply spiritual, and yet at the close there comes a pathetic and even affectionate appeal to God. The cry in Lamentations 5:1 opens the prayer; then in...

TO GRIND: i.e. to do women's work. CHILDREN. young children, youths. FELL. staggered. UNDER THE WOOD: i.e. under [the weight or load] of the wood (they were compelled as bond-slaves to carry)....