Lamentations 5:14

The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick. THE ELDERS HAVE CEASED FROM THE GATE. Aged men in the East meet in the open space round the gate to decide judicial trials, and to hold social converse (Job 29:7)....

Here the Prophet briefly shews that the city was reduced to ruins, so that nothing but desolation could be seen there. For when cities are inhabited, judges sit at the gate and young men exercise themselves in lawful pursuits; but he says that there were no judgments; for at that time, as it is well known, they were wont to administer justice and to hold assemblies at the gates of cities. It was then the same as though all civil order had been abolished. Then he adds, the _young men had ceased from their own beating _or musical songs. The meaning is, that there was so great a desolation in the city, that, it was no more a city. For men cannot dwell together without laws and without courts of justice. Where courts of justice are closed up, where laws are mute, where no equity is administered, there barbarity prevails, which is worse than solitude; and where there are no assemblies for leg...

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 14. _THE ELDERS HAVE CEASED FROM THE GATE_] There is now no more justice administered to the people; they are under military law, or disposed of in every sense according to the caprice of their masters....

THE GATE - The gate was the place for public gatherings, for conversation, and the music of stringed instruments....

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

THE ELDERS HAVE CEASED FROM THE GATE,.... Of the sanhedrim, or court of judicature, as the Targum; from the gate of the city, where they used to sit and try causes; but now there was nothing of this kind done: THE YOUNG MEN FROM THEIR MUSIC; vocal and instrumental; the latter is more particularly specified, though both may be intended; neither were any more heard; their harps were hung upon the willows on the banks of Euphrates, which ran through the city of Babylon, Psalms 137:1....

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...

_from the gate_ the place of social enjoyment and conversation, answering to our clubs and other places of entertainment. See on Jeremiah 14:2....