Lamentations 5:4

We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. WE HAVE DRUNKEN OUR WATER FOR MONEY. The Jews were compelled to pay the enemy for the water of their own cisterns after the overthrow of Jerusalem. Or rather, it refers to their sojourn in Babylon: they had to pay tax for access to the rivers and fountains. Thus, "our" means the water which we need, the commonest necessary of life. OUR WOOD IS SOLD UNTO US. In Judea each one could get wood without pay; in Babylon "our wood," the wood we need, must be paid for....

The Prophet here relates, that the people were denuded, that they labored under the want of water and of wood. He does not say that they were only deprived of corn and wine, he does not complain that any of their luxuries were lessened; but he mentions water and wood, the common things of life; for the use of water, as it is said, is common to all; no one is so poor, if he dwells not in a land wholly dry, but that he has water enough to drink. For if there be no fountains, there are at least rivers, there are wells; nor do men perish through thirst, except in deserts and in places uninhabitable. As, then, water might be had everywhere, the Prophet here sets forth the extreme misery of the people, for water was even sold to them. In stony and high places water is sold; but this is a very rare thing. The Prophet here means that the people were not only deprived of their wealth, but reduced...

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 Lamentations 5:4. _WE HAVE DRUNKEN OUR WATER FOR MONEY_] I suppose the meaning of this is, that every thing was taxed by the Chaldeans, and that they kept the management in their own hands, so that _wood_ and _water_ were both sold, the people not being permitted to help themselves. They were now so lowly reduced by servitude, that they were obliged to pay dearly for those things which formerly were _common_ and of _no price_. A poor _Hindoo_ in the country never buys _fire-wood_, but when he comes to the city he is obliged to purchase his fuel, and considers it as a matter of great hardship....

Better as in the margin cometh to us for price. The rendering of the the King James Version spoils the carefully studied rhythm of the original. The bitterness of the complaint lies in this, that it was their own property which they had to buy....

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

WE HAVE DRUNKEN OUR WATER FOR MONEY,.... They who in their own land, which was a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, had wells of water of their own, and water freely and in abundance, now were obliged to pay for it, for drink, and other uses: OUR WOOD IS SOLD UNTO US; or, "comes to us by a price" r; and a dear one; in their own land they could have wood out of the forest, for cutting down and bringing home; but now they were forced to give a large price for it. r במחיר יבאו "in pretio venerunt", Pagninus, Montanus; "caro nobis pretio veniunt", Michaelis....

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...

The bitterness of their captive state is shewn by the fact that they, the rightful owners, were compelled to buy from the enemy who had come into possession the commonest necessaries of life. _is sold_ lit. as mg. _cometh for price_....