7 Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.
We have become a reproach to our neighbors, A scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
I have considered the days of old, The years of ancient times. I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; My spirit diligently inquires: "Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more? Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Does his promise fail for generations? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?" Selah.
All that pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying], Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
"But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in like manner, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.
Now many nations have assembled against you, that say, 'Let her be defiled, And let our eye gloat over Zion.'
She will follow after her lovers, But she won't overtake them; And she will seek them, But won't find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband; For then was it better with me than now.'
For what great nation is there, that has a god so near to them, as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him? What great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Thus shall you tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.
Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up, Gathered out its stones, Planted it with the choicest vine, Built a tower in its midst, And also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, But it yielded wild grapes. "Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Please judge between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?
He shows his word to Jacob; His statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done this for just any nation. They don't know his ordinances. Praise Yah!
For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" How can we sing Yahweh's song in a foreign land?
For Yahweh your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of springs and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; a land in which you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.
Or has God tried to go and take him a nation from the midst of [another] nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that Yahweh he is God; there is none else besides him. Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and on earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Lamentations 1
Commentary on Lamentations 1 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 1
La 1:1-22.
Aleph.
1. how is she … widow! she that was great, &c.—English Version is according to the accents. But the members of each sentence are better balanced in antithesis, thus, "how is she that was great among the nations become as a widow! (how) she who was princess among the provinces (that is, she who ruled over the surrounding provinces from the Nile to the Euphrates, Ge 15:18; 1Ki 4:21; 2Ch 9:26; Ezr 4:20) become tributary!" [Maurer].
sit—on the ground; the posture of mourners (La 2:10; Ezr 9:3). The coin struck on the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, representing Judea as a female sitting solitary under a palm tree, with the inscription, Judæa Capta, singularly corresponds to the image here; the language therefore must be prophetical of her state subsequent to Titus, as well as referring retrospectively to her Babylonian captivity.
Beth.
2. in the night—even in the night, the period of rest and oblivion of griefs (Job 7:3).
lovers … friends—the heathen states allied to Judah, and their idols. The idols whom she "loved" (Jer 2:20-25) could not comfort her. Her former allies would not: nay, some "treacherously" joined her enemies against her (2Ki 24:2, 7; Ps 137:7).
Gimel.
3. (Jer 52:27).
because of great servitude—that is, in a state "of great servitude," endured from the Chaldeans. "Because" is made by Vatablus indicative of the cause of her captivity; namely, her having "afflicted" and unjustly brought into "servitude" the manumitted bond-servants (Jer 34:8-22). Maurer explains it, "Judah has left her land (not literally 'gone into captivity') because of the yoke imposed on it by Nebuchadnezzar."
no rest—(De 28:64, 65).
overtook her between … straits—image from robbers, who in the East intercept travellers at the narrow passes in hilly regions.
Daleth.
4. feasts—the passover, pentecost (or the feast of weeks), and the feast of tabernacles.
gates—once the place of concourse.
He.
5. the chief—rule her (De 28:43, 44).
adversaries … prosper; for the Lord—All the foes' attempts would have failed, had not God delivered His people into their hands (Jer 30:15).
Vau.
6. beauty … departed—her temple, throne, and priesthood.
harts that find no pasture—an animal timid and fleet, especially when seeking and not able to "find pasture."
Zain.
7. remembered—rather, "remembers," now, in her afflicted state. In the days of her prosperity she did not appreciate, as she ought, the favors of God to her. Now, awakening out of her past lethargy, she feels from what high privileges she has fallen.
when her people fell, &c.—that is, after which days of prosperity "her people fell."
mock at her sabbaths—The heathen used to mock at the Jews' Sabbath, as showing their idleness, and term them Sabbatarians [Martial, 4.4]. Now, said they ironically, ye may keep a continuous Sabbath. So God appointed the length of the captivity (seventy years) to be exactly that of the sum of the Sabbaths in the four hundred ninety years in which the land was denied its Sabbaths (Le 26:33-35). Maurer translates it "ruin." But English Version better expresses the point of their "mocking," namely, their involuntary "Sabbaths," that is, the cessation of all national movements. A fourth line is added in this stanza, whereas in all the others there are but three. So in La 2:19.
Cheth.
8. (1Ki 8:46).
is removed—as a woman separated from the congregation of God for legal impurity, which is a type of moral impurity. So La 1:17; Le 12:2; 15:19, &c.
her nakedness—They have treated her as contumeliously as courtesans from whom their clothes are stripped.
turneth backward—as modest women do from shame, that is, she is cast down from all hope of restoration [Calvin].
Teth.
9. Continuation of the image in La 1:8. Her ignominy and misery cannot be concealed but are apparent to all, as if a woman were suffering under such a flow as to reach the end of her skirts.
remembereth not … last end—(De 32:29; Isa 47:7). She forgot how fatal must be the end of her iniquity. Or, as the words following imply: She, in despair, cannot lift herself up to lay hold of God's promises as to her "latter end" [Calvin].
wonderfully—Hebrew, "wonders," that is, with amazing dejection.
O Lord, behold—Judah here breaks in, speaking for herself.
for the enemy hath magnified himself—What might seem ground for despair, the elated insulting of the enemy, is rather ground for good hope.
Jod.
10. for—surely she hath seen, &c.
heathen … command … not enter … congregation—for instance, the Ammonites and Moabites (De 23:3; Ne 13:1, 2). If the heathen, as such, were not allowed to enter the sanctuary for worship, much less were they allowed to enter in order to rob and destroy.
Caph.
11. (Jer 37:21; 38:9; 52:6).
given … pleasant things for meat—(2Ki 6:25; Job 2:4).
relieve … soul—literally, "to cause the soul or life to return."
for I am become vile—Her sins and consequent sorrows are made the plea in craving God's mercy. Compare the like plea in Ps 25:11.
Lamed.
12. The pathetic appeal of Jerusalem, not only to her neighbors, but even to the strangers "passing by," as her sorrow is such as should excite the compassion even of those unconnected with her. She here prefigures Christ, whom the language is prophetically made to suit, more than Jerusalem. Compare Israel, that is, Messiah, Isa 49:3. Compare with "pass by," Mt 27:39; Mr 15:29. As to Jerusalem, Da 9:12. M AURER, from the Arabic idiom, translates, "do not go off on your way," that is, stop, whoever ye are that pass by. English Version is simpler.
Mem.
13. bones—a fire which not only consumes the skin and flesh, but penetrates even to my "bones" (that is, my vital powers).
prevaileth against—not as Rosenmuller, "He (Jehovah) hath broken them"; a sense not in the Hebrew.
net—(Eze 12:13); image from hunting wild beasts. He has so entangled me in His judgments that I cannot escape.
turned me back—so that I cannot go forward and get free from His meshes.
Nun.
14. yoke … is bound by his hand—(De 28:48). Metaphor from husbandmen, who, after they have bound the yoke to the neck of oxen, hold the rein firmly twisted round the hand. Thus the translation will be, "in His hand." Or else, "the yoke of my transgressions" (that is, of punishment for my transgressions) is held so fast fixed on me "by" God, that there is no loosening of it; thus English Version, "by His hand."
wreathed—My sins are like the withes entwined about the neck to fasten the yoke to.
into their hands, from whom—into the hands of those, from whom, &c. Maurer translates, "before whom I am not able to stand."
Samech.
15. trodden, &c.—Maurer, from Syriac root, translates, "cast away"; so 2Ki 23:27. But Ps 119:118, supports English Version.
in … midst of me—They fell not on the battlefield, but in the heart of the city; a sign of the divine wrath.
assembly—the collected forces of Babylon; a very different "assembly" from the solemn ones which once met at Jerusalem on the great feasts. The Hebrew means, literally, such a solemn "assembly" or feast (compare La 2:22).
trodden … virgin … in a wine-press—hath forced her blood to burst forth, as the red wine from the grapes trodden in the press (Isa 63:3; Re 14:19, 20; 19:15).
Ain.
16. (Jer 13:17; 14:17). Jerusalem is the speaker.
mine eye, mine eye—so La 4:18, "our end … our end"; repetition for emphasis.
Pe.
17. Like a woman in labor-throes (Jer 4:31).
menstruous woman—held unclean, and shunned by all; separated from her husband and from the temple (compare La 1:8; Le 14:19, &c.).
Tzaddi.
18. The sure sign of repentance; justifying God, condemning herself (Ne 9:33; Ps 51:4; Da 9:7-14).
his commandment—literally, "mouth"; His word in the mouth of the prophets.
Koph.
19. lovers—(La 1:2; Jer 30:14).
elders—in dignity, not merely age.
sought … meat—Their dignity did not exempt them from having to go and seek bread (La 1:11).
Resh.
20. bowels … troubled—(Job 30:27; Isa 16:11; Jer 4:19; 31:20). Extreme mental distress affects the bowels and the whole internal frame.
heart … turned—(Ho 11:8); is agitated or fluttered.
abroad … sword … at home … as death—(De 32:25; Eze 7:15). The "as" does not modify, but intensifies. "Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home as it were death itself" (personified), in the form of famine and pestilence (2Ki 25:3; Jer 14:18; 52:6). So Hab 2:5, "as death" [Michaelis].
Schin.
21. they are glad that thou hast done it—because they thought that therefore Judah is irretrievably ruined (Jer 40:3).
the day … called—(but) thou wilt bring on them the day of calamity which thou hast announced, namely, by the prophets (Jer 50:1-46; 48:27).
like … me—in calamities (Ps 137:8, 9; Jer 51:25, &c.).
Tau.
22. Such prayers against foes are lawful, if the foe be an enemy of God, and if our concern be not for our own personal feeling, but for the glory of God and the welfare of His people.
come before thee—so Re 16:19, "Babylon came in remembrance before God" (compare Ps 109:15).