The document discusses Lamentations 5, a prayer by Jeremiah addressing the suffering of the Jewish people in Babylon. It highlights themes of reproach, divine justice, and the appeal for God's mercy amidst their disgrace. The prayer reflects a deep yearning for God's remembrance and intervention in their dire situation, acknowledging both their own sins and those of their ancestors.

1. LAME TATIO S 5 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1 Remember, Lord, what has happened to us;
look, and see our disgrace.
BAR ES, "What is come upon us - literally, “what” has happened “to us:” our
national disgrace.
CLARKE, "Remember, O Lord - In the Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic, this is headed,
“The prayer of Jeremiah.” In my old MS. Bible: Here bigynneth the orison of Jeremye
the prophete.
Though this chapter consists of exactly twenty-two verses, the number of letters in the
Hebrew alphabet, yet the acrostic form is no longer observed. Perhaps any thing so
technical was not thought proper when in agony and distress (under a sense of God’s
displeasure on account of sin) they prostrated themselves before him to ask for mercy.
Be this as it may, no attempt appears to have been made to throw these verses into the
form of the preceding chapters. It is properly a solemn prayer of all the people, stating
their past and present sufferings, and praying for God’s mercy.
Behold our reproach - ‫הביט‬ hebita. But many MSS. of Kennicott’s, and the oldest of
my own, add the ‫ה‬ he paragogic, ‫הביטה‬ hebitah, “Look down earnestly with
commiseration;” for paragogic letters always increase the sense.
GILL, "Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us,.... This chapter is called, in
some Greek copies, and in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, "the prayer of
Jeremiah". Cocceius interprets the whole of the state of the Christian church after the
last destruction of Jerusalem; and of what happened to the disciples of Christ in the first
times of the Gospel; and of what Christians have endured under antichrist down to the
present times: but it is best to understand it of the Jews in Babylon; representing their
sorrowful case, as represented by the prophet; entreating that the Lord would remember
the affliction they were under, and deliver them out of it, that which he had determined
should come upon them. So the Targum,
"remember, O Lord, what was decreed should be unto us;''
and what he had long threatened should come upon them; and which they had reason to
fear would come, though they put away the evil day far from them; but now it was come,

2. and it lay heavy upon them; and therefore they desire it might be taken off:
consider, and behold our reproach: cast upon them by their enemies; and the
rather the Lord is entreated to look upon and consider that, since his name was
concerned in it, and it was for his sake, and because of the true religion they professed;
also the disgrace they were in, being carried into a foreign country for their sins; and so
were in contempt by all the nations around.
HE RY, "Is any afflicted? let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint
to God, and make known before him his trouble. The people of God do so here; being
overwhelmed with grief, they give vent to their sorrows at the footstool of the throne of
grace, and so give themselves ease. They complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt:
“Remember what has come upon us, Lam_5:1. What was of old threatened against us,
and was long in the coming, has now at length come upon us, and we are ready to sink
under it. Remember what is past, consider and behold what is present, and let not all
the trouble we are in seem little to thee, and not worth taking notice of,” Neh_9:32.
Note, As it is a great comfort to us, so it ought to be a sufficient one, in our troubles, that
God sees, and considers, and remembers, all that has come upon us; and in our prayers
we need only to recommend our case to his gracious and compassionate consideration.
The one word in which all their grievances are summer up is reproach: Consider, and
behold our reproach. The troubles they were in compared with their former dignity and
plenty, were a greater reproach to them than they would have been to any other people,
especially considering their relation to God and dependence upon him, and his former
appearances for them; and therefore this they complain of very sensibly, because, as it
was a reproach, it reflected upon the name and honour of that God who had owned them
for his people. And what wilt thou do unto thy great name?
They acknowledge the reproach of sin which they bear, the reproach of their youth
(which Ephraim bemoans himself for, Jer_31:19), of the early days of their nation. This
comes in in the midst of their complaints (Lam_5:7), but may well be put in the front of
them: Our fathers have sinned and are not; they are dead and gone, but we have borne
their iniquities. This is not here a peevish complaint, nor an imputation of
unrighteousness to God, like that which we have, Jer_31:29, Eze_18:2. The fathers did
eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge, and therefore the ways of the
Lord are not equal. But it is a penitent confession of the sins of their ancestors, which
they themselves also had persisted in, for which they now justly suffered; the judgments
God brought upon them were so very great that it appeared that God had in them an eye
to the sins of their ancestors (because they had not been remarkably punished in this
world) as well as to their own sins; and thus God was justified both in his connivance at
their ancestors (he laid up their iniquity for their children) and in his severity with
them, on whom he visited that iniquity, Mat_23:35, Mat_23:36. Thus they do here, 1.
Submit themselves to the divine justice: “Lord, thou art just in all that is brought upon
us, for we are a seed of evil doers, children of wrath, and heirs of the curse; we are sinful,
and we have it by kind.” Note, The sins which God looks back upon in punishing we
must look back upon in repenting, and must take notice of all that which will help to
justify God in correcting us. 2. They refer themselves to the divine pity: “Lord, our
fathers have sinned, and we justly smart for their sins; but they are not; they were taken
away from the evil to come; they lived not to see and share in these miseries that have
come upon us, and we are left to bear their iniquities. Now, though herein God is
righteous, yet it must be owned that our case is pitiable, and worthy of compassion.”
Note, If we be penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we

3. may expect that he who punishes will pity, and will soon return in mercy to us.
JAMISO , "Lam_5:1-22. Epiphonema, or a closing recapitulation of the calamities
treated in the previous elegies.
(Psa_89:50, Psa_89:51).
K&D, "Supplication and statement regarding the distress. The quest made in Lam_
5:1 refers to the oppression depicted in what follows. The words, "Remember, O Lord,
what hath happened (i.e., befallen) us," are more fully explained in the second member,
"Look and behold our disgrace." It is quite arbitrary in Thenius to refer the first member
to the past, the second to the present, described in what follows, Lam_5:12-16. The Qeri
‫ה‬ ָ‫יט‬ ִ ַ‫ה‬ is an unnecessary alteration, after Lam_1:11; Lam_3:63. - With Lam_5:2 begins
the description of the disgrace that has befallen them. This consists, first of all, in the
fact that their inheritance has become the possession of strangers. Rosenmüller rightly
explains ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ ֲ‫ח‬ַ‫נ‬ to mean, terra quae tuo nobis dono quandam est concessa. ְ‫ך‬ ַ‫פ‬ ֱ‫ֽח‬ֶ‫נ‬ is used of
the transference of the property to others, as in Isa_60:5. Many expositors would refer
‫ינוּ‬ ֵ ָ to the houses in Jerusalem which the Chaldeans had not destroyed, on the ground
that it is stated, in 2Ki_25:9 and Jer_52:13, that the Chaldeans destroyed none but large
houses. There is no foundation, however, for this restriction; moreover, it is opposed by
the parallel ‫נוּ‬ ֵ‫ת‬ ָ‫ל‬ ֲ‫ח‬ַ‫.נ‬ Just as by ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ ֲ‫ח‬ַ‫נ‬ we are to understand, not merely the possession of
Jerusalem, but of the whole country, so also ‫ינוּ‬ ֵ ָ are the dwelling-houses of the country
in towns and villages; in this case, the question whether any houses still remained
standing in Jerusalem does not demand consideration at all. Nägelsbach is wrong in his
remark that ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ ֲ‫ח‬ַ‫נ‬ and ‫ים‬ ִ ָ respectively mean immovable and portable property, for
houses are certainly not moveable property.
CALVI , "This prayer ought to be read as unconnected with the Lamentations, for
the initial letters of the verses are not written according to the order of the
Alphabet; yet it is a complaint rather than a prayer; for Jeremiah mentions those
things which had happened to the people in their extreme calamity in order to turn
God to compassion and mercy.
He says first, Remember what has happened to us; and then in the second part he
explains himself, Look and see our reproach ow the words, though brief and
concise, yet contain a useful doctrine — that God is pleased to bring help to the
miserable when their evils come to an account before him, especially when they are
unjustly oppressed. It is, indeed, certain that nothing is unknown to God, but this
mode of speaking is according to the perceptions of men; for we think that God
disregards our miseries, or we imagine that his back is turned to us when he does
not immediately succor us. But as I have said, he is simply to be asked to look on our
evils, for we know what he testifies of himself; so that as he claims to himself the
office of helping the miserable and the unjustly oppressed, we ought to acquiesce in
this consolation, that as soon as he is pleased to look on the evils we suffer, aid is at
the same time prepared for us.

4. There is mention especially made of reproach, that the indignity might move God
the more: for it was for this end that he took the people under his protection, that
they might be for his glory and honor, as Moses says. As, then, it was God’s will that
the riches of his glory should appear in that people, nothing could have been more
inconsistent that that instead of glory they should have nothing but disgrace and
reproach. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet makes a special mention of the
reproach of the people. It follows, —
CO STABLE, "Jeremiah called on Yahweh to remember the calamity that had
befallen His people, and to consider the reproach in which they now lived (cf.
Lamentations 3:34-36). The humbled condition of the Judahites reflected poorly on
the Lord, because the pagans would have concluded that He was unable to keep His
people strong and free. Jeremiah implied that if Yahweh remembered His people,
He would act to deliver them (cf. Exodus 2:24-25; Exodus 3:7-8).
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "A APPEAL FOR GOD’S
COMPASSIO
Lamentations 5:1-10
U LIKE its predecessors, the fifth and last elegy is not an acrostic. There is little to
be gained by a discussion of the various conjectures that have been put forth to
account for this change of style: as that the crescendo movement which reached its
climax in the third elegy was followed by a decrescendo movement, the conclusion of
which became more prosaic: that the feelings of the poet having been calmed down
during the composition of the main part of his work, he did not require the
restraints of an exceptionally artificial method any longer; that such a method was
not so becoming in a prayer to God as it had been in the utterance of a lament. In
answer to these suggestions, it may be remarked that some of the choicest poetry in
the book occurs at the close of this last chapter, that the acrostic was taken before as
a sign that the writer had his feelings well under command, and that prayers appear
repeatedly in the alphabetical poems. Is it not enough to say that in all probability
the elegies were composed on different occasions, and that when they were put
together it was natural that one in which the author had not chosen to bind himself
down to the peculiarly rigorous method employed in the rest of the book should
have been placed at the end? Even here we have a reminiscence of the acrostic: for
the poem consists of twenty-two verses-the number of the letters in the Hebrew
alphabet.
It is to be observed, further, as regards the form of this elegy, that the author now
adopts the parallelism which is the characteristic note of most Hebrew poetry. The
Revisers break up, the poem into two-line verses. But more strictly considered, each
verse consists of one long line divided into two mutually balancing-parts. Thus,
while the third elegy consists of triplets, and the fourth of couplets, the fifth is still
more brief, with its single line verses. In fact, while the ideas and sentiments are still
elegiac and very like those found in the rest of the book, in structure this is more

5. assimilated to the poetry contained in other parts of the Bible.
From beginning to end the fifth elegy is directly addressed to God. Brief ejaculatory
prayers are frequent in the earlier poems, and the third elegy contains two longer
appeals to God: but this last poem differs from the others in being entirely a prayer.
And yet it does not consist of a string of petitions. It is a meditation in the presence
of God, or, more accurately described, an account of the condition of the Jews
spread out before God in order to secure His compassion. In the freedom and
fulness of his utterance the poet reveals himself as a man who is not unfamiliar with
the habit of prayer. It is of course only the delusion of the Pharisees to suppose that
a prayer is valuable in proportion to its length. But on the other hand, it is clear that
a person who is unaccustomed to prayer halts and stumbles because he does not feel
at home in addressing God. It is only with a friend that we can converse in perfect
freedom. One who has treated God as a stranger will be necessarily stiff and
constrained in the Divine presence. It is not enough to assure such a person that God
is his father. A son may feel peculiarly uncomfortable with his own father, if he has
lived long in separation and alienation from his home. Freedom in the expression of
confidences is a sure measure of the extent to which friendship is carried. Of course
some are more reserved than others; but still as in the same person his different
degrees of openness or reserve with different people will mark his relative intimacy
of friendship with them, so when a man has long accustomed himself to believe in
the presence and sympathy of God, and has cultivated the habit of communing with
his Father in heaven, his prayers will not be confined to set petitions; he will tell his
Father whatever is in his heart. This, we have already seen, was what the elegist had
learnt to do. But in the last of his poems he expresses more explicit and continuous
confidences. He will have God know everything.
The prayer opens with a striking phrase "Remember, O Lord," etc. The miserable
condition of the Jews suggests to the imagination, if not to the reason, that God must
have forgotten His people. It cannot be supposed that the elegist conceived of his
God as Elijah mockingly described their silent, unresponsive divinity to the frantic
priests of Baal, or that he imagined that Jehovah was really indifferent, after the
manner of the denizens of the Epicurean Olympus. evertheless, neither philosophy
nor even theology wholly determines the form of an earnest man’s prayers. In
practice it is impossible not to speak according to appearances. The aspect of affairs
is sometimes such as to force home the feeling that God must have deserted the
sufferer, or how could He have permitted the misery to continue unchecked? A
dogmatic statement of the Divine omniscience, although it may not be disputed, will
not remove the painful impression, nor will the most absolute demonstration of the
goodness of God, of His love and faithfulness; because the overwhelming influence
of things visible and tangible so fully occupies the mind that it has not room to
receive unseen, spiritual realities. Therefore, though not to the reason still to the
feelings, it is as though God had indeed forgotten His children in their deep distress.
Under such circumstances the first requisite is the assurance that God should
remember the sufferers whom He appears to be neglecting. He never really neglects
any of His creatures, and His attention is the all-sufficient security that deliverance

6. must be at hand. But this is a truth that does not satisfy us in the bare statement of
it. It must be absorbed, and permitted to permeate wide regions of consciousness, in
order that it may be an actual power in the life. That. however, is only the subjective
effect of the thought of the Divine remembrance. The poet is thinking of external
actions. Evidently the aim of his prayer is to secure the attention of God as a sure
preliminary to a Divine interposition. But even with this end in view the fact that
God remembers is enough.
In appealing for God’s attention the elegist first makes mention of the reproach that
has come upon Israel. This reference to humiliation rather than to suffering as the
primary ground of complaint may be accounted for by the fact that the glory of God
is frequently taken as a reason for the blessing of His people. That is done for His
"name’s sake." Then the ruin of the Jews is derogatory to the honour of their
Divine Protector. The peculiar relation of Israel to God also underlies the complaint
of the second verse, in which the land is described as "our inheritance," with an
evident allusion to the idea that it was received as a donation from God, not
acquired in any ordinary human fashion. A great wrong has been done, apparently
in contravention of the ordinance of Heaven. The Divine inheritance has been
turned over to strangers. The very homes of the Jews are in the hands of aliens.
From their property the poet passes on to the condition of the persons of the
sufferers. The Jews are orphans; they have lost their fathers, and their mothers are
widows. This seems to indicate that the writer considered himself to belong to the
younger generation of the Jews, -that, at all events, he was not an elderly man. But it
is not easy to determine how far his words are to be read literally. o doubt the
slaughter of the war had carried off many heads of families, and left a number of
women and children in the condition here described. But the language of poetry
would allow of a more general interpretation. All the Jews felt desolate as orphans
and widows. Perhaps there is some thought of the loss of God, the supreme Father
of Israel. Whether this was in the mind of the poet or not, the cry to God to
remember His people plainly implies that His sheltering presence was not now
consciously experienced. Our Lord foresaw that His departure would smite His
disciples with orphanage if He did not return to them. [John 14:18] Men who have
hardened themselves in a state of separation from God fail to recognise their forlorn
condition: but that is no occasion for congratulation, for the family that never
misses its father can never have known the joys of true home life. Children of God’s
house can have no greater sorrow than to lose their heavenly Father’s presence.
A peculiarly annoying injustice to which the Jews were subjected by their harsh
masters consisted in the fact that they were compelled to buy permission to collect
firewood from their own land and to draw water from their own wells.
[Lamentations 5:4] The elegist deplores this grievance as part of the reproach of his
people. The mere pecuniary fine of a series of petty exactions is not the chief part of
the evil. It is not the pain of flesh that rouses a man’s indignation on receiving a slap
in the face; it is the insult that stings. There was more than insult in this grinding
down of the conquered nation; and the indignities to which the Jews were subjected
were only too much in accord with the facts of their fallen state. This particular
exaction was an unmistakable symptom of the abject servitude into which they had

7. been reduced.
The series of illustrations of the degradation of Israel seems to be arranged
somewhat in the order of time and in accordance with the movements of the people.
Thus, after describing the state of the Jews in their own land, the poet next follows
the fortunes of his people in exile. There is no mercy for them in their flight. The
words in which the miseries of this time are referred to are somewhat obscure. The
phrase in the Authorised Version, "Our necks are under persecution,"
[Lamentations 5:5] is rendered by the Revisers, "Our pursuers are upon our
necks." It would seem to mean that the hunt is so close that fugitives are on the
point of being captured; or perhaps that they are made to bow their heads in defeat
as their captors seize them. But a proposed emendation substitutes the word "yoke"
for "pursuers." If we may venture to accept this as a conjectural improvement - and
later critics indulge themselves in more freedom in the handling of the text than was
formerly permitted-the line points to the burden of captivity. The next line favours
this idea, since it dwells on the utter weariness of the miserable fugitives. There is no
rest for them. Palestine is a difficult country to travel in, and the wilderness south
and east of Jerusalem is especially trying. The hills are steep and the roads rocky;
for a multitude of famine-stricken men, women, and children, driven out over this
homeless waste, a country that taxes the strength of the traveller for pleasure could
not but be most exhausting. But the worst weariness is not muscular. Tired souls are
more weary than tired bodies. The yoke of shame and servitude is more crushing
than any amount of physical labour. On the other hand the yoke of Jesus is easy not
because little work is expected of Christians, but for the more satisfactory reason
that, being given in exchange for the fearful burden of sin, it is borne willingly and
even joyously as a badge of honour.
Finally, in their exile the Jews are not free from molestation. In order to obtain
bread they must abase themselves before the people of the land. The fugitives in the
south must do homage to the Egyptians; the captives in the east to the Assyrians.
[Lamentations 5:6] Here, then, at the very last stage of the series of miseries, shame
and humiliation are the principal grievances deplored. At every point there is a
reproach, and to this feature of the whole situation God’s attention is especially
directed.
ow the elegist turns aside to a reflection on the cause of all this evil. It is attributed
to the sins of previous generations. The present sufferers are bearing the iniquities
of their fathers. Here several points call for a brief notice. In the first place, the very
form of the language is significant. What is meant by the phrase to bear iniquity?
Strange mystical meanings are sometimes imported into it, such as an actual
transference of sin, or at least a taking over of guilt. This is asserted of the sin-
offering in the law, and then of the sin-bearing of Jesus Christ on the cross. It would
indicate shallow ways of thinking to say that the simple and obvious meaning of an
expression in one place is the only signification it is ever capable of conveying. A
common process in the development of language is for words and phrases that
originally contained only plain physical meanings to acquire in course of time
deeper and more spiritual associations. We can never fathom all that is meant by the

8. statement that Christ "His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.". [1
Peter 2:24] Still it is well to observe that there is a plain sense in which the Hebrew
phrase was used. It is clear in the case now before us, at all events, that the poet had
no mystical ideas in mind. When he said that the children bore the sins of their
fathers he simply meant that they reaped the consequences of those sins. The
expression can mean nothing else here. It would be well, then, to remember this very
simple explanation of it when we are engaged with the discussion of other and more
difficult passages in which it occurs.
But if the language is perfectly unambiguous the doctrine it implies is far from
being easy to accept. On the face of it, it seems to be glaringly unjust. And yet,
whether we can reconcile it with our ideas of what is equitable or not there can be
no doubt that it states a terrible truth; we gain nothing by blinking the fact. It was
perfectly clear to people of the time of the captivity that they were suffering for the
persistent misconduct of their ancestors during a succession of generations. Long
before this the Jews had been warned of the danger of continued rebellion against
the will of God. Thus the nation had been treasuring up wrath for the day of wrath.
The forbearance which permitted the first offenders to die in peace before the day of
reckoning would assume another character for the unhappy generation on whose
head the long-pent-up flood at length descended. It is not enough to urge in reply
that the threat of the second commandment to visit the sins of the fathers upon the
children to the third and fourth generation was for them that hate God; because it is
not primarily their own conduct, but the sins of their ancestors, in which the reason
for punishing the later generations is found. If these sins were exactly repeated the
influence of their parents would make the personal guilt of the later offenders less,
not more, than that of the originators of the evil line. Besides, in the case of the Jews
there had been some amendment. Josiah’s reformation had been very
disappointing; and yet the awful wickedness of the reign of Manasseh had not been
repeated. The gross idolatry of the earlier times and the cruelties of Moloch worship
had disappeared. At least, it must be admitted, they were no longer common
practices of court and people. The publication of so great an inspired work as the
Book of Deuteronomy had wrought a marked effect on the religion and morals of
the Jews. The age which was called upon to receive the payment for the national sins
was not really so wicked as some of the ages that had earned it. The same thing is
seen in private life. There is nothing that more distresses the author of these poems
than the sufferings of innocent children in the siege of Jerusalem. We are frequently
confronted with evidences of the fact that the vices of parents inflict poverty,
dishonour, and disease on their families. This is just what the elegist means when he
writes of children bearing the iniquities of their fathers. The fact cannot be
disputed.
Often as the problem that here starts up afresh has been discussed, no really
satisfactory solution of it has ever been forthcoming. We must admit that we are
face to face with one of the most profound mysteries of providence. But we may
detect some glints of light in the darkness. Thus, as we have seen on the occasion of a
previous reference to this question, the fundamental principle in accordance with
which these perplexing results are brought about is clearly one which on the whole

9. makes for the highest welfare of mankind. That one generation should hand on the
fruit of its activity to another is essential to the very idea of progress. The law of
heredity and the various influences that go to make up the evil results in the case
before us work powerfully for good under other circumstances; and that the
balance is certainly on the side of good is proved by the fact that the world is moving
forward, not backward, as would be the case if the balance of hereditary influence
was on the side of evil. Therefore it would be disastrous in the extreme for the laws
that pass on the punishment of sin to successive generations to be abolished; the
abolition of them would stop the chariot of progress. Then we have seen that the
solidarity of the race necessitates both mutual influences in the present and the
continuance of influence from one age to another. The great unit Man is far more
than the sum of the little units men. We must endure the disadvantages of a system
which is so essential to the good of man. This, however, is but to fall back on the
Leibnitzian theory of the best of all possible worlds. It is not an absolute vindication
of the justice of whatever happens-an attainment quite beyond our reach.
But another consideration may shed a ray of light on the problem. The bearing of
the sins of others is for the highest advantage of the sufferers. It is difficult to think
of any more truly elevating sorrows. They resemble our Lord’s passion; and of Him
it was said that He was made perfect through suffering. [Hebrews 2:10] Without
doubt Israel benefited immensely from the discipline of the Captivity, and we may
be sure that the better "remnant" was most blessed by this experience, although it
was primarily designed to be the chastisement of the more guilty. The Jews were
regenerated by the baptism of fire. Then they could not ultimately complain of the
ordeal that issued in so much good.
It is to be observed, however, that there were two currents of thought with regard to
this problem. While most men held to the ancient orthodoxy, some rose in revolt
against the dogma expressed in the proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge." Just at this time the prophet Ezekiel was
inspired to lead the Jews to a more just conception, with the declaration: "As I live,
saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in
Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son
is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die." [Ezekiel 18:3-4] This was the new
doctrine. But how could it be made to square with the facts? By strong faith in it the
disciples of the advanced school might bring themselves to believe that the course of
events which had given rise to the old idea would be arrested. But if so they would
be disappointed; for the world goes on in its unvarying way. Happily, as Christians,
we may look for the final solution in a future life, when all wrongs shall be righted.
It is much to know that in the great hereafter each soul will be judged simply
according to its own character.
In conclusion, as we follow out the course of the elegy, we find the same views
maintained that were presented earlier. The idea of ignominy is still harped upon.
The Jews complain that they are under the rule of servants. [Lamentations 5:8]
Satraps were really the Great King’s slaves, often simply household favourites
promoted to posts of honour. Possibly the Jews were put in the power of inferior

10. servants. The petty tyranny of such persons would be all the more persistently
annoying, if, as often happens, servility to superiors had bred insolence in bullying
the weak; and there was no appeal from the vexatious tyranny. This complaint
would seem to apply to the people left in the land, for it is the method of the elegist
to bring together scenes from different places as well as scenes from different times
in one picture of concentrated misery. The next point is that food is only procured at
the risk of life "because of the sword of the wilderness"; [Lamentations 5:9] which
seems to mean that the country is so disorganised that hordes of Bedouins hover
about and attack the peasants when they venture abroad to gather in their harvest.
The fever of famine is seen on these wretched people; their faces burn as though
they had been scorched at an oven. [Lamentations 5:10] Such is the general
condition of the Jews, such is the scene on which God is begged to look down!
PARKER, "Sin"s Garden
Lamentations 5
If we would work our way up to this text, it will be through a very dreary course of
reflection. Probably there is nothing like this chapter in all the elegies of the world.
For what is there here more than elegy? There is a death deeper than death. The
blank verse is noble, but the moral sentiment is horrible. Let us not deceive
ourselves by blank verse. We do not know anything finer than these lines, or many
of them, regarded simply as poetry; but when we look into the morality, the poetry
is a facial sheen that dies. There is no substance in it. Here is a prayer that never got
itself into heaven. Blessed be God, there are some prayers that never get higher than
the clouds. Perhaps they ease the uttering heart for the passing moment—
evaporation lessens the volume of water; but in reality there are some prayers that
have no answer. This may be one of them. Look at it Behold how internally rotten it
is.
"Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us" ( Lamentations 5:1).
o man can pray who begins in that tone. There is not one particle of devotion in
such an utterance. "What is come upon us." It is a falsehood. It is putting the
suppliant into a wrong position at the very first. The cry is not "Remember, O Lord,
what we have done, what we have brought upon ourselves, what fools we have been,
and how we have broken all thy commandments"; then out of such sorrow there
would have arisen the noble music of supplication that would have been answered.
But these poor creatures come as if they were quite the injured parties. Behold us;
thou knowest our excellence, thou knowest that we deserve all heaven, and yet by
some curious action of circumstances here we are, little better than beasts of burden,
crushed into this humiliation by Egyptian or Assyrian or other tyranny: Lord, see
what has happened to the excellent of the earth! So long as men talk in that tone
they are a long way from the only tone that prevails in heaven—"God be merciful to
me a sinner."
"Consider, and behold our reproach" ( Lamentations 5:1).

11. How possible it is for penitence to have a lie in the heart of it; how possible it is for
petitions addressed to heaven to be inspired by the meanest selfishness! Our prayers
need to be taken to pieces, to be reduced to their elements by a fine analysis; then I
think we should never offer them—we ourselves should deem them worthless, and
cast them away to be forgotten. But let us take the statement as it is here written,
and let us note well the inventory which is particularised by these persons, who are
very careful to note all that they have lost. Let us see what claim they make upon the
bank of heaven to restore to them the property that has been taken away. Read the
bill; it is a bill of particulars:—
"Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens" ( Lamentations 5:2).
Here is material dispossession. If the inheritance had been retained, would the
prayer have been offered? Probably not. If the houses, well-built, and well-
furnished, and well-pictured, had been retained, would there have been any cry of
distress? Perhaps not; for it is always difficult to pray in a palace. A palace has gilt
enough and paint enough to stifle any prayer. It is when men get dispalaced and
disrobed that they begin to wonder whether it is not time to be religious.
"We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows" ( Lamentations 5:3).
Here is personal desolation. If the fathers had lived, would the prayers have been
offered? If the husbands had lived, would the desire of the heart have turned
towards God? Why, all this is rottenness. This is poetry without argument; this is
not logic on fire, this is not morality going up in incense: this is a self-reproaching
and self-condemnatory plea.
"We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us" ( Lamentations
5:4).
Here is social humiliation. The emphasis is upon the pronoun, "Our" water, the
water that we have in our own gardens, water taken out of the wells which our own
fathers did dig. We have to buy our own wood, to go to our own forest, and actually
lay down money for the timber that has been growing on the estate for countless
generations! What an awful lot! what a sad doom! If it had been otherwise, where
would the prayer have been? where would the confession, such as it Isaiah , have
been? If the water had been plentiful and the timber had been untouched, where
would these vain wretches have been? Would they have been at church?
"Our necks are under persecution; we labour, and have no rest" ( Lamentations
5:5).
Here is a sense of grievous oppression. What do the men complain of? They
complain of the yoke; it is on the neck, and it excoriates them, it chafes them; they
cannot bear this unfamiliar burden. We labour who were never meant to toil; our
backs were never made to stoop—we were made to stand upright and look round

12. and see that other people laboured; and, behold, we—we—have to work for our
bread!
"Servants have ruled over us" ( Lamentations 5:8).
Here is an inversion of natural position. The greater the Prayer of Manasseh , the
greater the ruler, should be the law in social administration. Let me have a great
man to direct me, superintend me, and revise my doings, and it shall be well with me
at eventide. Men will judge according to their quality. The great judge will be
gracious, the noble soul will be pitiful, though I bring him but a bungling return at
the closing of the day; he knows my weakness, he will remember that I have been
working under a spirit of fear and under the stress of great difficulty, and he will
cheer me, though I am ashamed to look upon my own work. But the servant will be
hard upon me, the slave will not pity me. He is a slave though he wear the golden
chain; he never could rise above the level of servility. He is a mean hound to begin
with, not because of what he is officially, but because of what he is naturally. Some
kings have been slaves; some noblemen have been servants. We are only speaking of
the soul that is a slave, and whenever the slave mounts his horse he gallops to the
devil.
Read this fifth chapter and look upon it as a garden which sin has planted. This is
what sin does for the world. This is what sin always does. This is what sin must do.
Here we are not dealing with accidents or casualties, very singular and unexpected
occurrences; we are dealing with the great philosophy of cause and effect, sowing
and reaping:—Be not deceived, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;
and man would complain if that law were inverted. It is the sinner that would
complain if that law were not a statutory law of the universe. o, quoth Hebrews ,
we must have something more solid than to sow one thing and not know what other
is going to be reaped: if I am to live in this universe, I must know what the statutory
law is. And the Lord says, The statutory law Isaiah , "Whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap." Good! quoth the sinner. He goes out to sow his seed, and he
reaps his harvest accordingly; but when this great law is applied to morals he
complains. He wants to get drunk, and have no headache; he wants to steal, and not
to be imprisoned; he wants to do wrong, and then to have his own way, and to be
accounted an excellent man. Thus souls trifle with themselves. In the common field
they will have statutory regulations, or they will complain of the eccentricity of
Providence; but in morals they want to have their own way in everything in the
matter of personal gratification and indulgence, and to escape all the penalties of
enormity. God will not have it so. This is the garden which sin has planted. All these
black flowers, all these awful trees of poison, sin planted. God did not plant one of
them. It is so with all our pains and penalties. It is so with this halting mind, that
cannot keep steadfast to its own logic and remember its own conclusions, to obey
them in all their force and urgency. It is so with this treacherous memory. Once it
remembered everything, now it remembers nothing; it has forgotten the mother"s
name. It is so with that bad luck in business, with that misfortune in the open way of
life. What is all this? All this goes back to a moral seed-time. Why not lace that fact?
We are reaping what has been sown by ourselves or by our forerunners. It is quite

13. right to remember our ancestors in this particular. The men who made this plaint
did hot forget that element. Said they, "Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and
we have borne their iniquities." That is too much; that is making religion
irreligious; that is committing the falsehood of exaggeration. It is quite true that our
fathers have sinned, and that we in a sense bear their iniquities, and cannot help it,
for manhood is one; but it is also true that we ourselves have adopted all they did.
To adopt what Adam did is to have sinned in Adam and through Adam. Why
theologise about some immemorially historic Adam when we have taken up all his
bad doings and endorsed them every one? We need not go behind our own
signature; we have signed the catalogue, we have adopted it, and therefore we have
to account for our own lapse in our own religion.
Wondrous it is how men turn to God in their distresses. The Lord said it would be
so—"In their affliction they will seek me early," So we have God in this great plaint,
and what position does God occupy in it? He occupies the position of the only
Helper of man. "Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us." There are times when
we know that there is only one God. When we begin theologising, we can do
wonders with the Deity, but when we are all cut to pieces and have no more help left
in us, then we simplify our theology and go direct to the Eternal himself. There is no
calling out here for sacraments and for connecting links with the divine throne.
When the soul is mad with self-accusation, it finds God or creates him. We know
men best in their agony.
Here God is represented, in a sense, as being the only possible Source of such
punishment. o mere man could have inflicted a penalty so vast, so penetrating, so
immeasurable as this. We may know God by the vastness of the hell which he digs,
or which he permits us to dig. Here the men are afflicted at every point; there is not
one little spot left on which the stinging thong has not fallen. All gone! The
inheritance has gone, and the houses are gone; orphanage and fatherlessness and
widowhood are present; water is bought and wood is sold, the neck is under the
yoke and the hands are given to toiling; the Assyrian claims every finger, and the
Egyptian has a lien upon every energy. Who could have inflicted so vast a
punishment? Only God. And God is represented as the only eternal Power—"Thou,
O Lord, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation." How great
we are in adoration or reverence! How poor we are in obedience! Let it be a
question of exalting God, and even the mouth of a sinner may be opened in blank
verse, even the tongue of a liar may forge great polysyllables; but let it become a
question of acquiescence in the divine will, obedience to the divine law, then
selfishness triumphs over righteousness.
Then comes the cry for old days—"Renew our days as of old." There is a sense in
which the old days were better than these. What is that peculiar religious
fascination which acts upon the mind and leads us back again into the nursery? We
cry for the days of childhood, when we were unconscious of sin, when we played in
the wood, when we gathered the primroses, when we came back from bird-nesting
and summer joys. Oh that these days would come back again in all their blueness, in
all their simple joyousness! sometimes the soul says. "Renew our days as of old"—

14. when our bread was honest. Since then we have become tradesmen, merchants,
adventurers, gamblers, speculators, and now there is not a loaf in the cupboard that
has not poison in the very middle of it. Our bread is a lie; the bed on which we rest
at night is a bed full of thorns. We are richer at the bank, but we are poorer in
heaven. God pity us! "Renew our days as of old"—when our prayers were
unhindered, when we never doubted their going to heaven and coming back again
with blessings; when we used to pray at our mother"s knee we never thought that
the prayer could fail of heaven. We were quite sure when we said "God bless father
and mother, and brother and sister," that God blessed them straight up into heaven,
and all the angels smiled when they heard the cry, and God moved all the heavens to
bring the blessing down. ow we are theorising about it, and doubting, speculating,
and controversialising about it. Oh for the old child-days, when God was in every
flower and in every bird, and when all the sky was a great open Bible, written all
over in capitals of love! The old days will not come. Still we can have a new youth;
we can be born again. That is the great cry of Christ"s gospel. "Marvel not that I
said unto thee, Ye must be born again"—and thus get the true childhood. He who is
in Christ Jesus is a new creature, a little child; old things have passed away, and all
things have become new; we have a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth
righteousness. When we have passed the touch of God the Holy Ghost, when we
have been washed in his laver of regeneration, oh, how green the earth Isaiah , and
how blue the kind heaven! The poorest beggar becomes a brother because our
overflowing love shuts nobody out. If we would have back our old times we must
have back our old selves, when we were in our low esteem, consciously poor,
broken-hearted on account of sin. When we get these old experiences we shall get
back all the lost love of God.
PETT, "Introduction
Chapter 5. The Prophet Calls On YHWH To Observe The Sad State Of His People
And Pleads With Him As The Eternal One To Show Mercy.
In this final lament the prophet outlines in some detail the sad state of YHWH’s
people in the period after the destruction of Jerusalem, ending it with a plea that He
might yet show mercy as the Eternal King.
Verse 1
Remember, O YHWH, what is come on us,
Behold, and see our reproach.
The prophet calls on YHWH to remember all that had come on them and to
consider the reproach that they were under, something that he will now deal with in
detail. The first person plural indicates the prophet’s identification with his people.
They were feeling totally humiliated.
BI 1-10, "Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us.
An appeal for God’s compassion
The prayer opens with a striking phrase—“Remember, O Lord,” etc. It cannot be
supposed that the elegist conceived of his God as Elijah mockingly described their silent,

15. unresponsive divinity to the frantic priests of Baal, or that he imagined that Jehovah was
really indifferent, after the manner of the denizens of the Epicurean Olympus.
Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor even theology wholly determines the form of an
earnest man’s prayers. In practice it is impossible not to speak according to appearances.
Though not to the reason, still to the feelings, it is as though God had indeed forgotten
His children in their deep distress. Under such circumstances the first requisite is the
assurance that God should remember the sufferers whom He appears to be neglecting.
The poet is thinking of external actions. Evidently the aim of his prayer is to secure the
attention of God as a sure preliminary to a Divine interposition. But even with this end
in view the fact that God remembers is enough. In appealing for God’s attention the
elegist first makes mention of the reproach that has come upon Israel. This reference to
humiliation rather than to suffering as the primary ground of complaint may be
accounted for by the fact that the glory of God is frequently taken as a reason for the
blessing of His people. That is done for His “name’s sake.” Then the ruin of the Jews is
derogatory to the honour of their Divine Protector. The peculiar relation of Israel to God
also underlies the complaint of the second verse, in which the land is described as “our
inheritance,” with an evident allusion to the idea that it was received as a donation from
God, not acquired in any ordinary human fashion. A great wrong has been done,
apparently in contravention of the ordinance of Heaven. The Divine inheritance has
been turned over to strangers. From their property the poet passes on to the condition of
the persons of the sufferers. The Jews are orphans; they have lost their fathers, and their
mothers are widows. The series of illustrations of the degradation of Israel seems to be
arranged somewhat in the order of time and in accordance with the movement of the
people. Thus, after describing the state of the Jews in their own land, the poet next
follows the fortunes of his people in exile. There is no mercy for them in their flight. The
words in which the miseries of this time are referred to are somewhat obscure. The
phrase in the Authorised Version, “Our necks are under persecution” (Lam_5:5), is
rendered by the Revisers, “Our pursuers are upon our necks.” It would seem to mean
that the hunt is so close that fugitives are on the point of being captured; or perhaps that
they are made to bow their heads in defeat as their captors seize them. But a proposed
emendation substitutes the word “yoke” for “pursuers.” The next line favours this idea,
since it dwells on the utter weariness of the miserable fugitives. There is no rest for
them. The yoke of shame and servitude is more crushing than any amount of physical
labour. Finally, in their exile the Jews are not flee from molestation. In order to obtain
bread they must abase themselves before the people of the land. The fugitives in the
south must do homage to the Egyptians; the captives in the east to the Assyrians. Here,
then, at the very last stage of the series of miseries, shame and humiliation are the
principal grievances deplored. At every point there is a reproach, and to this feature of
the whole situation God’s attention is especially directed. Now the elegist turns aside to a
reflection on the cause of all this evil. It is attributed to the sins of previous generations.
The present sufferers are bearing the iniquities of their fathers. Here several points call
for a brief notice. In the first place, the very form of the language is significant. What is
meant by the phrase to “bear iniquity”? It is clear that the poet had no mystical ideas in
mind. When he said that the children bore the sins of their fathers he simply meant that
they reaped the consequences of those sins. But if the language is perfectly unambiguous
the doctrine it implies is far from being easy to accept. On the face of it, it seems to be
glaringly unjust. We are frequently confronted with evidences of the fact that the vices of
parents inflict poverty, dishonour, and disease on their families. This is just what the
elegist means when he writes of children hearing the iniquities of their fathers. The fact
cannot be disputed. Often as the problem that here starts up afresh has been discussed,
no really satisfactory solution of it has ever been forthcoming. We must admit that we

16. are face to face with one of the most profound mysteries of providence. But we may
detect some glints of light in the darkness. The law of heredity and the various influences
that go to make up the evil results in the case before us work powerfully for good under
other circumstances; and that the balance is certainly on the side of good, is proved by
the fact that the world is moving forward, not backward, as would be the case if the
balance of hereditary influence was on the side of evil. The great unit Man is far more
than the sum of the little units men. We must endure the disadvantages of a system
which is so essential to the good of man. But another consideration may shed a ray of
light on the problem. The bearing of the sins of others is for the highest advantage of the
sufferers. It is difficult to think of any more truly elevating sorrows. They resemble our
Lord’s passion; and of Him it was said that He was made perfect through suffering. (W.
F. Adeney, M. A.)
Zion’s sufferings
I. Her entreaties.
1. Remember.
2. Consider.
3. Behold.
II. Her miseries.
1. What is befallen her, captivity; it is not coming, it is already come upon her.
2. Her bright Sun gives not out its rays. Ignominy, like a black cloud, now covers its
face.
Lessons:
1. God hath thoughts of His people, when they cannot apprehend His purposes. He
thinks upon their souls.
2. God’s thoughts are affectionate, and hold out help unto His saints. Men many
times think of their friends in the day of their distress, yet endeavour not to make
their help their comfort, the product of their thoughts, but whom God remembers
He relieves (Lev_26:44-45).
3. God’s forgetting is an aggravation of the soul’s affliction. Questionless, it is the
great, yea one of the greatest aggravations of trouble to an afflicted soul, to
apprehend itself not to be in the thoughts of God (Psa_42:9-11; Psa_43:1-5; Psa_
44:1-24).
(1) They are things of value that we commit to memory (Isa_43:4; Isa_43:26).
(2) Special affection is demonstrated by God’s remembering (Mal_3:16-17).
Lessons:
1. God’s remembrance ever speaks a Christian’s advantage. Whosoever forgets you,
let your prayers demonstrate your desires to be in the heart, in the thoughts of God.
This was Nehemiah’s request, and he made it the very upshot of his prayers (Neh_
13:31). Do you likewise. For men may fail us though they think of us, but God will
help us if He but have us in His mind (Jer_2:2-3).
2. They that put us in mind of our friends in misery, are many times instrumental for

17. the alleviating of their sorrow; their excitements may stir up earnest resolves for
their freedom, they may become messengers to proclaim their peace, to publish
tidings of their salvation. O let us be God’s remembrancers, let us expostulate the
Church’s case with His sacred self, this is our duty (Isa_43:26). Let us beseech the
Lord—
(1) Not to remember her iniquities (Psa_79:8).
(2) Not to continue her distress (Psa_74:2).
Israel’s freedom from thraldom hath been the product of God’s remembering (Exo_6:5-
6). O let us rather beseech Him to think of—
(1) Her former prosperity (Psa_25:6; Psa_89:49-50). Men commiserate them in
penury that have lived in plenty.
(2) Her present afflictions (Psa_132:1; Job_10:9; Isa_64:10-12). The Church’s
sorrows make her an object of pity in the Lord’s thoughts.
(3) His Covenant for mercy to His people in distress (Psa_74:20-21; Jer_14:21;
2Ch_7:14; Psa_50:15).
(4) Her enemies for execution of Divine justice (Psa_137:7).
(5) The sadness of her spirit to speak cheering to her heart (Psa_106:1-48.).
Relief is the best remembrance of a friend.
3. Fervency must accompany our prayers. This interjective particle denotes the
vehemency, the earnestness of her desire (Gen_17:18; Deu_5:29; 2Sa_23:15; Job_
6:8). Want of mercy with sense of misery will make the soul cry O unto its God.
Christians, be not like glowworms, fiery in appearance and cold when you come to
the touch; take heed of lukewarmness, Laodicea’s temper; remember that as prayer
is set out by wrestling, which is the best way for prevailing (Gen_32:26; Hos_12:4),
so under the law the sweet perfumes in the censers were burnt before they ascended;
for believers’ prayers go up in pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh, to the throne
of God (Son_4:6). Therefore get spiritual fire into your hearts, as fast as you can
kindle and inflame your affections, that they may flame up in devout and religious
ascents to the Lord Himself. Sometimes “Lord” will not serve your turn, you must go
with “O Lord” unto your God.
4. We must only have recourse to God in distress. The Church’s affliction is now
become to her the school of devotion. Where should we make our addresses, but
where we may find relief?
5. Heavy sorrows make Christians moderate in their desires. She doth not desire the
Lord forthwith to cause the fulgent and glorious beams of prosperity to shine upon
her, or immediately by some heavy judgment upon her enemy, to complete her own
delivery, she only calls for a memento, a remembrance, some thoughts of her unto
her God. That great sufferings make Christians modest and moderate in their
demands. Beggars in their extremest exigence cry not for pounds but pence. A little
relief goes far in the apprehension of a distressed soul.
6. Grievous miseries may fall upon God’s precious saints.
7. God eyes our particular exigence. The original denotes such a consideration as is
conjoined with seeing and looking upon. The eye presenting the object to the
thoughts, makes the deeper impress upon the spirit. When God takes the Church’s
sorrows into His thoughts, He looks down from heaven to see the particulars of her

18. distress.
8. Prayer the means to get a reflex from God.
9. As reproach is heavy so it quickens the prayers of saints. The saints are not
hopeless under the greatest evils, they sing not the doleful ditty of accursed Cain,
they despair not of Divine hope, and therefore because they conceive hope of favour,
they betake themselves unto fervent prayer (Job_13:15; Pro_14:32; Psa_27:12-13).
10. Sense of misery would have God to make present supply. Equity in the Lord’s
administration of justice, hath ever been their encouragement, as for appeal, so for
this request unto Himself (Jer_12:1-3). Learn what to do when the wicked with the
most violent evils are stinging and piercing your very souls.
(1) Present your troubles, your reproaches upon your bended knees in the Lord’s
presence (Psa_69:19, etc.).
(2) Plead mercies and promises for yourselves (Dan_9:15-17; 1Ki_8:5-7).
(3) Multiply prayers for your enlargement (Neh_4:4-5; Joe_2:17). 11. Christians
are gradual, they have their ascents in their earnest prayers. Remember,
consider, behold. As God goes out gradually in giving out the dispensations of
Divine goodness, so His people in their afflictions, when they are most earnest
petitioners, are gradual in their prayers (Psa_41:4; Psa_106:4-5; Dan_9:19). (D.
Swift.)
Sin’s garden
1. Probably there is nothing like this chapter in all the elegies of the world. For what
is there here more than elegy? There is a death deeper than death. Here is a prayer
that never got itself into heaven. Blessed be God, there are some prayers that never
get higher than the clouds. Look at it. Behold how internally rotten it is. “Remember,
O Lord, what is come upon us” (Lam_5:1). No man can pray who begins in that tone.
There is not one particle of devotion in such an utterance. “What is come upon us.” It
is a falsehood. It is putting the suppliant into a wrong position at the very first. So
long as men talk in that tone they are a long way from the only tone that prevails in
heaven.
“God be merciful to me a sinner.” “Consider, and behold our reproach” (Lam_5:1).
How possible it is for penitence to have a lie in the heart of it; how possible it is for
petitions addressed to heaven to be inspired by the meanest selfishness! Note well
the inventory which is particularised by these persons, who are very careful to note
all that they have lost. Read the bill; it is a bill of particulars: “Our inheritance is
turned to strangers, our houses to aliens” (Lam_5:2). Here is material dispossession.
If the inheritance had been retained, would the prayer have been offered? Probably
not. “We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows” (Lam_5:8). Here is
personal desolation. If the fathers had lived, would the prayers have been offered?
“We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us” (Lam_5:4). Here
is social humiliation. The emphasis is upon the pronoun, “Our” water, the water that
we have in our own gardens, water taken out of the wells which our own fathers did
dig. What an awful lot! what a sad doom! If it had been otherwise, where would the
prayer have been? where would the confession, such as it is, have been? “Our necks
are under persecution; we labour, and have no rest” (Lam_5:5). Here is a sense of
grievous oppression. “Servants have ruled over us” (Lam_5:8). Here is an inversion

19. of natural position. The greater the man, the greater the ruler, should be the law in
social administration. Let me have a great man to direct me, superintend me, and
revise my doings, and it shall be well with me at eventide. Some kings have been
slaves; some noblemen have been servants. We are only speaking of the soul that is a
slave, and whenever the slave mounts his horse he gallops to the devil.
2. Read this chapter and look upon it as a garden which sin has planted. All these
black flowers, all these awful trees of poison, sin planted. God did not plant one of
them. It is so with all our pains and penalties. It is so with that bad luck in business,
with that misfortune in the open way of life. We are reaping what has been sown by
ourselves or by our forerunners. It is quite right to remember our ancestors in this
particular. It is quite true that our fathers have sinned, and that we in a sense bear
their iniquities, and cannot help it, for manhood is one; but it is also true that we
ourselves have adopted all they did. To adopt what Adam did is to have sinned in
Adam and through Adam. We need not go behind our own signature; we have signed
the catalogue, we have adopted it, and therefore we have to account for our own
lapse in our own religion.
3. Wondrous it is how men turn to God in their distresses. The Lord said it would be
so—“In their affliction they will seek Me early.” So we have God in this great plaint,
and what position does God occupy in it? He occupies the position of the only Helper
of man. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us.” Then comes the cry for old
days: “Renew our days as of old.” There is a sense in which the old days were better
than these. What is that peculiar religious fascination which acts upon the mind and
leads us back again into the nursery? We cry for the days of childhood, when we were
unconscious of sin, when we played in the wood, when we gathered the primroses,
when we came back from bird nesting and summer joys. Oh, that these days would
come back again all their blueness, in all their simple joyousness! Sometimes the
soul says, “Renew our days as of old”—when our bread was honest. Since then we
have become tradesmen, merchants, adventurers, gamblers, speculators, and now
there is not a loaf in the cupboard that has not poison in the very middle of it. We are
richer at the bank, but we are poorer in heaven. God pity us! “Renew our days as of
old”—when our prayers were unhindered, when we never doubted their going to
heaven and coming back again with blessings; when we used to pray at our mother’s
knee we never thought that the prayer could fail of heaven. Oh, for the old child days,
when God was in every flower and in every bird, and when all the sky was a great
open Bible, written all over in capitals of love! The old days will not come. Still we
can have a new youth; we can be born again. That is the great cry of Christ’s Gospel
“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again”—and thus get the true
childhood. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.—
Comfortable directions for such as have been, or may be driven from their
houses, goods, or country
I. It is a sore affliction and matter of great lamentation for a man to be driven from his
house and habitation. His house and habitation is the meeting place of all his outward
comforts; the seat and centre and receptacle of all those outward blessings that he doth
enjoy in this world. As a man’s house is the nest where all these eggs are laid, and
therefore when a man is driven from thence, the meeting place of all his outward
comforts, surely it must be an exceeding sad thing and very lamentable. To say nothing

20. of the reproach that doth come thereby, or of the violence that doth come therewith; it is
the judgment threatened, threatened against the wicked, and those that are most
ungodly. The contrary is often promised unto God’s people (Isa_65:21-23). On the
contrary, when God threatens evil to a place and people, this is the evil that He
denounceth; that He will drive them from their houses and habitations, and that others
shall be brought into them (Deu_15:28-30). Now is it nothing for a man to go up and
down under the wounds of a threatening? Again, a man loseth many, if not most of his
opportunities of doing good and receiving. So long as a man is at home, and hath a
habitation to resort unto, he may pray, read, meditate, sing, and have a little church and
heaven on earth. He may there receive strangers, for which many have been blest. There
he may exercise good duties, the only way unto heaven and happiness. When he is thrust
out, and strangers brought in, he doth therefore lose many of these opportunities; and
therefore how justly may he take up this lamentation and say, Have pity, have pity upon
me, oh, all my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.
II. God suffers His own people and dear children many times to fall into this condition.
Our Saviour Christ Himself, who bare our sins, had not whereon to lay His head. The
apostle tells us (Heb_11:1-40) that many saints wandered up and down the world in
woods and caves, of whom the world was not worthy. They did not only wander, and
were removed from their own houses; but, as Chrysostom observes, they were not quiet
even in the woods: they did not only want their own house in the city, but they wanted a
quiet seat in the wilderness. Four especial causes there are, or occasions, as Musculus
observes, whereby men have been driven from their houses and habitations. First, war.
Secondly, famine. Thirdly, inhumanity, cruelty, exaction of evil men and magistrates.
Fourthly, want of liberty in the matter of religion: and in all these respects God’s people
have been driven from their houses.
III. Why doth god suffer this to befall His own people; that His own servants and
dearest children should be driven out of their houses and habitations? In general it is for
their good. Hereby first a man may be, and is, if godly, emptied of that slime and filth
that did lie within him. The sea water, though it be exceeding salt, and very brackish, yet
if it run through several earths, the brackishness is lost thereby, as we find in all sweetest
springs which, as philosophers say, come from the sea, and lose the saltness of the sea
water by running through the earths: and in experience if you take water, though it be
salt in your hand, yet if you cause it to pass through divers earths it will lose that
saltness: so that though there may be much saltness and brackishness in the spirits of
men, yet if the Lord by His providence cause them to pass through divers earths, it is a
special means to lose that brackish, brinish disposition, and to grow more quiet, sweet,
and savoury. Again, thereby sometimes the saints, though unwillingly, are carried from
greater judgments that are coming upon the places where they dwell and live. Thereby
also truth and knowledge is carried and scattered into other places, many shall run to
and fro, “and knowledge shall be increased,” etc: Thereby a man is fitted and prepared
for God’s own house, and those revelations and manifestations that God hath to
communicate to him concerning the house of God. A man is never more fit to see the
beauty of God’s house, than when he is driven from his own.
IV. What shall we do, that if it shall please the Lord to drive us out of our houses and
habitations as well as our brethren, we may both prepare for it, and so carry the matter,
as we may be patiently and sweetly supported in that estate? By way of preparation, for
the present, before that condition come, and the Lord grant it may never come, be sure
of this, that you make good your interest in God Himself, clear up your evidence for
heaven, your assurance of God in Christ. Learn now before the rainy day come to be
dead unto all the world. The man that is dying is senseless, not affected with the cries of

21. his children, wife, and friends that stand round about him; though they weep and wring
their hands, he is not stirred, why? because being a dying man he is dead to them; and if
you be dead to your houses, liberties, and estates aforehand, you will be able to buckle
and grapple with that condition: so it was with Paul who died daily. Be sure of this also,
that you take heed now of all those things that may make your condition uncomfortable
then. There are three things that will make that condition very uncomfortable: pride,
wanton abuse of your creature comforts, and unwillingness to lay them out in the case of
God. But in case this evil feared should come, and who knows how soon it may? then
some things are to be practised, and some things considered. By way of practice. If it
pleased the Lord to bring you or me or any of us into this sad condition, first humble
yourselves, accept of the punishment of your iniquity, kiss the rod, and say, the Lord is
righteous in all that is come upon you; so did Daniel (Dan_9:6). Then be sure you bless
and praise the Lord for that little that you have left; and if nothing be left, praise God for
others that are free from your condition. Again, by way of consideration. Though such a
condition as this be exceeding sad and very lamentable, yet consider this, that it is not
any new thing that doth befall you, but such as befalls the saints and best of God’s
servants. Consider the way that God takes ordinarily to bring His people to mercy. He
seldom brings them to any mercy but He brings them about by the way of the contrary
misery. Consider seriously with yourselves what that is which you leave, what the cause
is that you do leave it for, and who it is you do leave it with: you leave your house, your
habitation, your land, your riches, which shortly would leave you, whose wings are like
the wings of an eagle, strong to fly again; you leave it for your God, your country, your
religion. And is that lost which you do lose for truth? Is there any loss in losing for Jesus
Christ? If you would have comfort and supportance in that condition, consider seriously
and much how God hath dealt with His people that have been thus served and used. And
if you look into Scripture, you shall find that He still hath provided for them, given them
favour in the places where they have come, and brought them back again from those
places into which they have been scattered. He hath provided for them. (W. Bridge, M.
A.)
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to
strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
BAR ES, "Turned - “transferred.” The inheritance was the land of Canaan Lev_
20:24.
Aliens - Or, “foreigners:” i. e. the Chaldaeans upon their conquest of the country.

22. CLARKE, "Our inheritance is turned to strangers - The greater part of the
Jews were either slain or carried away captive; and even those who were left under
Gedaliah were not free, for they were vassals to the Chaldeans.
GILL, "Our inheritance is turned to strangers,.... The land of Canaan in general,
which was given to Abraham and his seed to be their inheritance; and their field, and
vineyards in particular, which came to them by inheritance from their fathers, were now
in the hands of the Chaldeans, strangers to God, and aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel, as all Gentiles were, Eph_2:12;
our houses to aliens; which they had built or purchased, or their fathers had left
them, were now inhabited by those of another country.
HE RY, "They represent the reproach of trouble which they bear, in divers
particulars, which tend much to their disgrace.
1. They are disseised of that good land which God gave them, and their enemies have
got possession of it, Lam_5:2. Canaan was their inheritance; it was theirs by promise.
God gave it to them and their seed, and they held it by grant from his crown, (Psa_
136:21, Psa_136:22); but now, “It is turned to strangers; those possess it who have no
right to it, who are strangers to the commonwealth of Israel and aliens from the
covenants of promise; they dwell in the houses that we built, and this is our reproach.”
It is the happiness of all God's spiritual Israel that the heavenly Canaan is an inheritance
that they cannot be disseised of, that shall never be turned to strangers.
JAMISO , "Our inheritance — “Thine inheritance” (Psa_79:1). The land given of
old to us by Thy gift.
CALVI , "A catalogue of many calamities is now given by the Prophet, and as I
have reminded you, for this end, that he may obtain God’s favor for himself and for
the whole people. It was by no means a reasonable thing, that the inheritance of the
elect people should be given to aliens; for we know that the land had been promised
to Abraham four hundred years before his children possessed it; we know that this
promise had been often repeated, “This land shall be to you for an inheritance.” For
though God sustained all nations, yet he was pleased to take a peculiar care of his
people. In short, no land has ever been given to men in so singular a way as the land
of Canaan to the posterity of Abraham. As, then, this inheritance had been for so
many ages possessed by the chosen people, Jeremiah does not without reason
complain that it was turned over to aliens.
In the second clause he repeats the same thing; but he shews that the Jews had not
only been robbed of their fields, but had been cast out of their houses, a more
grievous and disgraceful thing. For it sometimes happens, that when one loses his
farm, his fields, and vineyards, his house remains to him untouched; but the
Prophet here amplifies the misery of his own nation, that they were not only
deprived of their fields and possessions, but that they were also ejected from their
own houses, and others had possession of them. For it is a sight deemed affecting

23. even among heathens, when one unworthy of any honor succeeds in the place of
another eminent in wealth and dignity. Well known are these words, —
O house of Aucus! How ruled by an unequal master! (223)
As Tarquinius had succeeded and taken possession of the kingdom, the heathen poet
upbraidingly said that the house of Ancus had passed over to those who were at first
exiles and fugitives, but afterwards became proud and cruel tyrants. So also in this
place Jeremiah says that aliens dwelt in the houses of the people. It follows, —
PETT, "Verse 2
Our inheritance is handed over to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
They had had to stand by and watch while their land had been handed over to
foreigners, and aliens had taken possession of their houses. They had lost the
inheritance that YHWH had given them. ote that this was the fulfilment of the
curse in Deuteronomy 28:30. They had been warned. They had no one to blame but
themselves. ‘Handed over.’ The verb is used of the transfer of property. Compare
Isaiah 60:5.
PULPIT, "Our inheritance. The land had been "given" to Abraham (Genesis 13:1-
18 :25; Genesis 17:8), and was consequently inherited by Abraham's posterity. Our
houses. ot 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 was seized;
the houses were destroyed (Jeremiah 52:13).
3 We have become fatherless,
our mothers are widows.
BAR ES, "Our mothers are as widows - The particle “as” suggests that the
whole verse is metaphorical. Our distress and desolation is comparable only to that of
fatherless orphans or wives just bereaved of their husbands.
GILL, "We are orphans and fatherless,.... In every sense; in a natural sense, their

24. fathers having been cut off by the sword, famine, or pestilence; in a civil sense, their king
being taken from them; and in a religious sense, God having forsaken them for their
sins:
our mothers are as widows; either really so, their husbands being dead; or were as if
they had no husbands, they not being able to provide for them, protect and deferred
them. The Targum adds,
"whose husbands are gone to the cities of the sea, and it is doubtful whether they are
alive.''
Some understand this politically, of their cities being desolate and defenceless.
HE RY, " Their state and nation are brought into a condition like that of widows and
orphans (Lam_5:3): “We are fatherless (that is, helpless); we have none to protect us, to
provide for us, to take any care of us. Our king, who is the father of the country, is cut
off; nay, God our Father seems to have forsaken us and cast us off; our mothers, our
cities, that were as fruitful mothers in Israel, are now as widows, are as wives whose
husbands are dead, destitute of comfort, and exposed to wrong and injury, and this is
our reproach; for we who made a figure are now looked on with contempt.”
JAMISO , "fatherless — Our whole land is full of orphans [Calvin]. Or, “we are
fatherless,” being abandoned by Thee our “Father” (Jer_3:19), [Grotius].
K&D, "Lam_5:3
Lam_5:3 is very variously interpreted by modern expositors. Ewald and Vaihinger
understand "father" as meaning the king, while Thenius refers it specially to Zedekiah;
the "mothers," according to Ewald and Vaihinger, are the cities of Judah, while Thenius
thinks they are the women of Zedekiah's harem. But to call the women of the royal
harem "mothers" of the nation, would be as unexampled as the attribution of the title to
the cities of Judah. The second clause, "our mothers are like widows," contains a simile:
they are not really widows, but like widows, because they have lost the protection which
the mother of a family has in her husband. In like manner, the first clause also is to be
understood as a comparison. "We are fatherless orphans," i.e., we are like such, as the
Chaldee has paraphrased it. Accordingly, C. B. Michaelis, Pareau, Rosenmüller,
Kalkschmidt, and Gerlach have rightly explained the words as referring to the custom of
the Hebrews: hominies omni modo derelictos omnibusque praesidiis destitutos, pupillos
et viduas dicere; cf. Psa_94:6; Isa_1:17; Jam_1:27.
CALVI , "Here the Prophet not only speaks in the person of the whole people, but
utters also the groans and complaints of each; for this could not have been suitable
to the whole Church, as he speaks of fathers and mothers. We hence see that this
verse does not apply to the whole body, but to individual members, though every
one of the people might have said that widows and orphans were everywhere seen.
ow, this usually happens when a nation is consumed either by pestilence or by
war; for in one battle all do not so fall that a whole country becomes full of orphans.

25. But the Prophet sets forth here the orphanage and widowhood occasioned through
the continued vengeance of God, for he had not ceased to afflict the people until by
degrees they were exhausted. It was, indeed, a sad spectacle to see among the chosen
people so many widows, and also so many children deprived of their fathers. It
follows,
PETT, "Verse 3
We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
They were orphans and fatherless, and their mothers were as widows because the
menfolk had been carried off to Babylon, or had been drafted in for slave labour.
There is an irony here in that they themselves had been guilty of neglecting the
widows and orphans, and now it had rebounded on their own heads. They had
become like the people that they had ignored.
But because of the stress YHWH places on watching over widows and orphans
(Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 10:18; Deuteronomy 14:29; Psalms 68:5; Psalms
146:9; Isaiah 1:17; Jeremiah 49:11) the prophet clearly sees this as an important
argument to put to YHWH on their behalf. Let him now watch over the newly made
‘widows and orphans’ as He had declared that He would.
4 We must buy the water we drink;
our wood can be had only at a price.
BAR ES, "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.
CLARKE, "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

26. 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.
GILL, "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.
HE RY, "They are put hard to it to provide necessaries for themselves and their
families, whereas once they lived in abundance and had plenty of every thing. Water
used to be free and easily come by, but now (Lam_5:4), We have drunk our water for
money, and the saying is no longer true, Usus communis aquarum - Water is free to all.
So hardly did their oppressors use them that they could not have a draught of fair water
but they must purchase it either with money or with work. Formerly they had fuel too for
the fetching; but now, “Our wood is sold to us, and we pay dearly for every faggot.” Now
were they punished for employing their children to gather wood for fire with which to
bake cakes for the queen of heaven, Jer_7:18. They were perfectly proscribed by their
oppressors, were forbidden the use both of fire and water, according to the ancient form,
Interdico tibi aqua et igni - I forbid thee the use of water and fire. But what must they
do for bread? Truly that was as hard to come at as any thing, for (1.) Some of them sold
their liberty for it (Lam_5:6): “We have given the hand to the Egyptians and to the
Assyrians, have made the best bargain we could with them, to serve them, that we might
be satisfied with bread. We were glad to submit to the meanest employment, upon the
hardest terms, to get a sorry livelihood; we have yielded ourselves to be their vassals,
have parted with all to them, as the Egyptians did to Pharaoh in the years of famine, that
we might have something for ourselves and families to subsist on.” The neighbouring
nations used to trade with Judah for wheat (Eze_27:17), for it was a fruitful land; but
now it eats up the inhabitants, and they are glad to make court to the Egyptians and
Assyrians. (2.) Others of them ventured their lives for it (Lam_5:9): We got our bread
with the peril of our lives; when, being straitened by the siege and all provisions cut off,
they either sallied or stole out of the city, to fetch in some supply, they were in danger of
falling into the hands of the besiegers and being put to the sword, the sword of the
wilderness it is called, or of the plain (for so the word signifies), the besiegers lying
dispersed every where in the plains that were about the city. Let us take occasion hence
to bless God for the plenty that we enjoy, that we get our bread so easily, scarcely with
the sweat of our face, much less with the peril of our lives; and for the peace we enjoy,
that we can go out, and enjoy not only the necessary productions, but the pleasures of
the country, without any fear of the sword of the wilderness.
JAMISO , "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 — In Judea each one could get wood without pay; in Babylon, “our wood,”

27. the wood we need, must be paid for.
K&D, "Lam_5:4
And not merely are the inhabitants of Judah without land and property, and deprived
of all protection, like orphans and widows; they are also living in penury and want, and
(Lam_5:5) under severe oppression and persecution. Water and wood are mentioned in
Lam_5:4 as the greatest necessities of life, without which it is impossible to exist. Both
of these they must buy for themselves, because the country, with its waters and forests,
is in the possession of the enemy. The emphasis lies on "our water...our wood." What
they formerly had, as their own property, for nothing, they must now purchase. We must
reject the historical interpretations of the words, and their application to the distress of
the besieged (Michaelis); or to the exiles who complained of the dearness of water and
wood in Egypt (Ewald); or to those who fled before the Chaldeans, and lived in waste
places (Thenius); or to the multitudes of those taken prisoner after the capture of
Jerusalem, who were so closely watched that they could not go where they liked to get
water and wood, but were obliged to go to their keepers for permission, and pay dearly
for their services (Nägelsbach). The purchase of water and wood can scarcely be taken
literally, but must be understood as signifying that the people had to pay heavy duties for
the use of the water and the wood which the country afforded.
CALVI , "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 to such a state of want that they had no water without buying it.
At the same time he seems to express something worse when he says, Our water we
drink for money, and our wood is brought to us for a price. It is not strange that
wood should be bought; but the Prophet means that water was sold to the Jews
which had been their own, and that they were also compelled to buy wood which
had been their own. Thus the possessive pronouns are to be considered as
emphatical. Then he says, “Our own waters we drink,” etc. (224) He calls them the
waters of the people, which by right they might have claimed as their own; and he
also calls the wood The same; it was that to which the people had a legitimate right.
He then says that all things had been so taken away by their enemies, that they were
forced to buy, not only the wine which had been taken from their cellars, and the
corn which had been taken from their granaries, but also the water and the wood.
But were any one disposed to take the words more simply, the complaint would not

28. be unsuitable, — that the people, who before had abundance of wine and all other
things, were constrained to buy everything, even water and wood. For it is a
grievous change when any one, who could once cut wood of his own, and gather his
own wine and corn, is not able to get even a drop of water without buying it. This is
a sad change. So this passage may be understood. It follows, —
4.Our own water, for money have we drunk it;
Our own wood, for a price it comes to us.
Grotius says that in the land of Canaan the forests were free to all to get wood from.
When in exile the Jews had to buy wood. — Ed.
COKE, "Lamentations 5:4. Our wood is sold unto us— Our wood came at a price
upon our necks; Lamentations 5:5. We are under persecution, &c. Houbigant. That
numbers of the Israelites had no wood growing on their own lands for their
burning, must be imagined from the openness of their country. See Judges 5:6. It is
certain, the eastern villagers have now sometimes little or none on their premises.
Dr. Russel says, that inconsiderable as the stream which runs by Aleppo and the
gardens about it may appear, they however contain almost the only trees which are
to be met with for twenty or thirty miles round; for that the villages are all destitute
of trees, and most of them only supplied with what rain water the inhabitants can
save in cisterns. D'Arvieux gives us to understand, that several of the present
villages of the holy land are in the same situation; for, after observing that the Arabs
burn cow-dung in their encampments, he adds, that all the villagers who live in
places where there is a scarcity of wood, take great care to provide themselves with
sufficient quantities of this kind of fuel. See 1 Samuel 2:8. The holy land, from the
accounts we have of it, appears to have been as little wooded anciently as at present;
nevertheless the Israelites seem to have burned wood very commonly, and without
buying it too, from what the prophet says in the present verse. Had they been wont
to buy their fuel, they would not have then complained of it as such a hardship. The
true account of it seems to be this. The woods of the land of Israel being from very
ancient times common, the people of the villages, which, like those about Aleppo,
had no trees growing in them, supplied themselves with fuel out of these wooded
places, of which there were many anciently, and several that still remain. This
liberty of taking wood in common, the Jews suppose to have been one of the
constitutions of Joshua, of which they give us ten; the first giving liberty to an
Israelite to feed his flock in the woods of any tribe; the second, that he should be
free to take wood in the fields any where. But though this was the ancient custom in
Judaea, it was not so in the country into which they were carried captives; or if this
text of Jeremiah respects those who continued in their own country for a while
under Gedaliah, as the ninth verse insinuates, it signifies that their conquerors
possessed themselves of these woods, and would allow no fuel to be cut down
without leave, and that leave was not to be obtained without money. It is certain that
presently after the return from the captivity timber was not to be cut without leave:
ehemiah 2:8. See Observations, p. 218.
PETT, "Verse 4

29. We have drunk our water for money,
Our wood is sold to us.
Previously the water from their springs and rivers, and from their own cisterns, had
been freely available to them. ow they were being charged tolls for the privilege of
using it. Furthermore the trees from which they been able freely to obtain timber
were now in the hands of others who charged them for any wood that they obtained,
whilst there was presumably a charge for gathering firewood. Everyone was taking
advantage of them, and there was nothing that they could do about it.
5 Those who pursue us are at our heels;
we are weary and find no rest.
BAR ES, "Our necks ... - i. e. we were pursued so actively that our enemies seemed
to be leaning over our necks ready to seize us.
We labor - We were wearied, “there was no rest for us:” being chased incessantly.
CLARKE, "Our necks are under persecution - We feel the yoke of our bondage;
we are driven to our work like the bullock, which has a yoke upon his neck.
GILL, "Our necks are under persecution,.... A yoke of hard servitude and bondage
was put upon their necks, as Jarchi interprets it; which they were forced to submit unto:
or, "upon our necks we are pursued" (s); or, "suffer persecution": which Aben Ezra
explains thus, in connection with the Lam_5:4; if we carry water or wood upon our
necks, the enemy pursues us; that is, to take it away from us. The Targum relates a fable
here, that when Nebuchadnezzar saw the ungodly rulers of the children of Israel, who
went empty, he ordered to sow up the books of the law, and make bags or wallets of
them, and fill them with the stones on the banks of the Euphrates, and loaded them on
their necks:
we labour, and have no rest; night nor day, nor even on sabbath days; obliged to

30. work continually till they were weary; and, when they were, were not allowed time to rest
themselves, like their forefathers in Egypt.
HE RY, " Those are brought into slavery who were a free people, and not only their
own masters, but masters of all about them, and this is as much as any thing their
reproach (Lam_5:5): Our necks are under the grievous and intolerable yoke of
persecution (the iron yoke which Jeremiah foretold should be laid upon them, Jer_
28:14); we are used like beasts in the yoke, that wholly serve their owners, and are at the
command of their drivers. That which aggravated the servitude was, (1.) That their
labours were incessant, like those of Israel in Egypt, who were daily tasked, nay,
overtasked: We labour and have no rest, neither leave nor leisure to rest. The oxen in
the yoke are unyoked at night and have rest; so they have, by a particular provision of
the law, on the sabbath day; but the poor captives in Babylon, who were compelled to
work for their living, laboured and had no rest, no night's rest, no sabbath-rest; they
were quite tired out with continual toil. (2.) That their masters were insufferable (Lam_
5:8): Servants have ruled over us; and nothing is more vexatious than a servant when
he reigns, Pro_30:22. They were not only the great men of the Chaldeans that
commanded them, but even the meanest of their servants abused them at pleasure, and
insulted over them; and they must be at their beck too. The curse of Canaan had now
become the doom of Judah: A servant of servants shall he be. They would not be ruled
by their God, and by his servants the prophets, whose rule was gentle and gracious, and
therefore justly are they ruled with rigour by their enemies and their servants. (3.) That
they saw no probable way for the redress of their grievances: “There is none that doth
deliver us out of their hand; not only none to rescue us out of our captivity, but none to
check and restrain the insolence of the servants that abuse us and trample upon us,”
which one would think their masters should have done, because it was a usurpation of
their authority; but, it should seem, they connived at it and encouraged it, and, as if they
were not worthy of the correction of gentlemen, they are turned over to the footmen to
be spurned by them. Well might they pray, Lord, consider and behold our reproach.
JAMISO , "Literally, “On our necks we are persecuted”; that is, Men tread on our
necks (Psa_66:12; Isa_51:23; compare Jos_10:24). The extremest oppression. The foe
not merely galled the Jews face, back, and sides, but their neck. A just retribution, as
they had been stiff in neck against the yoke of God (2Ch_30:8, Margin; Neh_9:29; Isa_
48:4).
K&D, "Lam_5:5
"On our necks we are persecuted," i.e., our persecutors are at our necks, - are always
close behind us, to drive or hunt us on. It is inadmissible to supply any specific mention
of the yoke (imposito collo gravi servitutis jugo, Raschi, Rosenmüller, Vaihinger, etc.);
and we must utterly reject the proposal to connect "our neck" with Lam_5:4 (lxx, Syriac,
J. D. Michaelis), inasmuch as the symmetry of the verses is thereby destroyed, nor is any
suitable meaning obtained. "We are jaded: no rest is granted us." ‫ח‬ַ‫הוּנ‬ is Hophal of ַ‫יח‬ִ‫נ‬ ֵ‫,ה‬ to
give rest to. The Qeri ‫ּא‬‫ל‬ְ‫ו‬ instead of ‫ּא‬‫ל‬ is quite as unnecessary as in the case of ‫ין‬ ֵ‫,א‬ Lam_
5:3, and ‫ם‬ָ‫ינ‬ ֵ‫א‬ and ‫נוּ‬ ְ‫ח‬ַ‫נ‬ ֲ‫א‬ in Lam_5:7. The meaning of the verse is not, "we are driven over
neck and head," according to which the subject treated of would be the merciless
treatment of the prisoners, through their being driven on (Nägelsbach); still less is it

31. meant to be stated that the company to which the writer of the poem belonged was
always tracked out, and hunted about in the waste places where they wished to hide
themselves (Thenius). Neither of these interpretations suits the preceding and
succeeding context. Nor does the mention of being "persecuted on the neck" necessarily
involve a pursuit of fugitives: it merely indicates incessant oppression on the side of the
enemy, partly through continually being goaded on to hard labour, partly through
annoyances of different kinds, by which the victors made their supremacy and their
pride felt by the vanquished nation. In ‫ף‬ ַ‫ד‬ ָ‫ר‬ there is contained neither the notion of
tracking fugitives nor that of driving on prisoners.
CALVI , "Here he says that the people were oppressed with a grievous bondage. It
is, indeed, a metaphorical expression when he says, that people suffered persecution
on their necks. Enemies may sometimes be troublesome to us, either before our face,
or behind our backs, or by our sides; but when they so domineer as to ride on our
necks, in this kind of insult there is extreme degradation. Hence the Prophet here
complains of the servile and even disgraceful oppression of the people when he says,
that the Jews suffered persecution on their necks.
The meaning is, that the enemies so domineered at the, it pleasure, that the Jews
dared not to raise up their heads. They were, indeed, worthy of this reward — for
we know that they had an iron neck; for when God would have them to bear his
yoke, they were wholly unbending; nay, they were like untameable wild beasts. As,
then, their hardness had been so great, God rendered to them a just reward for their
pride and obstinacy, when their enemies laid such a burden on their necks. (225)
But the Prophet sets forth here this indignity, that he might turn God to mercy; that
is, that the Chaldeans thus oppressed as they pleased the chosen people.
He adds, that they labored and had no rest. He intimates by these words that there
were no limits nor end to their miseries and troubles; for the phrase in Hebrew is,
We have labored and there was no rest. It often happens that when one is pressed
down with evils for a short time, a relaxation comes. But the Prophet. says that there
was no end to the miseries of the people. Then to labor without rest is the same as to
be pressed down with incessant afflictions, from which there is no outlet. Their
obstinacy was worthy also of this reward, for they had fought against God, not for a
few months or years only, but for many years. We know how long the Prophet
called them without any success. Here, however, he seeks favor with God, by saying
that the people were miserable without limits or end.
On our neck (closely) have we been pursued,
We labored and had no rest.
Then comes in what they did when thus pursued by their enemies, —
To Egypt gave we the hand,
To Assyria, to be satisfied with bread.

32. To give the hand, in this case, was to put it forth as suppliants to ask help. This
seems to refer to a, time previous to their exile. — Ed.
PETT, "Verse 5
Our pursuers are on our necks,
We are weary, and have no rest.
The ‘pursuers’ are probably the men set to watch over them as they went about
their working day, or as they followed other pursuits. These ‘pursuers’ were
seemingly relentless in ensuring that they did not slacken off. Instead of them being
‘on our necks’ we would say that they were ‘on our backs’ (get off my back). And
the relentless pressure was proving too much. They were very weary and were
finding no opportunity to rest. (see Deuteronomy 28:43).
6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
to get enough bread.
BAR ES, "“To give the hand” means to submit oneself. Absolutely it was Babylon
that had just destroyed their national existence, but Jeremiah means that all feelings of
patriotism were crushed, and the sole care that remained was the desire for personal
preservation. To secure this the people would readily have submitted to the yoke either
of Egypt or Assyria, the great powers from which in their past history they had so often
suffered.
CLARKE, "We have given the hand to the Egyptians - We have sought
alliances both with the Egyptians and Assyrians, and made covenants with them in order
to get the necessaries of life. Or, wherever we are now driven, we are obliged to submit to
the people of the countries in order to the preservation of our lives.
GILL, "We have given our hand to the Egyptians,.... Either by way of
supplication, to beg bread of them; or by way of covenant and agreement; or to testify
subjection to them, in order to be supplied with food: many of the Jews went into Egypt
upon the taking of the city, Jer_43:5;
and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread; among whom many of the

33. captives were dispersed; since from hence they are said to be returned, as well as from
Egypt, Isa_11:16.
JAMISO , "given ... hand to — in token of submission (see on Jer_50:15).
to ... Egyptians — at the death of Josiah (2Ch_36:3, 2Ch_36:4).
Assyrians — that is, the Chaldeans who occupied the empire which Assyria had held.
So Jer_2:18.
to be satisfied with bread — (Deu_28:48).
K&D, "Lam_5:6
The meaning of ‫ן‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫נ‬ is more exactly defined by the superadded ַ‫ּע‬ ְ‫שׂ‬ ִ‫ל‬ ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ח‬ ֶ‫,ל‬ which belongs
to both members of the verse. "In order to satisfy ourselves with bread (so as to prolong
our lives), we give the hand to Egypt, to Assyria." ‫ם‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫ר‬ ְ‫צ‬ ִ‫מ‬ and ‫וּר‬ ፍ are local accusatives. To
give the hand is a sign of submission or subjection; see on Jer_50:15. Pareau has
correctly given the meaning thus: si victum nobis comparare velimus, vel Judaea nobis
relinquenda est atque Aegyptii sunt agnoscendi domini, vel si hic manemus, Chaldaeis
victoribus nos subjiciamus necesse est; quocunque nos vertamus, nihil superest nisi
tristissima servitus. This complaint shows, moreover, that it is those in Judea who are
speaking. ‫וּ‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫,נ‬ "we give the hand," shows that the assumption of Thenius, - that the
writer here brings to remembrance the fate of two other companies of his fellow-
countrymen who were not carried away into exile, - -is an arbitrary insertion. Asshur, as
the name of the great Asiatic empire, stands for Babylon, as in Ezr_6:22, cf. Jer_2:18.
CALVI , "He speaks here of the mendicity of the people, that they sought bread
from every quarter. To give the hand, is explained in three ways: some say that it
means humbly to ask; others, to make an agreement; and others, to extend it in
token of misery, as he who cannot ask for help, intimates his wants by extending his
hand. But the Prophet seems simply to mean that the people were so distressed by
want, that they begged bread. I then take the expression, to give the hand, as
meaning that they asked bread, as beggars usually do.
He now says that they gave or extended the hand both to the Egyptians and to the
Assyrians, which was a most unworthy and disgraceful thing; for the Egyptians had
been their most troublesome enemies, and the Assyrians afterwards followed their
example. At that time, indeed, the Egyptians pretended to be the friends of the
chosen people, and made a treaty with them; but the Jews were held in contempt by
them as they deserved, for they had prostituted as it were themselves like harlots.
As, then, they had been despised by the Egyptians, it was a disgrace and reproach
the most bitter, when they were compelled to beg bread in Egypt, and then in
Assyria; for this might have been turned to the bitterest taunts.
We now, then, perceive the meaning of the Prophet; even this reward also God
justly rendered to them. He had promised them a fruitful land, in which he was
ready to support them to the full. How often is mention made by Moses of corn,

34. wine, and oil; and why? in order that God might shew that that land exceeded every
other in fertility. It was, then, an evidence of an extreme curse when the people were
compelled to beg bread here and there, while yet the abundance of all things ought
to have been sufficient to supply even aliens,
“Thou shalt lend to others, but thou shalt not borrow.” (Deuteronomy 15:6.)
They then who ought to have fed others by their plenty, were so reduced that their
want forced them to undergo this disgrace, to beg bread of the Egyptians and
Assyrians. It follows, —
CO STABLE, "Even to get enough food to live, the people had to appeal to Egypt
and Assyria for help. This may refer to Judah"s earlier alliances with these nations
that proved futile (cf. Ezekiel 16:26-28; Ezekiel 23:12; Ezekiel 23:21). But probably
the writer used Assyria as a surrogate for Babylonia (cf. Jeremiah 2:18). Judah
could no longer provide for herself but had to beg for help from her Gentile
enemies.
PETT, "Verse 6
We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
In view of the mention of the Assyrians some see this as looking back to the past
when they had had to come to an agreement with either Egypt or Assyria in order to
be satisfied with bread, rather than looking wholly to YHWH. But the term
‘Assyria’ is elsewhere used to refer to countries in the north, Assyria being the first
port of call when crossing ‘the River’. Babylonians would come via Assyria. For
definite examples of this usage see for example Ezra 6:22; Jeremiah 2:18. Thus this
could equally apply to the prophet’s time with some being beholden to Egypt and
others to Babylon via Assyria. This may indicate that the Babylonians were tightly
controlling the food supply. It was an ignominious position to be in.
7 Our ancestors sinned and are no more,
and we bear their punishment.

35. BAR ES, "And are not; and we ... - Or, they are not; “we have borne their
iniquities.” Our fathers who began this national apostasy died before the hour of
punishment.
CLARKE, "Our fathers have sinned, and are not - Nations, as such, cannot be
punished in the other world; therefore national judgments are to be looked for only in
this life. The punishment which the Jewish nation had been meriting for a series of years
came now upon them, because they copied and increased the sins of their fathers, and
the cup of their iniquity was full. Thus the children might be said to bear the sins of the
fathers, that is, in temporal punishment, for in no other way does God visit these upon
the children. See Eze_18:1, etc.
GILL, "Our fathers have sinned, and are not,.... In the world, as the Targum
adds; they were in being, but not on earth; they were departed from hence, and gone into
another world; and so were free from the miseries and calamities their children were
attended with, and therefore more happy:
and we have borne their iniquities; the punishment of them, or chastisement for
them: this is not said by way of complaint, much less as charging God with injustice, in
punishing them for their fathers' sins, or to excuse theirs; for they were ready to own
that they had consented to them, and were guilty of the same; but to obtain mercy and
pity at the hands of God.
JAMISO , "(Jer_31:29).
borne their iniquities — that is, the punishment of them. The accumulated sins of
our fathers from age to age, as well as our own, are visited on us. They say this as a plea
why God should pity them (compare Eze_18:2, etc.).
K&D, "Lam_5:7
"We suffer more than we are guilty of; we are compelled to bear the iniquities of our
fathers," i.e., to atone for their guilt. There is a great truth contained in the words, "Our
fathers have sinned; they are no more; we bear their iniquities (or guilt)." For the fall of
the kingdom had not been brought about by the guilt of that generation merely, and of
none before; it was due also to the sins of their fathers before them, in previous
generations. The same truth is likewise expressed in Jer_16:11; Jer_32:18; and in 2Ki_
23:26 it is stated that God did not cease from His great wrath because of the sins of
Manasseh. But this truth would be perverted into error, if we were to understand the
words as intimating that the speakers had considered themselves innocent. This false
view, however, they themselves opposed with the confession in Lam_5:16, "for we have
sinned;" thereby they point out their own sins as the cause of their misfortune. If we
compare this confession with the verse now before us, this can only mean the following:
"The misfortune we suffer has not been incurred by ourselves alone, but we are
compelled to atone for the sins of our fathers also." In the same way, too, Jeremiah (Jer_
16:11) threatens the infliction of a penal judgment, not merely "because your fathers
have forsaken me (the Lord)," but he also adds, "and ye do still worse than your fathers."

36. God does not punish the sins of the fathers in innocent children, but in children who
continue the sins of the fathers; cf. Isa_65:7, and the explanation given of Jer_31:29 and
Eze_18:2. The design with which the suffering for the sins of the fathers is brought
forward so prominently, and with such feeling, is merely to excite the divine compassion
for those who are thus chastised.
CALVI , "The Prophet seems here to contend with God, and to utter that
blasphemy mentioned by Ezekiel. For when God severely chastised the people, that
proverb was commonly used by them,
“Our fathers did eat a sour grape, and our teeth are blunted.” (Ezekiel 18:2.)
Thus they intimated that they were unjustly and cruelly treated, because they
suffered the punishment of others, when they themselves were innocent. So the
Prophet seems to quarrel with God when he says that the fathers who sinned were
no more; but as we shall presently see, the Prophet confesses also the sins of those
who were yet alive. As, then, an ingenuous confession is made by the Prophet, he no
doubt abstained here from that blasphemy which is so severely reproved by Ezekiel.
Jeremiah had nothing farther from his purpose than to free the people from all
blame, as though God had dealt cruelly with them, according to what is said by a
heathen poet, —
“For the sins of the fathers thou undeservedly sufferest, O Roman!” (226)
Another says, —
“Enough already by our blood
Have we suffered for the perjuries of Laomedonian Troy.” (227)
They mean that the people of their age were wholly innocent, and seek in Asia and
beyond the sea the cause of evils, as though they never had a sin at Rome. But the
meaning of Jeremiah was not this, but he simply intended to say that the people who
had been long rebellious against God were already dead, and that it was therefore a
suitable time for God to regard the miseries of their posterity. The faithful, then, do
not allege here their own innocency before God, as though they were blameless; but
only mention that their fathers underwent a just punishment, for that whole
generation had perished. Daniel speaks more fully when he says,
“We have sinned, and our fathers, and our kings.”
(Daniel 9:8.)
He involved in the same condemnation both the fathers and their children.
But our Prophet’s object was different, even to turn God to mercy, as it has been
stated; and to attain this object he says, “O Lord, thou indeed hast hitherto executed
just punishment, because our fathers had very long abused thy goodness and
forbearance; but now the time is come for thee to try and prove whether we are like

37. our fathers: as, then, they have perished as they deserved, receive us now into
favor.” We hence see that thus no quarrel or contention is carried on with God, but
only that the miserable exiles ask God to look on them, since their fathers who had
provoked God and had experienced his dreadful vengeance, were already dead.
(228)
And when he says that the sons bore the iniquity of the fathers, though it be a strong
expression, yet its meaning is not as though God had without reason punished their
children and not their fathers; for unalterable is that declaration,
“The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father the iniquity of the
son; but the soul that sinneth it shall die.”
(Ezekiel 18:20.)
It may yet be said that children are loaded with the sins of their fathers, because
God, as he declares by Moses, extends his vengeance to the third and fourth
generation. (Exodus 20:5.) And he says also in another place,
“I will return into the bosom of children the iniquity of their fathers.”
(Jeremiah 32:18.)
God then continued his vengeance to their posterity. But yet there is no doubt but
that the children who had been so severely punished, bore also the punishment of
their own iniquity, for they deserved a hundred deaths. But these two things well
agree together, that God returns the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their
children, and yet that the children are chastised for their own sins.
“Delicta majorum immeritus lues, Romane.”
“Satis jampridem sanguine nostro
Laomedonteae luimus perjuria Troiae.”
Our fathers, they sinned and are not;
We, their iniquities have we borne.
To bear iniquities, is here evidently to bear their penalty. So when Christ is said to
bear our sins, the same thing is meant. — Ed.
COKE,"Lamentations 5:7. Our fathers have sinned— That is, "Though our fathers
have been guilty of great sins, they have died without signal punishment and
calamities; which are come upon us their children, who thus bear the punishment of
theirs, as well as of our own iniquities." See Daniel 8:11; Daniel 8:27. This seems to
be the plain meaning of the present verse; and if so, it certainly gives no
countenance to the interpretation in the note on chap. Lamentations 3:27. See
Ezekiel 2:3.
CO STABLE, "The present generation of Judeans was bearing the punishment for

38. the sins that their fathers, who had long since died, had initiated. They had
continued and increased the sins of their fathers. Jeremiah rejected the idea that
God was punishing his generation solely because of the sins of former generations (
Jeremiah 31:29-30). His contemporaries had brought the apostasy of earlier
generations to its worst level, and now they were reaping its results.
PETT, "Verse 7
Our fathers sinned, and are not,
And we have borne their iniquities.
The prophet acknowledged that their fathers had sinned and were no longer alive.
They had suffered the penalty of sin. And now their offspring themselves were
‘bearing their iniquities’. The sins of the fathers were being visited on the children.
But this was not a matter of excusing themselves. It was an acknowledgement that
YHWH had a right to be angry because sin had been continual, and a recognition
that sins pass on from father to children as the children copy their father. Thus they
had to bear God’s judgment on both their father’s sins and their own. They were
not claiming to be innocent as Lamentations 5:16 makes clear. They were rather
recognising the reality that sons tend to ape their fathers (see Jeremiah 16:10-11;
Jeremiah 32:18), which the principle lying behind punishment to the third and
fourth generation (Exodus 20:5). When people fell into gross sin it affected not only
themselves but their descendants. However, we must remember that such
consequences were always avoidable by coming to God in true repentance. God was
always ready to respond to such repentance, as the whole sacrificial system made
clear.
PULPIT, "We have borne their iniquities. The fathers died before the iniquity was
fully ripe for punishment, and their descendants have the feeling that the
accumulated sins of the nation are visited upon them. This view of national troubles
is very clearly endorsed by one important class of passages (Exodus 20:5; Exodus
34:7; umbers 14:18; Jeremiah 32:18). The objection to it is forcibly expressed by
Job (Job 21:19), "God [it is said] layeth up his iniquity for his children: [but] let him
requite it to himself, that he may feel it!" Hence Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:30) and
Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18:1, etc.) insist on the truth that every man is punished for his own
sins. Of course the two views of punishment are reconcilable. The Jews were not
only punished, according to Jeremiah 16:11, Jeremiah 16:12, for their fathers' sins,
but for their own still more flagrant offences.
8 Slaves rule over us,
and there is no one to free us from their hands.

39. BAR ES, "Servants - i. e. Slaves. A terrible degradation to a high-spirited Jew.
CLARKE, "Servants have ruled over us - To be subject to such is the most
painful and dishonorable bondage: -
Quio domini faciant,
audent cum talia fures?
Virg. Ecl. 3:16.
“Since slaves so insolent are grown,
What may not masters do?”
Perhaps he here alludes to the Chaldean soldiers, whose will the wretched Jews were
obliged to obey.
GILL, "Servants have ruled over us,.... The Targum is,
"the sons of Ham, who were given to be servants to the sons of Shem, they have ruled
over us;''
referring to the prophecy of Noah, Gen_9:26; or such as had been tributary to the Jews,
as the Edomites; so Aben Ezra; the Babylon, an, are meant; and not the nobles and
principal inhabitants only, but even their servants, had power and authority over the
Jews and they were at their beck and command; which made their servitude the more
disagreeable and intolerable:
there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand; out of the hand of these
servants.
JAMISO , "Servants ... ruled ... us — Servants under the Chaldean governors
ruled the Jews (Neh_5:15). Israel, once a “kingdom of priests” (Exo_19:6), is become
like Canaan, “a servant of servants,” according to the curse (Gen_9:25). The Chaldeans
were designed to be “servants” of Shem, being descended from Ham (Gen_9:26). Now
through the Jews’ sin, their positions are reversed.
K&D, "Further description of the miserable condition under which the congregation
languishes. Lam_5:8. "Servants rule over us," etc. ‫ים‬ ִ‫ד‬ ָ‫ב‬ ֲ‫ע‬ are not the Chaldean soldiers,
who are in 2Ki_24:10 designated the servants of Nebuchadnezzar (Pareau, Rosenmüller,
Maurer); still less the Chaldeans, in so far as they, till shortly before, had been the
subjects of the Assyrians (Kalkschmidt); nor the Chaldean satraps, as servants of the

40. king of Babylon (Thenius, Ewald); nor even "slaves who had been employed as overseers
and taskmasters of the captives while on the march" (Nägelsbach); but the Chaldeans.
These are called servants, partly because of the despotic rule under which they were
placed, partly in the sense already indicated by C. B. Michaelis, as being those qui nobis
potius, si pii fuissemus, servire debuissent, in accordance with the analogous
designation of Jerusalem as a princess among the countries of the world, Lam_1:1.
CALVI , "Another circumstance aggravated the calamity of the people, that they
came under the power of servants, which is more degrading than when the rich and
the eminent in wealth and power make us their servants. For it is no shame to serve
a king, or at, least a man who possesses some eminence; for that servitude which is
not apparently degrading is deemed tolerable. But when we become the servants of
servants, it is a most afflicting degradation, and most grievously wounds our minds.
It is, then, for this indignity that Jeremiah now expostulates, and says that servants
ruled over them. There is, indeed, no doubt but that they were driven into exile by
some of the lowest; for the Chaldeans thought it right to exercise towards them
every kind of cruelty. But it was yet a very mournful thing for God’s children to be
the slaves of servants; for they were before a sacerdotal kingdom, and God had so
taken them under his protection, that their condition was better and more desirable
than that of any other kingdom. As, then, they had been robbed of their liberty, and
not only so, but also made subject to servants, the change was sad in the extreme.
(229) Therefore the Prophet sought another occasion to plead for mercy, when he
said that they were ruled by servants. It now follows, —
CO STABLE, "Even slaves among the oppressors were dominating God"s people,
and there was no one to deliver them. Only the poorest of the Judahites remained in
the land following the destruction of Jerusalem in586 B.C, but even the lowest
classes of Chaldeans were dominating them.
"Israel, once a "kingdom of priests" ( Exodus 19:6), is become like Canaan, "a
servant of servants," according to the curse ( Genesis 9:25). The Chaldeans were
designed to be "servants" of Shem, being descended from Ham ( Genesis 9:26). ow
through the Jews" sin, their positions are reversed." [ ote: Jamieson, et al, p667.]
PETT, "Verse 8
Servants rule over us,
There is none to deliver us out of their hand.
It is an open question here whether this means ‘servants’ of the king of Babylon,
signifying Babylonian officials (in which case Deuteronomy 28:48 applies), or ex-
Israelite servants promoted to positions of authority by the Babylonians. But either
way the people clearly felt the ignominy of it. They were not being ruled by their
Israelite peers. And because YHWH was no longer on their side there was no one to
deliver them from them. Jeremiah had once asked, ‘Is Israel a servant? Is he a
homeborn slave?’ (Jeremiah 2:14). And the answer now was ‘yes’.

41. PULPIT, "Servants have ruled; rather, slaves. The Babylonians in general might be
called slaves, by comparison with the "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6), and the
"sons" of Jehovah (Isaiah 45:11; Hosea 1:10). Or the expression may mean that
even baseborn hangers on of the conquering host assumed the right to command the
defenceless captives.
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives
because of the sword in the desert.
BAR ES, "We gat - Or, We get “our bread at the peril of our lives.” This verse
apparently refers to those who were left in the land, and who in gathering in such fruits
as remained, were exposed to incursions of the Bedouin, here called “the sword of the
desert.”
CLARKE, "We gat our bread with the peril of our lives - They could not go
into the wilderness to feed their cattle, or to get the necessaries of life, without being
harassed and plundered by marauding parties, and by these were often exposed to the
peril of their lives. This was predicted by Moses, Deu_28:31.
GILL, "We gat our bread with the peril of our lives,.... This seems to refer to the
time of the siege when they privately went out of the city to get in some provision, but
went in danger of their lives:
because of the sword of the wilderness: or, "of the plain" (t); because of the, word
of the Chaldean army, which lay in the plain about Jerusalem into whose hand there was
danger of falling, and of being cut to pieces.
JAMISO , "We gat our bread with ... peril — that is, those of us left in the city
after its capture by the Chaldeans.
because of ... sword of ... wilderness — because of the liability to attack by the
robber Arabs of the wilderness, through which the Jews had to pass to get “bread” from
Egypt (compare Lam_5:6).

42. K&D, "Lam_5:9
And in addition to this humiliation under dishonourable servitude, we can get our
daily bread only at the risk of our life. Thus there is fulfilled to them the threatening in
Deu_28:28, "Ye shall be servants among your enemies, in hunger and thirst, in
nakedness and want of everything." ‫נוּ‬ ֵ‫שׁ‬ ְ‫פ‬ַ‫נ‬ ְ , "for the price of our soul," i.e., with our life at
stake, we bring in our bread. The danger is more exactly described by what is added:
"before the sword of the wilderness." By this expression are meant the predatory
Bedouins of the desert, who, falling upon those that were bringing in the bread,
plundered, and probably even killed them. The bringing of the bread is not, however, to
be referred (with Rosenmüller, Maurer, and Kalkschmidt) to the attempts made to
procure bread from the neighbouring countries; still less is it to be referred (with
Thenius, Ewald, and Nägelsbach) to the need for "wringing the bread from the desert
and its plunderers;" but it refers to the ingathering of the scanty harvest in the country
devastated by war and by the visitations of predatory Bedouins: ‫יא‬ ִ‫ב‬ ֵ‫ה‬ is the word
constantly employed in this connection; cf. 2Sa_9:10; Hag_1:6.
CALVI , "The word ‫,חרב‬ chereb, means drought as well as sword. As the Prophet
is speaking of famine and the desert,, I have no doubt but that dryness or drought is
sword the word means here; and I wonder that the word sword had occurred to
any; they could not have regarded the context.
He then says that the people sought bread with the soul, that is, at the hazard of
their own life. If danger be preferred, I do not object. But as he simply says, with the
soul, he seems to express this, that for food they hazarded their own life. Food,
indeed, is the support of life, for why is bread sought but for sustaining life? But the
hungry so rush headlong to procure food, that they expose themselves to thousand
dangers, and they also weary themselves with many labors; and this is to seek bread
with their soul, that is, when men not only anxiously labor to procure food, but pour
forth as it were their own blood, as when one undertakes a long journey to get some
support, lie is almost lifeless when he reaches the distant hospital. As, then, the Jews
nowhere found food, the Prophet says that they sought bread with their life, that is,
at the hazard of life. This is the view I prefer.
He then adds, For the dryness of the wilderness. What has the sword to do with
wilderness? We see that this is wholly unsuitable; there was then no reason why
interpreters should pervert this word. But what he calls the dryness of the
wilderness was the want by which the people were distressed, as though they were in
the wilderness. This is said by way of comparison, — that on account of the dryness
of the desert, that is, on account of sterility, they were under the necessity of
exposing their life to death, only that they might anywhere find bread. (230)
It may also be, that the Prophet meant, that they were fugitives, and thus went in
hunger through woods and forest, when they dared not to go forth into the open
country lest the enemy should meet them. But what I have said is most suitable, that

43. is, that they were so famished as though they were in a vast desert, and far away
from every hospital, so that bread could nowhere be found. We now, then, perceive
the meaning of the Prophet. He adds, —
At the risk of our life we got our bread,
On account of the sword of the desert
— Ed.
COKE, "Lamentations 5:9. With the peril of our lives, &c.— I can no otherwise
understand this, than that on account of their weak and defenceless state the people
were continually exposed, while they followed their necessary business, to the
incursions of the Arabian freebooters, who might not be improperly styled, "the
sword of the wilderness." See Harmer's Observ. ch. 2: Obs. 5 and 6.
PETT, "Verse 9
We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
When they left the safety of their cities and went into the countryside, which was
now bare and neglected, in order to grow their food, the Israelites were always in
danger of Bedouin raiders, or local bandits who were waiting to swoop on them. The
population was sparse and there was no organised defence against such raiders. The
country was at the mercy of marauders. It made obtaining food a risky, and even
fatal, business. ‘At the peril of our lives’ is more literally ‘for the price of our soul’.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven,
feverish from hunger.
BAR ES, "Our skin ... - Or, is fiery red like an oven because of the fever-blast “of
famine.”
CLARKE, "Our skin was black - because of the terrible famine - Because of

44. the searching winds that burnt up every green thing, destroying vegetation, and in
consequence producing a famine.
GILL, "Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible famine. Or
"terrors and horrors of famine"; which are very dreadful and distressing: or, "the
storms of famine"; see Psa_11:6; or, "burning winds" (u); such as are frequent in Africa
and Asia; to which the famine is compared that was in Jerusalem, at the siege of it, both
by the Chaldeans and Romans; and as an oven, furnace, or chimney becomes black by
the smoke of the fire burnt in it, or under it; so the skins of the Jews became black
through these burning winds and storms, or burnings of famine; see Lam_4:8. So Jarchi
says the word has the signification of "burning"; for famine as it were burns up the
bodies of men when most vehement.
HE RY, "Those who used to be feasted are now famished (Lam_5:10): Our skin was
black like an oven, dried and parched too, because of the terrible famine, the storms of
famine (so the word is); for, though famine comes gradually upon a people, yet it comes
violently, and bears down all before it, and there is no resisting it; and this also is their
disgrace; hence we read of the reproach of famine, which in captivity their received
among the heathen, Eze_36:30.
JAMISO , "As an oven is scorched with too much fire, so our skin with the hot blast
of famine (Margin, rightly, “storms,” like the hot simoom). Hunger dries up the pores so
that the skin becomes like as if it were scorched by the sun (Job_30:30; Psa_119:83).
K&D, "Lam_5:10
The bread which we are thus obliged to struggle for, at the risk of our life, is not even
sufficient to allay hunger, which consumes our bodies. ‫ר‬ ַ‫מ‬ ְ‫כ‬ִ‫נ‬ does not mean to be
blackened (Chaldee, Kimchi, C. B. Michaelis, Maurer), but in Gen_43:30; 1Ki_3:26, and
Hos_11:8, to be stirred up (of the bowels, compassion), hence to kindle, glow. This last
meaning is required by the comparison with ‫וּר‬ ַ , oven, furnace. This comparison does
not mean cutis nostra tanquam fornace adusta est (Gesenius in Thes., Kalkschmidt),
still less "black as an oven" (Dietrich in Ges. Lex.), because ‫וּר‬ ַ does not mean the oven
viewed in respect of its blackness, but (from ‫)נוּר‬ in respect of the fire burning in it. The
meaning is, "our skin glows like a baker's oven" (Vaihinger, Thenius, Nägelsbach,
Gerlach), - a strong expression for the fever-heat produced by hunger. As to ‫ּות‬‫פ‬ ֲ‫ע‬ ְ‫ל‬ַ‫,ז‬
glowing heat, see on Psa_11:6.
CALVI , "Some read, “for tremors;” literally, “from the face of tremors.” Jerome
renders it, “tempests,” but the word “burnings” is the most suitable; for he says that
their skins were darkened, and he compares them to an oven. This metaphor often
occurs in Scripture,

45. “Though ye have been as among pots in the smoke, and deformed by blackness, yet
your wings shall shine.” (Psalms 68:14.)
God says that his people had contracted blackness, as though they had touched
smoky pots, because they had been burnt as it were by many afflictions; for when
we pine away in our evils, filthiness itself deforms us. But here he compares to an
oven (which is the same thing) their skins or skin. He then says that the skin of every
one was so wrinkled and darkened by blackness, that it was like an oven which is
black through constant fire and smoke. The Prophet or whoever was the author of
the 119th Psalm, uses another comparison, that he was like a bottle or a bladder,
contracted by the smoke, and had wrinkles together with blackness. (231)
The meaning is, that there was a degrading deformity in the people, for they were so
famished that no moisture remained in them; and when moisture fails, then paleness
and decay follow; and then from paleness a greater deformity and blackness, of
which the Prophet now speaks. Hence I have said, that the word “burnings” is the
most proper. For, if we say tempests or storms, a tempest does not certainly darken
the skin; and if we render it tremors or tremblings, this would be far remote; but if
we adopt the word burnings, the whole passage will appear consistent; and we
know, that as food as it were irrigates the life of man, so famine burns it up, as
Scripture speaks also elsewhere. It follows, —
Our skins, like an oven they became black,
Because of the horrors of famine (or, horrible famine.)
The word for “skins” is in the plural number according to several copies, and the
verb requires it to be so. — Ed.
PETT, "Verse 10
Our skin is stirred up (or ‘black’) like an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.
The starvation conditions in which they were living had had its effect on their
bodies. Their skin glowed like the stirred up ashes of a baker’s oven, caused by the
feverish heat of hunger. (For the meaning ‘stirred up’ rather than ‘black’ see
Genesis 43:30; 1 Kings 3:26; Hosea 11:8)
PULPIT, "Was black like an oven. The translation is misleading; there is no real
parallel to Lamentations 4:8. Render, gloweth. It is the feverish glow produced by
gnawing hunger which is meant. The terrible famine; rather, the burning heat of
hunger. Hariri, the humoristic author of the cycle of stories in rhymed Arabic prose
and verse, called 'Makamat,' puts into the mouth of his ne'er do well Abu Seid very
similar words to describe a famished man—
"Dess Eingeweide brennend nach Erquickung sehrein,
Der nichts gegessen seit zwei Tagen oder drein."

46. (Ruckert's adaptation, third Makama.)
11 Women have been violated in Zion,
and virgins in the towns of Judah.
BAR ES, "They ravished - They humbled.
CLARKE, "They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of
Judah - The evil mentioned here was predicted by Moses, Deu_28:30, Deu_28:32, and
by Jeremiah, Jer_6:12.
GILL, "They ravished the women in Zion,.... Or "humbled" them (w); an
euphemism; the women that were married to men in Zion, as the Targum; and if this
wickedness was committed in the holy mountain of Zion, it was still more abominable
and afflicting, and to be complained of; and if by the servants before mentioned, as Aben
Ezra interprets it, it is another aggravating circumstance of it; for this was done not in
Babylon when captives there; but at the taking of the city of Jerusalem, and by the
common soldiers, as is too often practised:
and the maids in the cities of Judah; in all parts of the country, where the
Chaldean army ravaged, there they ravished the maids. The Targum is,
"the women that were married to men in Zion were humbled by strangers; (the Targum
in the king of Spain's Bible is, by the Romans;) and virgins in the cities of Judah by the
Chaldeans;''
suggesting that this account has reference to both destructions of the city, and the
concomitants and consequences thereof.
HE RY 11-13, "All sorts of people, even those whose persons and characters were
most inviolable, were abused and dishonoured. (1.) The women were ravished, even the
women in Zion, that holy mountain, Lam_5:11. The committing of such abominable

47. wickednesses there is very justly and sadly complained of. (2.) The great men were not
only put to death, but put to ignominious deaths. Princes were hanged, as if they had
been slaves, by the hands of the Chaldeans (Lam_5:12), who took a pride in doing this
barbarous execution with their own hands. Some think that the dead bodies of the
princes, after they were slain with the sword, were hung up, as the bodies of Saul's sons,
in disgrace to them, and as it were to expiate the nation's guilt. (3.) No respect was
shown to magistrates and those in authority: The faces of elders, elders in age, elders in
office, were not honoured. This will be particularly remembered against the Chaldeans
another day. Isa_47:6, Upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. (4.) The
tenderness of youth was no more considered than the gravity of old age (Lam_5:13):
They took the young men to grind at the hand-mills, nay, perhaps at the horse-mills.
The young men have carried the grist (so some), have carried the mill, or mill-stones,
so others. They loaded them as if they had been beasts of burden, and so broke their
backs while they were young, and made the rest of their lives the more miserable. Nay,
they made the little children carry their wood home for fuel, and laid such burdens upon
them that they fell down under them, so very inhuman were these cruel taskmasters!
JAMISO , "So in just retribution Babylon itself should fare in the end. Jerusalem
shall for the last time suffer these woes before her final restoration (Zec_14:2).
K&D, "Lam_5:11-12
With this must further be considered the maltreatment which persons of every station,
sex, and age have to endure. Lam_5:11. Women and virgins are dishonoured in
Jerusalem, and in the other cities of the land. Lam_5:12. Princes are suspended by the
hand of the enemy (Ewald, contrary to the use of language, renders "along with" them).
To hang those who had been put to death was something superadded to the simple
punishment by death (Deu_21:22.), and so far as a shameful kind of execution. "The old
men are not honoured," i.e., dishonoured; cf. Lam_4:16; Lev_19:32. The words are not
to be restricted to the events mentioned in Jer_39:6, but also apply to the present
condition of those who are complaining,
CALVI , "He mentions here another kind of reproach, that women had been
ravished in Jerusalem, and in other cities. (232) God had commanded chastity to be
observed among his people. When, therefore, virgins and women were thus defiled,
it was a thing extremely disgraceful. But the Prophet mentioned this also, in order
that God might at length show himself propitious to his people after having been
entreated. (Deuteronomy 22:21.)
And he mentioned Sion rather than Jerusalem, — it was indeed to state a part for
the whole; but that place, we know, had been chosen by God that his name might be
there worshipped. Sion, then, was a holy place above any other; it was, in a word,
the earthly dwelling of God. As, then, God had there his palace, that he might dwell
in the midst of his people, it was a disgraceful sight in the extreme to see women
ravished there, for the temple of God was thus violated. It was not only a thing
disgraceful to the people, that women were thus ravished, but it was a filthy
profanation of God’s worship, and therefore sacrilegious. We now see the design of
the Prophet. He mentions also the cities of Judah, but with reference to the same

48. thing. It follows —
Women in Sion they humbled (or, were humbled,)
And virgins in the cities of Judah.
It is humbled by the Sept. and Vulg. “And” before “virgins” is supplied by the Vulg.
and Syr. — Ed.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "Verses 11-18
SI A D SHAME
Lamentations 5:11-18
THE keynote of the fifth elegy is struck in its opening verse when the poet calls upon
God to remember the reproach that has been cast upon His people. The preceding
poems dwelt on the sufferings of the Jews; here the predominant thought is that of
the humiliations to which they have been subjected. The shame of Israel and the sin
which had brought it on are now set forth with point and force. If, as some think,
the literary grace of the earlier compositions is not fully sustained in the last chapter
of Lamentations-although in parts of it the feeling and imagination and art all touch
the high-water mark-it cannot be disputed that the spiritual tone of this elegy
indicates an advance on the four earlier poems. We have sometimes met with wild
complaints, fierce recriminations, deep and terrible curses that seem to require some
apology if they are to be justified. othing of the kind ruffles the course of this
faultless meditation. There is not a single jarring note from beginning to end, not
one phrase calling for explanation by reference to the limited ideas of Old
Testament times or to the passion excited by cruelty, insult, and tyranny, not a line
that reads painfully even in the clear light of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The vilest
outrages are deplored; and yet, strange to say, no word of vindictiveness towards
the perpetrators escapes the lips of the mourning patriot! How is this? The sin of the
people has been confessed before as the source of all their misery; but since with it
shame is now associated as the principal item in their affliction, we can see in this
fresh development a decided advance towards higher views of the whole position.
May we not take this characteristic of the concluding chapter of the Book of
Lamentations to be an indication of progress in the spiritual experience of its
author? Perhaps it is to be partially explained by the fact that the poem throughout
consists of a prayer addressed directly to God. The wildest, darkest passions of the
soul cannot live in the atmosphere of prayer. When men say of the persecutor,
"Behold he prayeth," it is certain that he cannot any longer be "breathing
threatening and slaughter." Even the feelings of the persecuted must be calmed in
the presence of God. The serenity of the surroundings of the mercy-seat cannot but
communicate itself to the feverish soul of the suppliant. To draw near to God is to
escape from the tumults of earth and breathe the still, pure air of heaven. He is
Himself so calm and strong, so completely sufficient forevery emergency, that we
begin to enter into His rest as soon as we approach His presence. All unawares,

49. perhaps unsought, the peace of God steals into the heart of the man who brings his
troubles to his Father in prayer.
Then the reflections that accompany prayer tend in the same direction. In the light
of God things begin to assume their true proportions. We discover that our first
fierce outcries were unreasonable, that we had been simply maddened by pain so
that our judgment had been confused. A psalmist tells us how he understood the
course of events which had previously perplexed him by taking his part in the
worship of the sanctuary, when referring to his persecutors, the prosperous wicked,
he exclaims, "Then understood I their end Psalms 73:13." In drawing near to God
we learn that vengeance is God’s prerogative, that He will repay; therefore we can
venture to be still and leave the vindication of our cause in His unerring hands. But,
further, the very thirst for revenge is extinguished in the presence of God, and that
in several ways: we see that the passion is wrong in itself; we begin to make some
allowance for the offender; we learn to own kinship with the man while condemning
his wickedness; above all, we awake to a keen consciousness of our own guilt.
This, however, is not a sufficient explanation of the remarkable change in tone that
we have observed in the fifth elegy. The earlier poems contain prayers, one of which
degenerates into a direct imprecation. [Lamentations 3:65] If the poet had wholly
given himself to prayer in that case as he has done here, very possibly his tone would
have been mollified. Still, we must look to other factors for a complete explanation.
The writer is himself one of the suffering people. In describing their wrongs he is
narrating his own, for he is "the man who has seen affliction." Thus he has long
been a pupil in the school of adversity. There is no school at which a docile pupil
learns so much. This man has graduated in sorrow. It is not surprising that he is not
just what he was-when he matriculated. We must not press the analogy too far,
because, as we have seen, there is good reason to believe that none of the elegies
were written until some time after the occurrence of the calamities to which they
refer, that therefore they all represent the fruit of long brooding over their theme.
And yet we may allow an interval to have elapsed between the composition of the
earlier ones and that of the poem with which the book closes. This period of longer
continued reflection may have been utilised in the process of clearing and refining
the ideas of the poet. It is not merely that the lessons of adversity impart fresh
knowledge or a truer way of looking at life and its fortunes. They do the higher
work of education-they develop culture. This, indeed, is the greatest advantage to be
gained by the stern discipline of sorrow. The soul that has the grace to use it aright
is purged and pruned, chastened and softened, lifted to higher views, and at the
same time brought down from self-esteem to deep humiliation. Here we have a
partial explanation of the mystery of suffering. This poem throws light on the
terrible problem by its very existence, by the spirit and character which it exhibits.
The calmness and self-restraint of the elegy, while they deepen the pathos of the
whole scene, help us to see as no direct statement would do, that the chastisement of
Israel has not been inflicted in vain. There must be good even in the awful miseries
here described in such patient language.
The connection of shame with sin in this poem is indirect and along a line which is

50. the reverse of the normal course of experience. The poet does not pass from sin to
shame; he proceeds from the thought of shame to that of sin. It is the humiliating
condition in which the Jews are found that awakens the idea of the shocking guilt of
which this is the consequence. We often have occasion to acknowledge the fatal
hindrance of pride to the right working of conscience. A lofty conception of one’s
own dignity is absolutely inconsistent with a due feeling of guilt. A man cannot be
both elated and cast down at the same moment. If his elation is sufficiently sustained
from within it will effectually bar the door to the entrance of those humbling
thoughts which cannot but accompany an admission of sin. Therefore when this
barrier is first removed, and the man is thoroughly humbled, he is open to receive
the accusations of conscience. All his fortifications have been flung down. There is
nothing to prevent the invading army of accusing thoughts from marching straight
in and taking possession of the citadel of his heart.
The elegy takes a turn at the eleventh verse. Up to this point it describes the state of
the people generally in their sufferings from the siege and its consequences. But now
the poet directs attention to separate classes of people and the different forms of
cruelty to which they are severally subjected in a series of intensely vivid pictures.
We see the awful fate of matrons and maidens, princes and elders, young men and
children. Women are subjected to the vilest abuse, neither reverence for
motherhood nor pity for innocence affording the least protection. Men of royal
blood and noble birth are killed and their corpses hung up in ignominy-perhaps
impaled or crucified in accordance with the vile Babylonian custom. There is no
respect for age or office. either is there any mercy for youth. In the East grinding
is women’s work; but, like Samson among the Philistines, the young men of the Jews
are put in charge of the mills. The poet seems to indicate that they have to carry the
heavy millstones in the march of the returning army with the spoils of the sacked
city. The children are set to the slave task of Gibeonites. The Hebrew word here
translated children might stand for young people who had reached adult years.
[Lamentations 5:13] But in the present case the condition is that of immature
strength, for the burden of wood they are required to bear is too heavy for them and
they stumble under it. This is the scene-outrage for the girls and women, slaughter
for the leading men, harsh slavery for the children.
ext, passing from these exact details, the poet again describes the condition of the
people more generally, and this time under the image of an interrupted feast, which
is introduced by one more reference to the changes that have come upon certain
classes. The elders are no longer to be seen at the gate administering the primitive
forms of law entrusted to them. The young men are no longer to be heard
performing on their musical instruments. [Lamentations 5:14] Still speaking for the
people, the poet declares that the joy of their heart has ceased. Then the aspect of all
life must be changed to them. Instead of the gay pictures of dancers in their revelry
we have the waiting of mourners. The guest at a feast would be crowned with a
garland of flowers. Such was once the appearance of Jerusalem in her merry
festivities. But now the garland has fallen from her head. [Lamentations 5:15-16]
This imagery is a relief after the terrible realism of the immediately preceding

51. pictures. We cannot bear to look continuously at scenes of agony, nor is it well that
we should attempt to do so, because if we could succeed it would only be by
becoming callous. Then the final result would be not to excite deeper sympathy, but
the very reverse, and at the same time a distinctly lowering and coarsening effect
would be produced in us. And yet we may not smother up abuses in order to spare
our own feelings. There are evils that must be dragged out to the light in order that
they may be execrated, punished, and destroyed. "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" broke the
back of American slavery before President Lincoln attacked it. Where, then, shall
we find the middle position between repulsive realism and guilty negligence? We
have the model for this in the Biblical treatment of painful subjects. Scripture never
gloats over the details of crimes and vices; yet Scripture never flinches from
describing such things in the plainest possible terms. If these subjects are ever to
become the theme of art-and art claims the whole of life for her domain-imagination
must carry us away to the secondary effects rather than vivify the hideous
occurrences themselves. The passage before us affords an excellent illustration of
this method. With a few keen, clear strokes the poet sketches in the exact situation.
But he shows no disposition to linger on ghastly details. Though he does not shrink
from setting them before us in unmistakable truth of form and colour, he hastens to
a more ideal treatment of the subject, and relieves us with the imaginary picture of
the spoiled banquet. Even Spenser sometimes excites a feeling of positive nausea
when he enlarges on some most loathsome picture. It would be unendurable except
that the great Elizabethan poet has woven the witchery of his dainty fancy into the
fabric of his verse. Thus things can be said in poetry which would be unbearable in
prose, because poetry refines with the aid of imagination the tale that it does not
shrink from telling quite truly and most forcibly.
The change in the poet’s style prepares for another effect. While we are
contemplating the exact details of the sufferings of the different classes of outraged
citizens, the insult and cruelty and utter abomination of these scenes rouse our
indignation against the perpetrators of the foulest crimes, and leave nothing but pity
for the victims. It is not in the presence of such events that the sins of Israel can be
brought home to the people or even called to mind. The attempt to introduce the
thought of them there would seem to be a piece of heartless officiousness. And yet it
is most important to perceive the connection between all this misery and the
previous misconduct of the Jews which was its real cause. Accordingly intermediate
reflections, while they let the scenes of blood and terror recede, touch on the general
character of the whole in a way that permits of more heart-searching self-
examination. Thus out of the brooding melancholy of this secondary grief we are led
to a distinct confession of sin on the part of the people. [Lamentations 5:16]
This is the main result aimed at throughout the whole course of chastisement. Until
it has been reached little good can be effected. When it is attained the discipline has
already wrought its greatest work. As we saw at the outset, it is the shame of the
situation that awakens a consciousness of guilt. Humbled and penitent, the
chastened people are just in the position at which God can meet them in gracious
pardon. Strictly speaking, perhaps we should say that this is the position to which
the elegist desires to lead them by thus appearing as their spokesman. And yet we

52. should not make too sharp a distinction between the poet and his people. The elegy
is not a didactic work; the flavour of its gentle lines would be lost directly they lent
themselves to pedagogic ends. It is only just to take the words before us quite
directly, as they are written in the first person plural, for a description of the
thoughts of at least the group of Jews with whom their author associated.
The confession of sin implies in the first place a recognition of its existence. This is
more than a bare, undeniable recollection that the deed was done. It is possible by a
kind of intellectual jugglery even to come to a virtual denial of this fact in one’s own
consciousness. But to admit the deed is not to admit the sin. The casuistry of self-
defence before the court of self-judgment is more subtle than sound, as every one
who has found out his own heart must be aware. In this matter, "the heart is
deceitful above all things." [Jeremiah 17:9] ow it is not difficult to take part in a
decorous service where all the congregation are expected to denominate themselves
miserable offenders, but it is an entirely different thing to retreat into the silent
chamber of our own thought, and there calmly and deliberately, with full
consciousness of what the words mean, confess to ourselves, "We have sinned." The
sinking of heart, the stinging humiliation, the sense of self-loathing which such an
admission produces, are the most miserable experiences in life. The wretchedness of
it all is that there is no possibility of escaping the accuser when he is self. We can do
nothing but let the shame of the deed burn in the conscience without any mollifying
salve-until the healing of Divine forgiveness is received.
But, in the second place, confession of sin goes beyond the secret admission of it by
the conscience, as in a case heard in camera. Chiefly it is a frank avowal of guilt
before God. This is treated by St. John as an essential condition of forgiveness by
God, when He says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." [1 John 1:9] How far
confession should also be made to our fellow men is a difficult question. In bidding
us confess our "faults one to another," [James 5:16] St. James may be simply
requiring that when we have done anybody a wrong we should own it to the injured
person. The harsh discipline of the white sheet is not found in apostolic times, the
brotherly spirit of which is seen in the charity which "covereth a multitude of sins."
[1 Peter 4:8] And yet, on the other hand, the true penitent will always shrink from
sailing under false colours. Certainly public offences call for public
acknowledgment, and all sin should be so far owned that whether the details are
known or not there is no actual deception, no hypocritical pretence at a virtue that is
not possessed, no willingness to accept honours that are quite unmerited. Let a man
never pretend to be sinless, nay, let him distinctly own himself a sinner, and, in
particular, let him not deny or excuse any specific wickedness with which he is justly
accused; and then for the rest, "to his own Lord he standeth or falleth.". [Romans
14:4]
When the elegist follows his confession of sin with the words, "For this our heart is
faint," etc., [Lamentations 5:17] it is plain that he attributes the sense of failure and
impotence to the guilt that has led to the chastisement. This faintness of heart and
the dimness of sight that accompanies it, like the condition of a swooning person,

53. suggests a very different situation from that of the hero struggling against a
mountain of difficulties, or that of the martyr triumphing over torture and death.
The humiliation is now accounted for, and the explanation of it tears to shreds the
last rag of pride with which the fallen people might have attempted to hide it. The
abject wretchedness of the Jews is admitted to be the effect of their own sins. o
thought can be more depressing. The desolation of Mount Zion, where jackals prowl
undisturbed as though it were the wilderness, is a standing testimony to the sin of
Israel. Such is the degradation to which the people whom the elegist here represents
are reduced. It is a condition of utter helplessness; and yet in it will rise the dawn of
hope; for when man is most empty of self he is most ready to receive God. Thus it is
that from the deepest pit of humiliation there springs the prayer of trust and hope
with which the Book of Lamentations closes.
PETT, "Verse 11
They ravished the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
The Israelite women were now easy prey for the Babylonian soldiers so that many
women, including virgins, were ravished in Jerusalem, and many virgins in the cities
of Judah. Few were safe from their attentions. Israel were a conquered people, and
their women were see as fair prey.
12 Princes have been hung up by their hands;
elders are shown no respect.
BAR ES, "After the princes had been put to death their bodies were hung up by the
hand to expose them to public contumely. Old age, again, no more availed to shield men
from shameful treatment than the high rank of the princes. Such treatment of conquered
enemies was not uncommon in ancient warfare.
CLARKE, "Princes are hanged up by their hand - It is very probable that this
was a species of punishment. They were suspended from hooks in the wall by their
hands till they died through torture and exhaustion. The body of Saul was fastened to the

54. wall of Bethshan, probably in the same way; but his head had already been taken off.
They were hung in this way that they might be devoured by the fowls of the air. It was a
custom with the Persians after they had slain, strangled, or beheaded their enemies, to
hang their bodies upon poles, or empale them. In this way they treated Histiaeus of
Miletum, and Leonidas of Lacedaemon. See Herodot. lib. 6 c. 30, lib. 7 c. 238.
GILL, "rinces are hanged up by their hand,.... According to some, as Aben Ezra
observes, by the hand of the servants before mentioned; however, by the hand of the
Chaldeans or Babylonians; see Jer_52:10. Some understand it of their own hands, as if
they laid violent hands upon themselves, not being able to bear the hardships and
disgrace they were subjected to but I should rather think this is to be understood of
hanging them, not by the neck, but by the hand, could any instance be given of such a
kind of punishment so early used, and by this people; which has been in other nations,
and in more modern times:
the faces of elders were not honoured; no reverence or respect were shown to
elders in age or office, or on account of either; but were treated with rudeness and
contempt.
JAMISO , "hanged ... by their hand — a piece of wanton cruelty invented by the
Chaldeans. Grotius translates, “Princes were hung by the hand of the enemy”; hanging
was a usual mode of execution (Gen_40:19).
elders — officials (Lam_4:16).
CALVI , The beginning of the verse may be explained in two ways. All render thus,
“The princes have been slain by their hand,” that is, of their enemies. But I wonder
how it never occurred to them, that it was far more grievous, that they were slain by
their own hand. I certainly do not doubt but that the Prophet says here, that some of
the princes had laid violent hands on themselves. For it would be a frigid expression,
that the princes were hung by the hand of enemies; but if we read, that the princes
were hung by their own hand, this would be far more atrocious, as we have before
seen that even women, excelling in humanity, devoured their own offspring. So he
says now that princes were hung, not by enemies, for it was a common thing for the
conquered to be slain by their enemies, and be also hung by way of reproach; but
the Prophet, as it appears to me, meant to express something more atrocious, even
that the miserable princes were constrained to lay violent hands on themselves. (233)
He adds, that the faces of the aged were not honored; which is also a thing not
natural; for we know that some honor is always rendered to old age, and that time
of life is commonly regarded with reverence. When, therefore, no respect is shown
to the aged, the greatest barbarity must necessarily prevail. It is the same, then, as
though the Prophet had said that the people had been so disgracefully treated, that
their enemies had not even spared the aged. We also now understand why he adds
this, for it would have otherwise appeared incredible, that the princes hung
themselves by their own hand. But he here intimates that there was no escape for

55. them, except they in despair sought death for themselves, because all humanity had
disappeared. It follows, —
Princes were by their hand hung up,
The persons of the aged were not honored.
— Ed.
CO STABLE, "Verse 11-12
The enemy had raped the women and girls in Jerusalem and Judah. Respected princes had
experienced the most humiliating deaths, and the enemy gave no respect to Judah"s
elderly. Since ebuchadnezzar evidently did not torture his victims (cf. Jeremiah 52:10-11;
Jeremiah 52:24-27), it may be that the Chaldeans strung up the princes by their hands-
after they had died-to dishonor them (cf. Deuteronomy 21:22-23). [ ote: Keil, 2:451.]
PETT, "Verse 12
Princes were hanged up by their hand,
The faces of elders were not honoured.
The cruelty of conquerors was well known. The ‘princes’ may well have been dead,
for the display of the dead bodies of important people was a regular practise
(compare Saul and his princely sons in 1 Samuel 31:10; 1 Samuel 31:12). We know
from the ancient records that it was certainly an Assyrian practise. The idea was to
shame the leadership and frighten people into submission. But it would not be
unknown for men to be hung up alive, as centuries later Jesus Christ would be for
our sins.
The elders and the older men in any nation were usually treated with respect. But it
was not so in this case. Here they were from a land of rebels. Thus instead of being
honoured they were ‘not honoured’, that is, were treated with disrespect.
PULPIT, "Princes are hanged up by their hand; i.e. by the hand of the enemy.
Impalement after death was a common punishment with the Assyrians and
Babylonians. Thus Sennacherib says that, after capturing rebellious Ekron, he hung
the bodies of the chief men on stakes all round the city ('Records of the Past,' 1.38).
Benomi gives a picture of such an impalement from one of the plates in Botta's great
work.
BI 12-18, "The elders have ceased from the gate.
The seat of justice overthrown
1. It is a grievous plague unto a people when the seat of justice is overthrown from
among them.
(1) Reasons.
(a) It bringeth in all confusion and disorder.

56. (b) No man can enjoy anything as his own.
(c) Every one lieth open to the violence of spoilers, and hath no succour nor
redress.
(2) Uses.
(a) Better have tyrants govern us, than be void of all government.
(b) Pray unto God for the government under which we live, that in the
prosperity thereof we may have peace.
(c) Acknowledge all lawful magistrates to be the special ordinances of God,
appointed for our good, and therefore to be obeyed and reverenced.
2. The overthrow of magistracy among a people taketh all occasions of rejoicing from
all sorts of people. “The young men from their music.”
(1) Reasons.
(a) Many great blessings are lost, and many griefs come upon them which
will make the heart heavy.
(b) They have no safety, but have cause every one to fear another, and to
stand upon his own guard, as though he were in the midst of his enemies.
(2) Use. Pray to God that He would never leave us without those heads and
governors that may take care to protect us in peace; for if He do, our life will be
more bitter than death itself.
3. Honest recreations and delights are to be esteemed among the good blessings that
God giveth His people in this life.
(1) It is here accounted by the Holy Ghost a grievous thing that they are deprived
of them.
(2) Neither body nor mind can continue able and apt to their duties without
some intermission, but it is never lawful to be idle. (J. Udall.)
The joy of our heart is ceased, our dance is turned into mourning.
God’s people may apprehend themselves stripped of all cause of joy
This is the condition of these distressed creatures in the land of Babylon; whilst they
were in Judea, they used to rejoice in their harvest, and to shout at their vintage (Isa_
16:10). They had the mirth of tabrets and their harps melodiously sounding in their
streets (Isa_24:8). But now there is a crying for wine in all quarters, their joy is
darkened, and the mirth of the land is gone (Isa_24:11). All causes of joy are sometimes
taken from God’s: precious saints; thus it fared with Israel upon the pursuit of Pharaoh,
when she was passing out of Egypt into the land of Canaan (Exo_14:10). Neither was it
better with Job in the time of his affliction (Job_30:17-18; Job_30:31). Do but look
upon the sweet singer of Israel, and you shall find him in as bad a condition; for the
sorrows of death encompassed him, the pains of hell got hold upon him, and he found
nothing but trouble and sorrow (Psa_116:1-19). The Lord takes away all cause of
rejoicing from, that He may the more deeply humble them for the evil of their ways.
Great afflictions effect the like submissions, with strong cries to the God of heaven (Jdg_
6:6; Jdg_10:13-15). God’s great design in thus dealing with them, is to purge them from

57. their dross (Isa_27:9), to make them cast off the sin of their souls; you know gold, that it
may be refined, must as it were be encompassed with flames (Zec_13:8-9). The best are
prone to rest upon the reeds of Egypt, to rely too much upon worldly vanities, therefore
God makes the joy of their hearts to cease, that He may take them off from dependency
upon creature comforts (Jer_3:22-23; Hos_14:2-3). Beware of sin, it will cause both sad
looks and heavy hearts (Gen_4:7; Amo_8:8-10). Keep your eye upon heaven (2Ch_
20:12), it is only a ray of His favour that can cheer your hearts (Psa_9:9-10). Disclaim
help from others, trust not to yourselves (Isa_30:1-3; Isa_31:1; Psa_20:7; 2Co_1:9).
Created substances are but vanities.
I. The precious sons of Zion may be much discouraged in their sufferings. And when
Zion was in affliction, did she not as one in despair cry out, My strength and my hope is
perished from the Lord (Lam_3:17-18)?
(1) Sudden and boisterous storms sometimes make stout-hearted seamen to give
up all for gone (Psa_88:3-8; Isa_54:11; Mat_27:46).
(2) Feeble things are soon thrown down, they want strength, it is weakness of
faith that dejects their spirits (Mat_8:24-26). Give a check to the heaviness, to
the sadness of your souls, when you are in afflictions (Psa_43:5). The apostles
carried themselves gallantly with much cheerfulness in the worst of times (Rom_
5:3; Act_21:13).
Now that you may come near them in the same spirit, consider—
(1) That the sorrows of our Saviour were very dolorous (Mat_26:38; Luk_
22:42).
(2) That what befalls you is incident to the best of saints (1Co_10:13; Son_2:2).
(3) That death will put a period to all your troubles.
(4) That God hath promised to deliver His chosen ones (Psa_126:5-6; Job_
16:33). Brag not of what spirit you will be when you come to suffer; you have but
a little strength in yourselves, your hearts may come to deceive you, to fail you
when troubles come with a strong current upon you; thus did Peter, yet denied
his Master (Mar_14:29; Mar_14:31; Mar_14:68, etc).
2. Keep up your heads, your hearts above the waters of sorrow, let them not sink
your spirits, but under the worst of evils, retain your joy, and in patience possess
your souls (Lam_3:26; Psa_27:13-14). (D. Swift.)
The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!—
Man’s fall from love into selfishness
The secret of man’s perfection may be summed up in these short words, Love to God.
The secret of man’s sin may be stated as shortly, Defect of love to God. As the former
implied truth and holiness, and purity of motive, and unity of wilt with His will, so this
latter implies the departure of all these graces. But not only this. The heart allows no
vacuum: sin is not a negative only, but a positive condition; where love has departed,
there the opposite of love enters, namely, selfishness, with all its baneful consequences.
And the essence of selfishness is, that a man lives not for and in another, be that other
his neighbour, or his God, hut for and in himself. Now notice, that this selfishness,
arising out of defect of love to God, and in God to others, is not an act, or a series of acts

58. in man, but a state, out of which spring, as the symptoms out of a disease, those sinful
acts of selfishness, which we call sins. Selfishness has turned love into lust, dignity into
pride, humility into meanness, zeal into ambition, charity into ostentation; has made the
strong man into a tyrant, the womanly into the womanish character, the childlike into
the childish; has turned family and friendly love into partisanship, patriotism into
faction, religion itself into bigotry. It penetrates into, and infiltrates every thought, every
desire, every word, every act; so that whatsoever is of it, and not of faith, is sin. And its
seat is in the noblest, the godlike, the immortal and responsible spirit of man. So that it
is no longer worthy of that noble title of the Spirit, reminding us of God; but they who
are thus, are named in Scripture unspiritual, and their whole state is called “the flesh”;
not that it springs from the flesh, but because it sinks them into the flesh. Another
degrading consequence results from this usurpation by self of the place of God within us.
Man placed under love, though in bond and covenant to God and his neighbour, was
really and essentially free; a child of God’s family; his will and God’s will being one, law
became to him liberty. But under selfishness, though he has broken loose from covenant
with God and his neighbour, he is to all intents and purposes, a slave; in bondage to his
own desires and passions, which he ought to be, and wishes to be, ruling. “The truth,”
declares our Lord, “shall make you free”; but all sin is a lie, It practically denies God,—
whose being, and whose power, and whose love constitute the great truth of this
universe: this is the negative side of its falsehood; and it sets up self and other creatures
in God’s place as lord and guide of man’s being: this is its positive side. It apes the
perfections and attributes of God, and makes man into a miserable counterfeit,
betraying, by that which he wishes to appear, that which he really ought to be. Well then,
it now comes before us as a solemn question, seeing that our whole nature, the nature of
each man, is thus gone astray, and that every one of us has an abiding tendency to
selfishness and to evil—Whence came this tendency? How had it its beginning? This
tendency is a departure from God who made us; and cannot therefore have been God’s
work. And this departure can only have begun by an act of the will of man. God created
us free, gave our first parents a command to keep, which very fact implied that they had
power to break it. Now there was no reasonable ground for breaking it, but every
imaginable reason against such conduct; the departure was not an act of the convinced
reason, but an act of that which we know as self-will—a leaning to self in spite of reason
and conscience. So that sin had its practical beginning in the will of man. And this
beginning we read of in Scripture in the history of the Fall. At once man’s personality,
the inner soul of his nature, passes into a different relation to God: it is torn out of the
covenant of His love; stands over against Him as His enemy; trembles at His approach.
All peace, all innocence, is gone. The body, God’s beautiful and wonderful work,
becomes the seat of shame. Man, knowing that he is naked, flies from God and hides
himself. And as the spirit of man has renounced its allegiance to God, so have now the
animal soul and the body thrown off their allegiance to the spirit. Anarchy enters into his
being, and holds wild misrule. The gravitation of the spiritual world is overthrown, its
laws of attraction are suspended; the lower revolts against the higher, the lowest against
the lower. And as in man, so in man’s world. In a moment the poison spreads, electric,
over the kingdom which he should have ruled; the elements disown him, the beasts of
the forest glare upon him, the ground is cursed for his sake. The king of nature is self-
deposed,—his palace is broken up, his delights are scattered, his sweet fellowship with
his helpmate is marred,—and he is driven out a wanderer. Then first sprung forth the
bitter fountains of tears, destined to furrow the cheeks of untold generations; then first
the hands were clenched, and the brow grasped, and the breast beaten,—and the
vastness of inward woe sought relief in outward gesture. Verily, the crown had fallen

59. from his head; woe unto him, that he had sinned. (Dean Alford.)
13 Young men toil at the millstones;
boys stagger under loads of wood.
BAR ES, "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 Isa_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.
CLARKE, "They took the young men to grind - This was the work of female
slaves. See the note on Isa_47:2.
GILL, "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 Jdg_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 context will
not admit of such a sense:
and the children fell under the wood; such loads of wood were laid upon them,
that they could not bear them, but fell under them. Aben Ezra understands it of moving

60. the wood of the mill, of turning the wooden handle of it; or the wooden post, the rider or
runner, by which the upper millstone was turned: this their strength was not equal to,
and so failed. The Targum interprets it of a wooden gibbet, or gallows; some wooden
engine seems to be had in view, used as a punishment, which was put upon their necks,
something like a pillory; which they were not able to stand up under, but fell.
JAMISO , "young men ... grind — The work of the lowest female slave was laid
on young men (Jdg_16:21; Job_31:10).
children fell under ... wood — Mere children had to bear burdens of wood so
heavy that they sank beneath them.
K&D, "Lam_5:13-14
Youths and boys are forced to engage in heavy servile work. ‫ּון‬‫ח‬ ְ‫ט‬ ‫אוּ‬ ְ‫ֽשׂ‬ָ‫נ‬ does not mean
"they take them for the mill," ad molendum sumpserunt (Ewald, Rosenmüller). Apart
from the consideration that there is no ground for it in the language employed, such a
view of the words does not accord with the parallelism. ‫א‬ ָ‫שׂ‬ָ‫,נ‬ construed with a simple
infinitive or accusative (without ְ‫,)ל‬ does not mean "to take for something." ‫ּון‬‫ח‬ ְ‫ט‬ is a
substantive, "the mill." "To bear (carry) the mill" signifies to work at and with the mill.
We must think of the hand-mill, which was found in every household, and which could
thus be carried from one place to another. Grinding was the work of salves; see on Jdg_
16:21. The carrying of the mill (not merely of the upper millstone) is mentioned as the
heaviest portion of the work in grinding. "Boys stagger (fall down) on the wood laid on
them to be carried," i.e., under the burden of it. ‫ל‬ ַ‫שׁ‬ ָⅴ with ְ means to stumble on
something; here ְ denotes the cause of the stumbling; cf. Jer_6:21; Lev_26:37. It is
arbitrary to understand ‫ץ‬ ֵ‫ע‬ as meaning the wooden handle of the mill (Aben Ezra, and
Bochart in Hieroz. i. 157, ed. Rosenmüller); the same must also be said regarding the
opinion of Thenius and Nägelsbach, who refer the words to the dragging of the hand-
mills, and of the wood necessary for baking bread for the comfort of the soldiers, on the
march of the captives to Babylon.
CO STABLE, "Verse 13-14
Young men had to grind grain like animals (cf. Judges 16:21), and small children
buckled under the loads of firewood that the enemy forced them to carry. Elders no
longer sat at the town gates dispensing wisdom and justice, and young men no
longer played music, bringing joy and happiness into the people"s lives. These were
marks of the disappearance of peaceful and prosperous community living
conditions.
PETT, "Verse 13
The young men bore the burden of the mill,
And the children stumbled under the wood.
The use of hand mills with which people in ancient towns regularly ground their
grain was commonplace. But it was seen as the work of women or slaves. ow,
however, it was the young men of Israel who were being forced to carry the mills to

61. wherever they were needed, and were then required to operate them in order to
grind the grain (see Judges 16:21, which was however a larger mill). And the
younger children who were being forced into service carrying wood under which
they staggered because of the weight. They had become an enslaved people.
PULPIT, "They took the young men to grind; rather, the young men have borne the
mill. The lower millstone seems to have been specially hard, and therefore heavy
(see Job 41:24), and to carry it about must have required a more severe exertion
even than the constant turning of the mill handle. Dr. Thomson "cannot recall an
instance in which men were grinding at the mill", and both Exodus 11:5 and
Matthew 24:41 presuppose that it was women's work. The conquered Jewish
youths, however, share the fate of Samson—
"Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill with slaves."
('Samson Agonistes,' 41.)
"Eyeless," indeed, they may some of them have been, as putting out the eyes was a
common Oriental punishment (comp. Jeremiah 39:7). The children. This is,
perhaps, too strong. The Hebrew na‛ar is applicable, not only to children, but to
youths at the age for marriage (Genesis 34:19) or war (1 Kings 20:15). The wood;
not the wooden handle of the mill, but the wood required for fuel.
14 The elders are gone from the city gate;
the young men have stopped their music.
BAR ES, "The gate - The gate was the place for public gatherings, for conversation,
and the music of stringed instruments.
CLARKE, "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.
GILL, "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

62. 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, Psa_137:1.
HE RY 14-15, " An end was put to all their gladness, and their joy was quite
extinguished (Lam_5:14): The young men, who used to be disposed to mirth, have
ceased from their music, have hung their harps upon the willow-trees. It does indeed
well become old men to cease from their music; it is time to lay it by with a gracious
contempt when all the daughters of music are brought low; but it speaks some great
calamity upon a people when their young men are made to cease from it. It was so with
the body of the people (Lam_5:15): The joy of their heart ceased; they never knew what
joy was since the enemy came in upon them like a flood, for ever since deep called unto
deep, and one wave flowed in upon the neck of another, so that they were quite
overwhelmed: Our dance is turned into mourning, instead of leaping for joy, as
formerly, we sink and lie down in sorrow. This may refer especially to the joy of their
solemn feasts, and the dancing used in them (Jdg_21:21), which was not only modest,
but sacred, dancing; this was turned into mourning, which was doubled on their festival
days, in remembrance of their former pleasant things.
8. An end was put to all their glory. (1.) The public administration of justice was their
glory, but that was gone: The elders have ceased from the gate (Lam_5:14); the course
of justice, which used to run down like a river, is now stopped; the courts of justice,
which used to be kept with so much solemnity, are put down; for the judges are slain, or
carried captive. (2.) The royal dignity was their glory, but that also was gone: The crown
has fallen from our head, not only the king himself fallen into disgrace, but the crown;
he has no successor; the regalia are all lost. Note, Earthly crowns are fading falling
things; but, blessed be God, there is a crown of glory that fades not away, that never
falls, a kingdom that cannot be moved. Upon this complaint, but with reference to all
the foregoing complaints, they make that penitent acknowledgment, “Woe unto us that
we have sinned! Alas for us! Our case is very deplorable, and it is all owing to ourselves;
we are undone, and, which aggravates the matter, we are undone by our own hands. God
is righteous, for we have sinned.” Note, All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly.
If the crown of our head be fallen (for so the words run), if we lose our excellency and
become mean, we may thank ourselves, we have by our own iniquity profaned our crown
and laid our honour in the dust.
JAMISO , "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, Job_29:8).
CALVI , "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.

63. 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 legitimate amusements, life becomes brutal, for we know
that man is a sociable being. By these words, then, the Prophet shews that a
dreadful desolation appeared in the city after the people had gone into exile. And
among the Chaldeans, and in Assyria, they had not their own judges nor any form
of government, for they were dispersed and scattered, and that designedly, that they
might not unite together any more; for it was the purpose of the Chaldeans to
obliterate by degrees the very name of the people; and hence they were not there
formed into a community. So justly does the Prophet deplore their desolation even
in exile. It follows, —
PETT, "Verse 14
The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their music.
The area within and around the gate of the city was where much local activity took
place. It was often the only place in the city where there was an open space. Most
cities were unplanned and simply a mass of houses huddled together. But the space
before the gate was always left open. There the elders of the city would meet to
deliberate and make decisions, and try local cases (Job 29:7; Proverbs 31:23). There
too they would sit and watch the movement of people through the gates and enjoy
amusements and entertainment, whilst the young men would take the opportunity to
show off their musical skills. But in woebegone Judah no such activities were
occurring. Life was low key.
15 Joy is gone from our hearts;
our dancing has turned to mourning.
GILL, "The joy of our heart is ceased,.... ward joy was gone, as well as the external
signs of it: it "sabbatized" (y), as it may be rendered; alluding perhaps to the cordial joy

64. expressed formerly on their sabbaths and other festivals, now not observed; at least, not
with that joy, inward and outward, they formerly were:
our dance is turned into mourning; which also was used at their solemn feasts, as
well as at their common diversions, Jdg_21:21; but now no more of that; but, instead of
it, mourning at the calamities they were oppressed with; and at the remembrance of
mercies and privileges, civil and religious, they were deprived of.
K&D, "Lam_5:15-16
Under the pressure of such circumstances, all public meetings and amusements have
ceased. "The elders cease from the fate." The gate was the place of assembly for the
people, not merely for deliberating upon public affairs (Rth_4:15; Jos_20:4), but also
"for social entertainment (since there were no refreshment-rooms, coffeehouses, and
public baths, such as are now to be found in the East), or even for quiet enjoyment in
looking at the motley multitude of passers-by; Gen_19:1; 1Sa_4:18; 1Sa_9:18; Job_29:7"
(Winer's Bibl. R.W.B. s.v. Thor). That the gate is here to be regarded as a place of
entertainment and amusement, is shown by the parallel member, "young men cease
from their instrumental music;" cf. Lam_1:4. On Lam_5:15, cf. Jer_7:34; Jer_16:9, and
Jer_31:13; Psa_30:12. Lastly, in Lam_5:16, the writer sums up the whole of the misery
in the complaint, "The crown of our head is fallen! woe unto us, for we have sinned," i.e.,
we suffer the punishment for our sins. "The fallen crown can only be a figurative
expression for the honourable position of the people in its entirety, but which is now
lost." Such is the view which Ewald rightly takes; on the other hand, the interpretation of
Thenius, that "the 'crown of our head' is nothing else than Zion, together with its
palaces, placed on Jerusalem, as it were on the head [of the country], and adorning it,"
deserves mention simply as a curious specimen of exegetical fancy. Nägelsbach has gone
too far in restricting the figurative expression to the crown of Jerusalem, which consists
in her being mistress among the nations, a princess among the regions of the earth
(Lam_1:1), the perfection of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth (Lam_2:15); for "our
crown" is not equivalent to Jerusalem, or a crown on the head of Jerusalem.
CALVI , "He pursues the same subject, but he seems more clearly to explain what
he had briefly stated in the preceding verse, when he says that all joy of the heart
had ceased, and that all the dances were turned into mourning (234) We know that
life is more bitter than death when men are in constant mourning; and truly where
there is no hilarity, that state of life is worse than death. And this is what the
Prophet now means by saying that all joy had ceased, and that all dances were
converted into mourning.
Turned into mourning was our piping.
The word does not mean dancing, but playing on some fistular instrument. — Ed.
PETT, "Verse 15
The joy of our heart is ceased,
Our dance is turned into mourning.
o longer were the inhabitants of Judah joyful at heart. Life under an oppressive

65. regime had removed all the joy out of life. And instead of meeting to dance, the
women would gather to mourn.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
BAR ES, "Literally, “The crown of our head is fallen,” i. e. what was our chief
ornament and dignity is lost; the independence of the nation, and all that gave them
rank and honor.
CLARKE, "The crown is fallen from our head - At feasts, marriages, etc., they
used to crown themselves with garlands of flowers; all festivity of this kind was now at
an end. Or it may refer to their having lost all sovereignty, being made slaves.
GILL, "The crown is fallen from our head,.... Or, "the crown of our head is fallen"
(a); all their honour and glory as a nation were gone; the glory of their kingdom and
priesthood, to both which a crown or mitre belonged; the glory of church and state.
Aben Ezra interprets it of the temple, the place of the divine Majesty. Sanctius thinks
there is an allusion to the crowns they wore upon their heads at their feasts and festivals;
and so the words have a close connection with what goes before:
woe unto us that we have sinned! which had brought all these evils upon them: this
is not to be considered as an imprecation or denunciation of misery; but as a
commiseration of their case; calling upon others to it, and particularly God himself, to
have mercy upon them; for, alas for them! they had sinned, and justly deserved what was
come upon them; and therefore throw themselves at the feet of mercy, and implore
divine compassion.
JAMISO , "The crown — all our glory, the kingdom and the priesthood (Job_19:9;
Psa_89:39, Psa_89:44).
CALVI , "By the crown of the head he no doubt understands all those ornaments
by which that people had been adorned. They had a kingdom and a priesthood,
which were like two luminaries or two precious jewels; they had also other things by
which the Lord had adorned them. As, then, they were endued with such excellent

66. things, they are said to have borne a crown on their head But a crown was not only
taken for a diadem, — it was also a symbol of joy and of honor; for not only kings
then wore crowns, but men were crowned at weddings and feasts, at games also, and
theatres. The Prophet, in a word, complains, that though many ornaments did
belong to the people, yet now they were denuded of them all: The crown, he says,
has fallen from our head (235)
He then exclaims, Woe to us now, for we have sinned! Here he sets forth an extreme
misery, and at the same time shews that all hope of restoration was taken away. He,
however, mentions the cause, because they had done wickedly By saying this he did
not intend to exasperate their sorrow, so that they who were thus afflicted might
murmur against God; but, on the contrary, his object was to humble the afflicted, so
that they might perceive that they were justly punished. It is the same as though he
had summoned them as guilty before the tribunal of God, and pronounced in one
word that they justly suffered or sustained so grievous a punishment; for a just God
is an avenger of wickedness.
We hence conclude, that when he said yesterday that the fathers who had sinned
were dead, and their iniquity was borne by their children, he did not so speak as to
exempt the living from all blame; for here he condemns them and includes himself
in the number. But I explained yesterday the meaning of that verse; and here the
Prophet ingenuously confesses that the people were justly punished, because they
had by their sins provoked the wrath of God. And this doctrine ought to be carefully
observed; because when we are pressed down by adversities, Satan will excite us to
sorrow, and at the same time hurry us on to rage, except this doctrine comes to our
minds, that we have to do with God, who is a righteous Judge. For the knowledge of
our sins will tame our pride and also check all those clamorous complaints, which
the unbelieving are wont to utter when they rise up against God. Our evils, then,
ought to lead us to consider God’s judgment and to confess our sins; and this was
the end which our Prophet had in view. It follows, —
Fallen has the crown of our head.
Then the “woe” in the next line is only declarative, —
Woe is now to us, because we have sinned.
The particle “now” is omitted in our version. — Ed.
COKE,"Lamentations 5:16. The crown is fallen from our head— At their fears, at
their marriages, and other seasons of festivity, they used to crown themselves with
flowers. The prophet probably alludes to this custom, as we may gather from the
preceding verses. The general meaning is, "All our glory is at an end, together with
the advantages of being thy people, and enjoying thy presence, by which we were
eminently distinguished from the rest of the world."
PETT, "Verse 16

67. The crown is fallen from our head,
Woe to us! for we have sinned.
The crown is fallen from our head’ might be a reference to the fact that they no
longer had a king ruling over them. But far more likely in mind was the festal
garland crown often worn at feasts. Compare Isaiah 28:1 where it had become faded
and was being grossly misused). It was a symbol of fruitfulness and joy. But there
was no grounds for wearing such a crown in those difficult and oppressive times, for
there was nothing to be joyful about. The people who had once gathered in festal joy
now had no grounds for festivities. The crown of joy and fruitfulness lay discarded
on the ground.
‘Woe to us, for we have sinned.’ And now after the long catalogue of miseries that
they were enduring we come to the people’s admission as to why things were like
this. It was because they had sinned. That was why these woes had come upon them.
This was one of the most important lessons to come from the laments, an admission
that their condition was due to their sins.
17 Because of this our hearts are faint,
because of these things our eyes grow dim
BAR ES, "Is faint ... - Or, has become “faint” - have become “dim.” “For this,” i. e.
for the loss of our crown etc.
GILL, "For this our heart is faint,.... Our spirits sink; we are ready to swoon and die
away; either for this, that we have sinned; because of our sins, they are so many, so
great, and so aggravated; or for those distresses and calamities they have brought upon
us before mentioned; or for the desolation of Zion, more especially, after expressed; and
so the Targum,
"for this house of the sanctuary, which is desolate, our heart is weak:''
for these things our eyes are dim; or "darkened" (b) almost blinded with weeping;
can scarcely see out of them; or as persons in a swoon; for dimness of sight usually
attends faintness of spirit.
HE RY 17-18, "Here, I. The people of God express the deep concern they had for the
ruins of the temple, more than for any other of their calamities; the interests of God's

68. house lay nearer their hearts than those of their own (Lam_5:17, Lam_5:18): For this
our heart is faint, and sinks under the load of its own heaviness; for these things our
eyes are dim, and our sight is gone, as is usual in a deliquium, or fainting fit. “It is
because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the holy mountain, and the temple
built upon that mountain. For other desolations our hearts grieve and our eyes weep; but
for this our hearts faint and our eyes are dim.” Note, Nothing lies so heavily upon the
spirits of good people as that which threatens the ruin of religion or weakens its
interests; and it is a comfort if we can appeal to God that that afflicts us more than any
temporal affliction to ourselves. “The people have polluted the mountain of Zion with
their sins, and therefore God has justly made it desolate, to such a degree that the foxes
walk upon it as freely and commonly as they do in the woods.” It is sad indeed when the
mountain of Zion has become a portion for foxes (Psa_63:10); but sin had first made it
so, Eze_13:4.
JAMISO , "(Lam_1:22; Lam_2:11).
K&D 17-18, "The request that the judgment of wrath may be averted, and that the
former gracious condition may be restored. Lam_5:17 and Lam_5:18 form the transition
to the request in Lam_5:19-22. "Because of this" and "because of these [things]" refer
mainly to what precedes, yet not in such a way as that the former must be referred to the
fact that sin has been committed, and the latter to the suffering. The two halves of the
verse are unmistakeably parallel; the sickening of the heart is essentially similar to the
dimness coming on the eyes, the former indicating the sorrow of the soul, while the
latter is the expression of this sorrow in tears. "Because of this (viz., because of the
misery hitherto complained of) the heart has become sick," and the grief of the heart
finds vent in tears, in consequence of which the eyes have become dim; cf. Lam_2:11.
But this sorrow culminates in the view taken of the desolation of Mount Zion, which
receives consideration, not because of its splendid palaces (Thenius), but as the holy
mountain on which the house of God stood, for "Zion" comprehended Moriah; see on
Psa_2:6; Psa_9:12; Psa_76:3. The glory formerly attaching to Mount Zion (Psa_48:3;
Psa_50:2) is departed; the mountain has been so much laid waste, that jackals roam on
it. ‫ים‬ ִ‫ל‬ ָ‫שׁוּע‬ are not properly foxes, but jackals (as in Psa_63:11), which lodge among the
ruins. ְ‫ך‬ ֵ ִ‫ה‬ is an intensive form, meaning to rove or roam about.
CALVI , "He connects sorrow here with the acknowledgment of sin, that the
people under the pressure and agony of sorrow might apply their minds so as to
consider their own sins. At the same time the Prophet, no doubt, includes here all
that we have already observed, as though he had said that the people were not
without reason wearied with sorrow, for they had ample and manifold reasons for
their grief.
For this reason, he says, that is, we do not exceed a due measure in our sorrow, for
our afflictions are not ordinary, so that our grief cannot be moderate; but as we are
come to an extremity, it cannot then be but our minds should be overwhelmed with
sorrow. As, then, the curse of God appeared everywhere, he says that this was the

69. cause of the fainting heart; and he says also, Therefore were our eyes darkened.
This is a common metaphor, that the eyes become dim through sorrow; for the
senses through sorrow are blunted. Hence it is that the sight of the eyes is injured;
and David especially makes use of this mode of speaking. Our Prophet then says
that the eyes were darkened, because their grief was, as it were, deadly. It follows —
PETT, "Verse 17
For this our heart is faint,
For these things our eyes are dim,
It was because of all these things that their heart was faint, and their eyes were dim
with weeping. Life had become a burden, full of sorrow and tears.
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
with jackals prowling over it.
BAR ES, "The foxes - Or, jackals. As these animals live among ruins, and shun the
presence of man, it shows that Zion is laid waste and deserted.
CLARKE, "The foxes walk upon it - Foxes are very numerous in Palestine, see on
Jdg_15:4 (note). It was usual among the Hebrews to consider all desolated land to be the
resort of wild beasts; which is, in fact, the case every where when the inhabitants are
removed from a country.
GILL, "Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,.... Meaning either
the city of Jerusalem in general, or the temple in particular, which both lay in ruins: but
the latter gave the truly godly the greatest concern; that the seat of divine Majesty should
be in such a condition; that the public exercises of religion should cease, and there be no
more opportunities of waiting upon God, and worshipping him as heretofore; their civil
interest, and the loss of that did not so much affect them as the interest of religion, and
what that suffered:
the foxes walk upon it: as they do in desolate places, shunning the company of men;
but here they walked in common, and as freely as in the woods and deserts: this was

70. fulfilled in the destruction of the second temple, as well as the first. R. Akiba (c) and his
companions were walking together; they saw a fox come out of the holy of holies; they
wept, but he laughed or rejoiced; they wept, that in the place where the stranger that
drew near should die, now foxes walked upon it; he laughed or rejoiced, because, as this
prophecy was fulfilled, so would others that predicted good things.
JAMISO , "foxes — They frequent desolate places where they can freely and
fearlessly roam.
CALVI , "Though he had in general included all kinds of evils, he yet mentions
now the principal cause of sorrow, that mount Sion had lost its beauty and its
excellency. For that place had been chosen by God, as though he had descended
there from heaven, that he might dwell there; and we know also that its beauty is
spoken of in high terms. For there the face of God shone forth, as Moses and the
Prophets often speak. It was then an extremely sad change, that as God had dwelt in
mount Sion, foxes should lodge there as in a deserted cave. For on mount Sion was
the tabernacle or the sanctuary; and God says that it was the tabernacle of meeting,
‫,מועד‬ moud, because there he wished to hold intercourse with his people. As, then,
that place included God and his Church, it was, as I have said, a dreadful and
monstrous thing, that it had become so desolate, that foxes succeeded in the place of
God and the faithful. It was not, then, without reason that Jeremiah, after having
spoken of so many and so bitter calamities, mentioned this as the chief, that mount
Sion was reduced to desolation, so that foxes ran there hither and thither (236)
For as it is the principal thing, and as it were the chief of all blessings, to be counted
God’s people, and to have a familiar access to him, so in adversities nothing is so sad
as to be deprived of God’s presence. When David testified his gratitude to God,
because he had been enriched by every kind of blessing, he added this,
“I shall dwell in the house of God.” (Psalms 23:6.)
For though he had spoken of wealth and riches and of the abundance of all things,
yet he saw that his chief happiness was to call on God together with the faithful, and
to be deemed one of his people. So, also, on the other hand, the Prophet here shews
that nothing can be sadder to the godly than when God leaves his dwelling and
makes it desolate, in order to terrify all who may see it.
This had been predicted to them by Jeremiah himself, as we have seen in the seventh
chapter of his prophecies, “Go ye to Shiloh,” he said, where the ark of the covenant
had long been; though that place had been a long time the habitation of God, yet it
was afterwards rejected with great disdain. Jeremiah then declared to the Jews,
while they were yet in safety, that such would be the condition of Jerusalem; but his
prophecy was not believed. He now, then, confirms, by the event, what he had
predicted by God’s command, when he says that mount Sion was become the den of
foxes. It follows, —
17.For this become faint did our heart;

71. For these things darkened were our eyes,
18.Yea, for mount Sion, which is desolate;
Foxes have walked through it.
“This” was the “woe” which sin had brought; and “these things” were the various
things which he had previously stated, but the desolation of mount Sion was the
chief cause of sorrow.
Others take this verse by itself, as it is done by the Sept., where ‫על‬ is rendered “on,”
and ‫ש‬ for ‫,אשר‬ is translated “because,” —
On mount Sion, because it has become desolate,
Foxes have walked in (or through) it.
If ‫על‬ be rendered concerning, or, as to, or, with regard to, the best construction
would be the following, —
As to mount Sion, which has become desolate,
Foxes have walked in it (or, traversed it.)
— Ed
PETT, "Verse 18
For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The jackals walk on it.
Capping all that has gone before was the fact that the mountain of Zion, that
mountain that had once throbbed with the sound of worshippers walking in and
around the Temple, was now desolate. It had become the haunt and walking place of
jackals. Outwardly it looked as though YHWH was no longer interested in the land,
or in His people.
Lamentations 5:19
You, O YHWH, abide for ever,
Your throne is from generation to generation.
But the prophet knew differently. The Temple site may be desolate, the Temple
might lie in ruins, but he knew that YHWH sat on His throne for ever. For His
throne was an eternal throne, surviving from generation to generation. Here was the
climax of the lament, the certainty that, despite all that had happened and all the
gloom and misery, YHWH was on His throne. And if that were so nothing else was
of comparative importance.

72. 19 You, Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to
generation.
BAR ES, "Remainest - Or, reignest. The earthly sanctuary is in ruins, but the
heavenly throne in unchangeable glory.
CLARKE, "Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever - Thou sufferest no change. Thou
didst once love us, O let that love be renewed towards us!
GILL, "Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever,.... The same in his nature and
perfections; in his grace and goodness; in his power and faithfulness; in his purposes
and promises; though all things else change, are fickle and inconstant, he changes not,
but abides the same, without any variableness or shallow of turning; whatever
revolutions there are in the world, or alterations in the course of Providence, yet he
remains firm and unalterable in his counsel and covenant; though all material things are
subject to decay, and even his own sanctuary lay in ruins, yet he himself continued just
as he ever was. The eternity and unchangeableness of God are of great use and comfort
to his people in times of distress, and to be regarded and observed:
thy throne from generation to generation; though his throne on earth, in
Jerusalem, in the temple, was thrown down, yet his throne in heaven remained
unshaken; there he sits, and reigns, and rules, and overrules all things here below to his
own glory and the good of his people; and this is the saints' comfort in the worst of
times, that Zion's King reigns; he has reigned, and will reign, throughout all generations.
The Targum is,
"the house of thine habitation in the high heavens; the throne of thy glory to the
generations of generations?''
HE RY, "They comfort themselves with the doctrine of God's eternity, and the
perpetuity of his government (Lam_5:19): But thou, O Lord! remainest for ever. This
they are taught to do by that psalm which is entitled, A prayer of the afflicted, Psa_
102:27, Psa_102:28. When all our creature-comforts are removed from us, and our
hearts fail us, we may then encourage ourselves with the belief, 1. Of God's eternity:
Thou remainest for ever. What shakes the world gives no disturbance to him who made
it; whatever revolutions there are on earth there is no change in the Eternal Mind; God is

73. still the same, and remains for ever infinitely wise and holy, just and good; with him
there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. 2. Of the never-failing continuance of
his dominion: Thy throne is from generation to generation; the throne of glory, the
throne of grace, and the throne of government, are all unchangeable, immovable; and
this is matter of comfort to us when the crown has fallen from our head. When the
thrones of princes, that should be our protectors, are brought to the dust, and buried in
it, God's throne continues still; he still rules the world, and rules it for the good of the
church. The Lord reigns, reigns for ever, even thy God, O Zion!
JAMISO , "(Psa_102:12). The perpetuity of God’s rule over human affairs, however
He may seem to let His people be oppressed for a time, is their ground of hope of
restoration.
K&D, "The glory of Zion, the earthly habitation of the Lord, is at an end, but the
throne of the Lord endures eternally. Through this thought, the lamentation rises to the
prayer that the Lord may not forsake His people for ever, but re-establish His kingdom
on the earth. "Thou, O Jahveh, art enthroned eternally." This thought is expressed as the
ground of hope, in nearly the same words as are found in Psa_102:13. Jahveh is the God
of salvation. Since His throne endures eternally in heaven, He cannot let His kingdom
perish on the earth. On this is founded the request, "Why wilt Thou forget us for ever,
forsake us for a length of days (i.e., through life, always, Psa_23:6)?" This the Lord
cannot do, because of His grace. From this is developed the further request (Lam_5:21),
"Lead us back to Thyself, that we may return." We must not restrict ‫יב‬ ִ‫שׁ‬ ֵ‫ה‬ and ‫שׁוּב‬ to
conversion to the Lord (Kalkschmidt, Ewald, Vaihinger, Gerlach); they signify the re-
establishment of the gracious relation, which is, of course, impossible without
repentance and conversion on the part of Israel. It is wrong to refer the words to the
restoration of the people to their native land, or to the re-establishment of the theocracy
(Dathe, Thenius), because it is not the exiles who address this petition to the Lord. The
mode in which we are to understand the "bringing back to Jahveh" is shown in the
second hemistich, "renew our days, as they were in former times," i.e., vouchsafe to us
again the life (or state of grace) which we enjoyed in former times. In Lam_5:22 this
request is based on an argument introduced in a negative form. ‫י‬ ִⅴ ‫ם‬ ִ‫,א‬ after a negative
clause, signifies nisi, but (Ger. sondern). This meaning developed into that of a strong
limitation (cf. Ewald, §356), unless = provided that. Thus literally here: "unless Thou
hast utterly rejected us, - art very wroth against us." This case, however, is merely stated
as a possibility, the actual occurrence of which is out of the question. The idea is the
same as that expressed by Jeremiah (Jer_14:19) in the form of a question, in order to
give greater emphasis to his intercession for his nation. The Lord cannot have utterly
rejected His people Israel, because He would thereby make His name to be despised in
the eyes of the nations (Jer_14:21). Thus terminates this lamentation, with a request for
whose fulfilment faith can hope with confidence.
CALVI , "The Prophet here raises up his eyes to God, and, by his example, he
encourages all the godly, that they might not cease, notwithstanding their extreme

74. calamities, to look to God, as we find in the hundred and second Psalm, where the
Psalmist speaks of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. Indeed the subject of that
psalm is similar to that of this chapter; nor is there a doubt but that it was
composed when the people, as it clearly appears, were in exile in Babylon. There the
Psalmist, after having spoken of the ruin of the city, and calamities of the people,
says, that the heavens were growing old and wasting as it were with rottenness,
together with the whole world; but he afterwards adds,
“But thou, O Lord, remainest perpetually.”
(Psalms 102:26.)
At the same time he speaks more clearly than Jeremiah, for he applies his doctrine
to the consolation of the Church, “Children’s children,” he says, “shall inhabit it.”
Hence, from the perpetuity and immutability of God, he infers the perpetuity of the
Church. This is not done by Jeremiah, though it is implied; and for this reason, no
doubt, he exclaims, that God dwells for ever, and that his throne remains fixed in all
ages, or through all ages.
For when we fix our eyes on present things, we must necessarily vacillate, as there is
nothing permanent hi the world; and when adversities bring a cloud over our eyes,
then faith in a manner vanishes, at least we are troubled and stand amazed. ow the
remedy is, to raise up our eyes to God, for however confounded things may be in the
world, yet he remains always the same. His truth may indeed be hidden from us, yet
it remains in him. In short, were the world to change and perish a hundred times,
nothing could ever affect the immutability of God. There is, then, no doubt but that
the Prophet wished to take courage and to raise himself up to a firm hope, when he
exclaimed, “Thou, O God, remainest for ever.” By the word sitting or remaining, he
doubtless meant that the world is governed by God. We know that God has no body,
but the word sitting is to be taken metaphorically, for He is no God except he be the
judge of the world.
This, also, he expresses more clearly, when he says, that God’s throne remains
through all ages. The throne of God designates the government of the world. But if
God be the judge of the world, then he doeth nothing,, or suffereth nothing to be
done, but according to his supreme wisdom and justice. (237) We hence see, that
inasmuch as the state of present things, as thick darkness, took away all distinction,
the Prophet raises up his eyes to God and acknowledges him as remaining the same
perpetually, though things in the world continually change. Then the throne of God
is set in opposition to chance or uncertain changes which ungodly men dream of; for
when they see things in great confusion in the world, they say that it is the wheel of
fortune, they say that all things happen through blind fate. Then the Prophet, that
he might not be cast down with the unbelieving, refers to the throne of God, and
strengthens himself in this doctrine of true religion, — that God nevertheless sits on
this throne, though things are thus confounded, though all things fluctuate; yea,
even though storms and tempests mingle as it were heaven and earth together, yet
God sits on his throne amidst all such disturbances. However turbulent, then, all the
elements may be, this derogates nothing from the righteous and perpetual judgment

75. of God. This is the meaning of the words; and hence fruit and benefit may be easily
gathered. It. follows, —
Thou Jehovah for ever sittest,
Thy throne is from generation to generation.
Sitting is the posture of a judge, and the reference here is to Jehovah, not as to his
essence or existence, but as to his judicial office. — Ed.
CO STABLE, "Verses 19-22
B. A plea for restoration by Yahweh5:19-22
The writer now turned from reviewing the plight of the people to consider the
greatness of their God.
"In Lamentations 5:19-20 the writer carefully chose his words to summarize the
teaching of the entire book by using the split alphabet to convey it. Lamentations
5:19 embraces the first half of the alphabet by using the aleph word (... "you") to
start the first half of the verse, and the kaph word (... "throne") to start the second
half. This verse reiterates the theology of God"s sovereignty expressed throughout
the book. He had the right to do as He chooses, humans have no right to carp at
what He does. Wisdom teaching grappled with this concept and God"s speech at the
end of the Book of Job , which does not really answer Job"s many sometimes
querulous questions, simply avers that the God of the whirlwind cannot be gainsaid
( Job 38-41). Job must accept who God is without criticism. Then Job bowed to this
very concept ( Job 42:1-6). ow the writer of Lamentations also bowed before the
throne of God accepting the implications of such sovereignty....
"One reason there is no full acrostic in chapter5 may be that the writer wanted the
emphasis to fall on these two verses near the conclusion of the book. In so doing, he
has adroitly drawn attention to the only hope for people in despair." [ ote: Heater,
pp310-11.]
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "Verses 19-22
THE EVERLASTI G THRO E
Lamentations 5:19-22
WE have lingered long in the valley of humiliation. At the eleventh hour we are
directed to look up from this scene of weary gloom to heavenly heights, radiant with
sunlight. It is not by accident that the new attitude is suggested only at the very end
of the last elegy. The course of the thought and the course of experience that
underlies it have been preparing for the change. On entering the valley the traveller
must look well to his feet; it is not till he has been a denizen of it for some time that
he is able to lift up his eyes to other and brighter realms.

76. Thus at last our attention is turned from earth to heaven, from man to God. In this
change of vision the mood which gave rise to the Lamentations disappears. Since
earthly things lose their value in view of the treasures in heaven, the ruin of them
also becomes of less account. Thus we read in the "Imitatio":
"The life of man is always looking on the things of time,
Pleased with the pelf of earth,
Gloomy at loss,
Pricked by the least injurious word;
Life touched by God looks on the eternal, -
With it no cleaving unto time,
o frown when property is lost,
o sneer when words are harsh, -
Because it puts its treasure and its joy in heaven,
Where nothing fades."
The explanation of this sudden turn is to be found in the fact that for the moment
the poet forgets himself and his surroundings in a rapt contemplation of God. This
is the glory of adoration, the very highest form of prayer, that prayer in which a
man comes nearest to the condition ascribed to angels and the spirits of the blessed
who surround the throne and gaze on the eternal light. It is not to be thought of as
an idle dreaming like the dreary abstraction of the Indian fanatic who has drilled
himself to forget the outside world by reducing, his mind to a state of vacancy while
he repeats the meaningless syllable Om, or the senseless ecstasy of the monk of
Mount Athos, who has attained the highest object of his ambition when he thinks he
has beheld the sacred light within his own body. It is self-forgetful, not self-centred;
and it is occupied with the contemplation of those great truths of the being of God,
absorption in which is an inspiration. Here the worshipper is at the river of the
water of life, from which if he drinks he will go away refreshed for the battle like the
Red-cross knight restored at the healing fountain. It is the misfortune of our own
age that it is impractical in the excess of its practicalness when it has not patience
for those quiet, calm experiences of pure worship which are the very food of the
soul.
The continuance of the throne of God is the idea that now lays hold of the elegist as
he turns his thoughts from the miserable scenes of the ruined city to the glory above.
This is brought home to his consciousness by the fleeting nature of all things earthly.
He has experienced what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes as "the

77. removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that
those things which are not shaken may remain." [Hebrews 12:27] The throne of
David has been swept away; but above the earthly wreck the throne of God stands
firm, all the more clearly visible now that the distracting influence of the lower
object has vanished, all the more valuable now that no other refuge can be found.
Men fall like leaves in autumn; one generation follows another in the swift march to
death; dynasties which outlive many generations have their day, to be succeeded by
others of an equally temporary character; kingdoms reach their zenith, decline, and
fall. God only remains, eternal, unchangeable. His is the only throne that stands
secure above every revolution.
The unwavering faith of our poet is apparent at this point after it has been tried by
the most severe tests. Jerusalem has been destroyed, her king has fallen into the
hands of the enemy, her people have been scattered; and yet the elegist has not the
faintest doubt that her God remains and that His throne is steadfast, immovable,
everlasting. This faith reveals a conviction far in advance of that of the surrounding
heathen. The common idea was that the defeat of a people was also the defeat of
their gods. If the national divinities were not exterminated they were flung down
from their thrones, and reduced to the condition of fins-demons who avenged
themselves on their conquerors by annoying them whenever an opportunity for
doing so arose, but with greatly crippled resources. o such notion is ever
entertained by the author of these poems nor by any of the Hebrew prophets. The
fall of Israel in no way affects the throne of God; it is even brought about by His
will; it could not have occurred if He had been pleased to hinder it.
Thus the poet was led to find his hope and refuge in the throne of God, the
circumstances of his time concurring to turn his thoughts in this direction, since the
disappearance of the national throne, the chaos of the sacked city, and the
establishment of a new government under the galling yoke of slaves from Babylon,
invited the man of faith to look above the shifting powers of earth to the everlasting
supremacy of heaven.
This idea of the elegist is in line with a familiar stream of Hebrew thought, and his
very words have many an echo in the language of prophet and psalmist, as, for
example, in the forty-fifth psalm, where we read, "Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever."
The grand Messianic hope is founded on the conviction that the ultimate
establishment of God’s reign throughout the world will be the best blessing
imaginable for all mankind. Sometimes this is associated with the advent of a
Divinely anointed earthly monarch of the line of David. At other times God’s direct
sovereignty is expected to be manifested in the "Day of the Lord." The failure of the
feeble Zedekiah seems to have discredited the national hopes centred in the royal
family. For two generations they slumbered, to be awakened in connection with
another disappointing descendant of David, Zerubbabel, the leader of the return.
o king was ever equal to the satisfaction of these hopes until the Promised One
appeared in the fulness of the times, until Jesus was born into the world to come

78. forth as the Lord’s Christ. Meanwhile, since the royal house is under a cloud, the
essential Messianic hope turns to God alone. He can deliver His people, and He only.
Even apart from personal hopes of rescue, the very idea of the eternal, just reign of
God above the transitory thrones of men is a calming, reassuring thought.
It is strange that this idea should ever have lost its fascination among Christian
people, who have so much more gracious a revelation of God than was given to the
Jews under the old covenant; and yet our Lord's teachings concerning the
Fatherhood of God have been set forth as the direct antithesis of the Divine
sovereignty, while the latter has been treated as a stern and dreadful function from
which it was natural to shrink with fear and trembling. But the truth is the two
attributes are mutually illustrative; for he is a very imperfect father who does not
rule his own house, and he is a very inadequate sovereign who does not seek to
exercise parental functions towards his people. Accordingly, the gospel of Christ is
the gospel of the kingdom. Thus the good news declared by the first evangelists was
due to the effect that the kingdom of God was at hand, and our Lord taught us to
pray, "Thy kingdom come." For Christians, at least as much as for Jews, the eternal
sovereignty of God should be a source of profound confidence, inspiring hope and
joy.
ow the elegist ventures to expostulate with God on the ground of the eternity of
His throne. God had not abdicated, though the earthly monarch had been driven
from his kingdom. The overthrow of Zedekiah had left the throne of God
untouched. Then it was not owing to inability to come to the aid of the suffering
people that the eternal King did not intervene to put an end to their miseries. A long
time had passed since the siege, and still the Jews were in distress. It was as though
God had forgotten them or voluntarily forsaken them. This is a dilemma to which
we are often driven. If God is almighty can He be also all-merciful? If what we knew
furnished all the possible data of the problem this would be indeed a serious
position. But our ignorance silences us.
Some hint of an explanation is given in the next phrase of the poet’s prayer. God is
besought to turn the people to Himself. Then they had been moving away from Him.
It is like the old popular ideas of sunset. People thought the sun had forsaken the
earth, when, in fact, their part of the earth had forsaken the sun. But if the wrong is
on man’s side, on man’s side must be the amendment. Under these circumstances it
is needless and unjust to speculate as to the cause of God’s supposed neglect or
forgetfulness.
There can be no reasonable doubt that the language of the elegy here points to a
personal and spiritual change. We cannot water it down to the expression of a desire
to be restored to Palestine. or is it enough to take it as a prayer to be restored to
God’s favour. The double expression,
"Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned."
points to a deeper longing, a longing for real conversion, the turning round of the

79. heart and life to God, the return of the prodigal to his Father. We think of the
education of the race, the development of mankind, the culture of the soul; and in so
thinking we direct our attention to important truths which were not so well within
the reach of our forefathers. On the other hand, are we not in danger of overlooking
another series of reflections on which they dwelt more persistently? It is not the fact
that the world is marching straight on to perfection in an unbroken line of
evolution. There are breaks in the progress and long halts, deviations from the
course and retrogade movements. We err and go astray, and then continuance in an
evil way does not bring us out to any position of advance; it only plunges us down
deeper falls of ruin. Under such circumstances, a more radical change than anything
progress or education can produce is called for if ever we are even to recover our
lost ground, not to speak of advancing to higher attainments. In the case of Israel it
was clear that there could be no hope until the nation made a complete moral and
religious evolution. The same necessity lies before every soul that has drifted into the
wrong way. This subject has been discredited by being treated too much in the
abstract, with too little regard for the actual condition of men and women. The first
question is, What is the tendency of the life? If that is away from God, it is needless
to discuss theories of conversion: the fact is plain that in the present instance some
conversion is needed: There is no reason to retain a technical term, and perhaps it
would be as well to abandon it if it were found to be degenerating into a mere cant
phrase. This is not a question of words. The urgent necessity is concerned with the
actual turning round of the leading pursuits of life.
In the next place, it is to be observed that the turning here contemplated is positive
in its aims, not merely a flight from the wrong way. It is not enough to cast out the
evil spirit, and leave the house swept and garnished, but without a tenant to take
care of it. Evil can only be overcome by good. To turn from sin to blank vacancy
and nothingness is an impossibility. The great motive power must be the attraction
of a better course rather than revulsion from the old life. This is the reason why the
preaching of the gospel of Christ succeeds where pure appeals to conscience fail.
By his "Serious Call to the Unconverted" William Law started a few earnest men
thinking; but he could not anticipate the Methodist revival, although he prepared
the way for it. The reason seems to be that appeals to conscience are depressing,
necessarily and rightly so; but some cheering encouragement is called for if energy
is to be found for the tremendous effort of turning the whole life upon its axle.
Therefore it is not the threat of wrath but the gospel of mercy that leads to what
may be truly called conversion.
Then we may notice, further, that the particular aim of the change here indicated is
to turn back to God. As sin is forsaking God, so the commencement of a better life
must consist in a return to Him. But this is not to be regarded as a means towards
some other end. We must not have the home-coming made use of as a mere
convenience. It must be an end in itself, and the chief end of the prayer and effort of
the soul, or it can be nothing at all. It appears as such in the passage now under
consideration. The elegist writes as though he and the people whom he represents
had arrived at the conviction that their supreme need was to be brought back into

80. near and happy relations with God. The hunger for God breathes through these
words. This is the truest, deepest, most Divine longing of the soul. When once it is
awakened we may be sure that it will be satisfied. The hopelessness of the condition
of so many people is not only that they are estranged from God, but that they have
no desire to be reconciled to Him. Then the kindling of this desire is itself a great
step towards the reconciliation.
And yet the good wish is not enough by itself to attain its object. The prayer is for
God to turn the people back to Himself. We see here the mutual relations of the
human and the Divine in the process of the recovery of souls. So long as there is no
willingness to return to God nothing can be done to force that action on the
wanderer. The first necessity, therefore, is to awaken the prayer which seeks
restoration. But this prayer must be for the action of God. The poet knows that it is
useless simply to resolve to turn. Such a resolution may be repeated a thousand
times without any result following, because the fatal poison of sin is like a snake bite
that paralyses its victims. Thus we read in the "Theologia Germanica," "And in this
bringing back and healing, I can, or may, or shall do nothing of myself, but simply
yield to God, so that He alone may do all things in me and work, and I may suffer
Him and all His work and His Divine will." The real difficulty is not to change our
own hearts and lives; that is impossible. And it is not expected of us. The real
difficulty is rather to reach a consciousness of our own disability. It takes the form
of unwillingness to trust ourselves entirely to God for Him to do for us and in us just
whatever He will.
The poet is perfectly confident that when God takes His people in hand to lead them
round to Himself He will surely do so. If He turns them they will be turned. The
words suggest that previous efforts had been made from other quarters, and had
failed. The prophets, speaking from God, had urged repentance, but their words
had been ineffectual. It is only when God undertakes the work that there is any
chance of success. But then success is certain. This truth was illustrated in the
preaching of the cross by St. Paul at Corinth, where it was found to be the power of
God. It is seen repeatedly in the fact that the worst, the oldest, the most hardened
are brought round to a new life by the miracle of redeeming power. Herein we have
the root principle of Calvinism, the secret of the marvellous vigour of a system
which, at the first blush of it, would seem to be depressing rather than encouraging.
Calvinism directed the thoughts of its disciples away from self, and man, and the
world, for the inspiration of all life and energy. It bade them confess their own
impotence and God’s almightiness. All who could trust themselves to such a faith
would find the secret of victory.
ext, we see that the return is to be a renewal of a previous condition. The poet
prays, "Renew our days as of old"-a phrase which suggests the recovery of
apostates. Possibly here we have some reference to more external conditions. There
is a hope that the prosperity of the former times may be brought back. And yet the
previous line, which is concerned with the spiritual return to God, should lead us to
take this one also in a spiritual sense. We think of Cowper’s melancholy regret-

81. "Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?"
The memory of a lost blessing makes the prayer for restoration the more intense. It
is of God’s exceeding lovingkindness that His compassions fail not, so that He does
not refuse another opportunity to those who have proved faithless in the past. In
some respects restoration is more difficult than a new beginning. The past will not
come back. The innocence of childhood, when once it is lost, can never be restored.
That first, fresh bloom of youth is irrecoverable. On the other hand, what the
restoration lacks in one respect may be more than made up in other directions.
Though the old paradise will not be regained, though it has withered long since, and
the site of it has become a desert, God will create new heavens and a new earth
which shall be better than the lost past. And this new state will be a real redemption,
a genuine recovery of what was essential to the old condition. The vision of God had
been enjoyed in the old, simple days, and though to weary watchers sobered by a
sad experience, the vision of God will be restored in the more blessed future.
In our English Bible the last verse of the chapter reads like a final outburst of the
language of despair. It seems to say that the prayer is all in vain, for God has utterly
forsaken His people. So it was understood by the Jewish critics who arranged to
repeat the previous verse at the end of the chapter to save the omen, that the Book
should not conclude with so gloomy a thought. But another rendering is now
generally accepted, though our Revisers have only placed it in the margin.
According to this we read, "Unless Thou hast utterly rejected us," etc. There is still
a melancholy tone in the sentence, as there is throughout the Book that it concludes;
but this is softened, and now it by no means breathes the spirit of despair. Turn it
round, and the phrase will even contain an encouragement. If God has not utterly
rejected His people, assuredly He will attend to their prayer to be restored to Him.
But it cannot be that He has quite cast them off. Then it must be that He will
respond and turn them back to Himself. If our hope is only conditioned by the
question whether God has utterly forsaken us it is perfectly safe, because the one
imaginable cause of shipwreck can never arise. There is but one thing that might
make our trust in God vain and fruitless; and that one thing is impossible, nay,
inconceivable. So wide and deep is our Father’s love, so firm is the adamantine
strength of His eternal fidelity, we may he absolutely confident that, though the
mountains be removed and cast into the sea, and though the solid earth melt away
beneath our feet, He will still abide as the Eternal Refuge of His children, and
therefore that He will never fail to welcome all who seek His grace to help them
return to Him in true penitence and filial trust. Thus we are led even by this most
melancholy book in the Bible to see, as with eyes purged by tears, that the love of
God is greater than the sorrow of man, and His redeeming power more mighty than
the sin which lies at the root of the worst of that sorrow; the eternity of His throne,
in spite of the present havoc of evil in the universe, assuring us that the end of all
will be not a mournful elegy, but a paean of victory.
BI 19-22, "Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; Thy throne from generation to

82. generation.
The everlasting throne
Thus at last our attention is turned from earth to heaven, from man to God. In this
change of vision the mood which gave rise to the Lamentations disappears. Since earthly
things lose their value in view of the treasures in heaven, the ruin of them also becomes
of less account. For the moment the poet forgets himself and his surroundings in a rapt
contemplation of God. This is the glory of adoration, the very highest form of prayer,
that prayer in which a man comes nearest to the condition ascribed to angels and the
spirits of the blessed who surround the throne and gaze on the eternal light. The
continuance of the throne of God is the idea that now lays hold of the elegist as he turns
his thoughts from the miserable scenes of the ruined city to the glory above. This is
brought home to his consciousness by the fleeting nature of all things earthly. God only
remains, eternal, unchangeable. His is the only throne that stands secure above every
revolution. The unwavering faith of our poet is apparent at this point after it has been
tried by the most severe tests. Jerusalem has been destroyed, her king has fallen into the
hands of the enemy, her people have been scattered; and yet the elegist has not the
faintest doubt that her God remains and that His throne is steadfast, immovable,
everlasting. The fall of Israel in no way affects the throne of God; it is even brought about
by His will; it could not have occurred if He had been pleased to hinder it. This idea of
the elegist is in line with a familiar stream of Hebrew thought, and his very words have
many an echo in the language of prophet and psalmist, as, for example, in the forty-fifth
Psalm, where we read, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” The grand Messianic
hope is founded on the conviction that the ultimate establishment of God’s reign
throughout the world will be the best blessing imaginable for all mankind. Sometimes
this is associated with the advent of a Divinely anointed earthly monarch of the line of
David. At other times God’s direct sovereignty is expected to be manifested in the “day of
the Lord.” For Christians, at least as much as for Jews, the eternal sovereignty of God
should be a source of profound confidence, inspiring hope and joy. Now the elegist
ventures to expostulate with God on the ground of the eternity of His throne. A long time
had passed since the siege, and still the Jews were in distress. It was as though God had
forgotten them or voluntarily forsaken them. This is a dilemma to which we are often
driven. If God is almighty can He be also all-merciful? If what we knew furnished all the
possible data of the problem this would be indeed a serious position. But our ignorance
silences us. Some hint of an explanation is given in the next phrase of the poet’s prayer.
God is besought to turn the people to Himself. The language of the elegy here points to a
personal and spiritual change. We cannot water it down to the expression of a desire to
be restored to Palestine. Nor is it enough to take it as a prayer to be restored to God’s
favour. The double expression, “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be
turned,” points to a deeper longing, a longing for real conversion, the turning round of
the heart and life to God, the return of the prodigal to his Father. In the next place, it is
to be observed that the turning here contemplated is positive in its aims, not merely a
flight from the wrong way. To turn from sin to blank vacancy and nothingness is an
impossibility. The great motive must be the attraction of a better course rather than
revulsion from the old life. This is the reason why the preaching of the Gospel of Christ
succeeds where pure appeals to conscience fail. Then we may notice, further, that the
particular aim of the change here indicated is to turn back to God. As sin is forsaking
God, so the commencement of a better life must consist in a return to Him. But this is
not to be regarded as a means towards some other end. We must not have the
homecoming made use of as a mere convenience. It must be an end in itself, and the
chief end of the prayer and effort of the soul, or it can be nothing at all. The poet is

83. perfectly confident that when God takes His people in hand to lead them round to
Himself He will surely do so. If He turns them they will be turned. The words suggest
that previous efforts had been made from other quarters, and had failed. The prophets,
speaking from God, had urged repentance, but their words had been ineffectual. It is
only when God undertakes the work that there is any chance of success. Next, we see
that the return is to be a renewal of a previous condition. The poet prays, “Renew our
days as of old”—a phrase which suggests the recovery of apostates. Possibly here we have
some reference to more external conditions. There is a hope that the prosperity of the
former times may be brought back. And yet the previous line, which is concerned with
the spiritual return to God, should lead us to take this one also in a spiritual sense. The
memory of a lost blessing makes the prayer for restoration the more intense. In some
respects restoration is more difficult than a new beginning. The past will not come back.
The innocence of childhood, when once it is lost, can never be restored. That first, fresh
bloom of youth is irrecoverable. On the other hand, what the restoration lacks in one
respect may be more than made up in other directions. Though the old paradise will not
be regained, though it has withered long since, and the site of it has become a desert,
God will create new heavens and a new earth which shall be better than the lost past. In
our English Bible the last verse of the chapter reads like a final outburst of the language
of despair. It seems to say that the prayer is all in vain, for God has utterly forsaken His
people. But another rendering is now generally accepted, though our revisers have only
placed it in the margin. According to this we read, “Unless Thou hast utterly rejected us,”
etc. There is still a melancholy tone in the sentence, as there is throughout the book that
it concludes; but this is softened, and now it by no means breathes the spirit of despair.
Turn it round, and the phrase will even contain an encouragement. If God has not utterly
rejected His people assuredly He will attend to their prayer to be restored to Him. But it
cannot be that He has quite cast them off. Then it must be that He will respond and turn
them back to Himself. Thus we are led even by this most melancholy book in the Bible to
see, as with eyes purged by tears, that the love of God is greater than the sorrow of man,
and His redeeming power more mighty than the sin which lies at the root of the worst of
that sorrow, the eternity of His throne, in spite of the present havoc of evil in the
universe, assuring us that the end of all will be not a mournful elegy, but a paean of
victory. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
Thou, O Lord, remainest forever, Thy throne from generation to generation
1. God’s unchangeableness a support in troubles.
(1) Look upon the choicest things that the world affords as mutable, this will take
off thine affections from them, they perish, but the Lord endures, they all wax old
like a garment, but God is the same forever (Psa_102:26-27). This will make their
loss to thee, thy deprivation of them to be no sore affliction, for who will breathe
out sighs, at the breaking of an earthen vessel, at the scattering of a vapour, at the
withering of a flower, or the vanishing of a shadow?
(2) In your worst condition, when you are afflicted and tossed with the waves of
sorrow, stay, and still yourselves with the thoughts of the unchangeableness of
your God, He is immutable as well in His mercy as in His holiness, He is that Sun
that shineth always with a like brightness, and remember that as this is the way
to bring serenity in your hearts, so also your safety at all times depends upon
God’s immutability (Mal_3:6; Psa_73:23-26).
(3) Hold out alacrity, be cheerful, let not your souls faint, and your hearts die

84. within you, though your lovers have forsaken you, your friends turn enemies, and
your adversaries set up their ensigns for banners, your God is unchangeable in
His love, neither life, nor death, principalities, nor powers shall take you out of
His thoughts, He thinks as well of you when you are black with persecution, as
when you are fair, and shine in a prosperous condition; for the Church is His
beloved, though a lily among thorns (Son_2:2). And the immutability of His rule
will terminate the worst of your sorrows (Psa_7:9; Jer_29:11).
(4) Lastly, remember what God is, and that in a degree it is your duties to
assimilate Himself, therefore humble yourselves for your fickleness in your
purposes, and for your changeableness in your resolves for holiness, have not
hereafter a heart loving to wander (Jer_14:10). Be not soon removed (Gal_1:6).
Keep close to your determinations for the things of heaven, let not the blasts of
seducers take your spirits from their hinges, either in relation to principles or
duties (Eph_4:14). You must imitate your Father, and you see He is a God that is
immutable.
2. God is eternal as well as immutable.
(1) Look upon this attribute of God which, like a golden thread, runs through all
the rest, and admire it; let thy soul echo out the praises of Divine eternity upon
all occasions (1Ti_1:17). And well mayest thou, for this the eternity of God
exceeds that of the most glorious creatures: theirs is but an half eternity, it is to
everlasting, not like the Lord’s from everlasting; theirs is not intrinsical in
themselves, they receive it, but God’s is independent; they cannot communicate
to others, or extend it beyond themselves as the Lord can, therefore now extol
God’s eternity, and let it be matter of wonder to thy soul.
(2) Be not dismayed when the rage and fury of your adversaries speaks a
stripping, a deprivation of all enjoyments, when they tell you they will enter upon
your houses, seize upon your lands, take away your food, and deprive you of the
delight of your eyes, tell them you know these things are but mutable, and they
may take them, but they cannot take away your God, who is eternal in the
heavens.
(3) Rest not upon creatures, Solomon gives you to know that their strength, their
help is vanity, put your trust in this the eternal God, He hath said He will never
fail you nor forsake you, He is not as man that He should repent, He is faithful as
well as eternal, and cannot deny Himself (2Ti_2:13). (D. Swift.)
Wherefore dost Thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time?—
Helps for time of desertion
For the ship doth not more naturally arise with the flowing in of the waters, than doubts
in the soul with the coming in of troubles. For all this while God is but either trying thy
disposition, and the frame and temper of thy spirit towards Himself, He is but seeing
whether thou wilt love Him frowning as well as smiling upon thy soul (Isa_8:17), or
ransacking of thine heart, and making discovery to thee of the filth and guilt of sin that is
within thee, for man feels his sins with most hatred and sorrow in the times of God’s
withdrawings (1Sa_21:1-2), or He is but putting thee into that most excellent life of His
most precious saints. Thou wouldest live by sense, but He will now teach thee with David
to live by faith (Psa_27:13), or else the Lord is preparing thee for greater apprehensions

85. of His love and favour for the time to come. Yet still, for all that hath been spoken,
methinks I see you, O ye captived Jews, like Rachel, weeping and refusing consolation;
what, are you like the marigold, which opens and shuts with the sun? are you as court
favourites, whose comforts and discomforts depend upon the countenance or
discountenance of their prince? I must needs acknowledge, that heaven’s frowning,
God’s neglecting, or the Lord’s deserting, wounds deep, and pierceth through a
Christian’s heart. And this hath been the cause why in an expostulatory way they have
breathed out these, or the like complaints; if the Lord be with us, why is all this befallen
us? Will the Lord cast off forever, will He not again show favour? hath He forgotten to be
gracious, and doth His promise fail for evermore (Psa_77:7-9)? Neither do I marvel if, in
this pang those have been the expresses of their souls. For where is a believer’s love
concentrate, as it were, and gathered together, but in the Lord its God? and therefore it
languisheth in His absence, and is ill at ease, until it enjoy His presence (Son_5:8). Hath
not the saints’ rejoicing ever been principally in Divine communion (Psa_4:7)? Is not the
assurance of His love the very day and joy of a Christian heart? (D. Swift.)
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as
of old.
Genuine conversion
I. It is a turning of the soul to the Lord. Not to creeds, not to churches, but to the Lord
Himself, as the object of supreme love. The centreing of the whole soul upon Him. If the
Lord is loved supremely, He will be the dominant subject of thought, the leading theme
of conversation, the paramount sovereign of life.
II. It is a turning of the soul to the Lord by the Lord. No one can turn the human soul to
God but Himself. A man may as well endeavour to roll back the Mississippi to its
mountain springs as to turn back the soul to the Lord; He alone can do it, and He does it
by the influence of nature, historic events, Gospel truths, and Christly ministries.
(Homilist.)
Zion’s sufferings
1. Afflictions send the saints unto their God. O happy sorrows, O blessed troubles
that thus bring poor souls nearer to their God. Now, having been thus doctrinated in
the school of the Cross, thou mayest experimentally say with the sweet singer of
Israel, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, thereby I have learned to know Thy
statutes.
2. Troubles no discouragements to God’s precious servants.
3. Repentance the work of the great God.
4. Pressures put not God’s children besides their prayers.
5. Deliverances are only perfected by the Lord. (D. Swift.)

86. 20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
GILL, "Wherefore dost thou, forget us for ever,.... Since thou art firm, constant,
and unchangeable, and thy love and covenant the same. God seems to forget his people
when he afflicts them, or suffers them to be oppressed, and does not arise immediately
for their help; which being deferred some time, looks like an eternity to them, or they
fear it will ever be so; at least this they say to express their eager desire after his gracious
presence, and to show how much they prize it:
and forsake us so long time? or, "to length of days" (d)? so long as the seventy years'
captivity; which to be forsaken of God, or to seem to be forsaken of him, was with them a
long time.
HE RY, " They humbly expostulate with God concerning the low condition they
were now in, and the frowns of heaven they were now under (Lam_5:20): “Wherefore
dost thou forsake us so long time, as if we were quite deprived of the tokens of thy
presence? Wherefore dost thou defer our deliverance, as if thou hadst utterly abandoned
us? Thou art the same, and, though the throne of thy sanctuary is demolished, thy
throne in heaven is unshaken. But wilt thou not be the same to us?” Not as if they
thought God had forgotten and forsaken them, much less feared his forgetting and
forsaking them for ever; but thus they express the value they had for his favour and
presence, which they thought it long that they were deprived of the evidence and
comfort of. The last verse may be read as such an expostulation, and so the margin reads
it: “For wilt thou utterly reject us? Wilt thou be perpetually wroth with us, not only not
smile upon us and remember us in mercy, but frown upon us and lay us under the
tokens of thy wrath, not only not draw nigh to us, but cast us out of thy presence and
forbid us to draw nigh unto thee? How ill this be reconciled with thy goodness and
faithfulness, and the stability of thy covenant?” We read it, “But thou hast rejected us;
thou hast given us cause to fear that thou hast. Lord, how long shall we be in this
temptation?” Note, Thou we may not quarrel with God, yet we may plead with him; and,
though we may not conclude that he has cast off, yet we may (with the prophet, Jer_
12:1) humbly reason with him concerning his judgments, especially the continuance of
the desolations of his sanctuary.
CALVI , "He seems, indeed, here to expostulate with God; but the faithful, even
when they patiently bear their evils, and submit to God’s scourges, do yet familiarly

87. deposit their complaints in his bosom, and thus unburden themselves. We see that
David prayed, and no doubt by the real impulse of the Spirit, and at the same time
expostulated,
“Why dost thou forget me perpetually?” (Psalms 13:1.)
or is there a doubt but that the Prophet took this complaint from David. Let us,
then, know, that though the faithful sometimes take this liberty of expostulating
with God, they yet do not put off reverence, modesty, submission, or humility. For
when the Prophet thus inquired why God should for ever forget his people and
forsake them, he no doubt relied on his own prophecies, which he knew had
proceeded from God, and thus he deferred his hope until the end of the seventy
years, for that time had been prefixed by God. But it was according to human
judgment that he complained in his own person, and in that of the faithful, that the
affliction was long; nor is there a doubt but that he dictated this form of prayer to
the faithful, that k might be retained after his death. He, then, formed this prayer,
not only according to his own feeling, and for the direction to those of his own age;
but his purpose was to supply the faithful with a prayer after his own death, so that
they might flee to the mercy of God.
We now, then, perceive how complaints of this kind ought to be understood, when
the prophets asked, “How long?” as though they stimulated God to hasten the time;
for it cannot be, when we are pressed down by many evils, but that we wish help to
be accelerated; for faith does not wholly strip us of all cares and anxieties. But when
we thus pray, let us remember that our times are at the will and in the hand of God,
and that we ought not to hasten too much. It is, then, lawful for us on the one hand
to ask God to hasten; but, on the other hand, we ought to check our impatience and
wait until the suitable time comes. Both these things the Prophet no doubt joined
together when he said, Why shouldest thou, perpetually forget us and forsake us?
(238)
We yet see that he judged according to the evils then endured; and doubtless he
believed that God had not forsaken his own people nor forgotten them, as no
oblivion can happen to him. But, as I have already said, the Prophet mentioned
these complaints through human infirmity, not that men might indulge themselves
in their own thoughts, but that they might ascend by degrees to God and overcome
all these temptations. It follows, —
Why shouldest thou to the end forget us —
Forsake us for the length of our days?
“To the end,” or perpetually, and “the length of our days,” are the same. The length
of days, as it appears from Psalms 23:6, means the extent of the present life; the
phrase is there used as synonymous with all the days of one’s life. Might not the
Prophet here refer to the life of those then living? As to restoration after seventy
years, he could have had no doubt. He seems to have pleaded for the restoration of
the generation then living. — Ed.

88. PETT, "Verse 20
Why do you forget us for ever,
And forsake us for so long a time?
The incongruity of the situations in which God’s people found themselves as
described in this chapter, as compared with YHWH’s eternal throne, now raises
questions in the prophet’s mind. Why does this powerful almighty King leave them
in this parlous state. Why is He taking so long to remedy the situation? So the cry
goes up from his heart:
Why do you forget us for ever,
And forsake us for so long a time?
The years had ground past and the time seemed endless. It had been such a long
time. Why then did YHWH not DO something? Had He really determined to forget
them for ever? Had He forsaken hem permanently?
Of course, by praying this the prophet was not expressing his own conviction, he
was seeking to stir up God’s compassion as He looked down on what they were
enduring. He was hoping He would act OW.
PULPIT, "Wherefore dost thou forget us, etc.? The poet does not say," Wherefore
hast thou forgotten us?" One of the psalmists, indeed, does go so far (Psalms 74:1);
but the poet of this lamentation, with a more tender and trustful reserve, adopts the
tense of feeling (the imperfect) in preference to that of fact (the perfect), and asks,
"Wherefore dost thou [to my feeling] forget us? Wherefore, if Jehovah's power is
still unbroken, does he allow Israel to feel herself forsaken?" The fact is certain, viz.
that the land of Israel is desolate, and (the poet seems to imply) desolate for some
time already. The interpretation is hypothetical, and, as the last verse will show, the
poet cannot bring himself to believe that it can be accurate.
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may
return;
renew our days as of old
CLARKE, "Renew our days as of old - Restore us to our former state. Let us
regain our country, our temple, and all the Divine offices of our religion; but, more
especially, thy favor.

89. GILL, "Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned,.... This prayer
expresses the sense they had of their backslidings from God, and distance from him; of
their inability to turn themselves to the Lord, or convert themselves; and of their need of
divine grace, and of the efficacy of that to effect it; see Jer_31:18; for this is to be
understood not only of returning them to their own land, and to the external worship of
God in it; but of turning them to the Lord by true and perfect repentance, as the Targum;
of the conversion of their hearts and the reformation of their lives:
renew our days as of old; for good, as the Targum adds. The request is, that their
good days might be renewed; that they might enjoy the same peace and prosperity, and
all good things in their own land, as they had done in days and years past: first they pray
for repentance; then restoration.
HE RY 21-22, " They earnestly pray to God for mercy and grace: “Lord, do not reject
us for ever, but turn thou us unto thee; renew our days,” Lam_5:21. Though these
words are not put last, yet the Rabbin, because they would not have the book to conclude
with those melancholy words (Lam_5:22), repeat this prayer again, that the sun may not
set under a cloud, and so make these the last words both in writing and reading this
chapter. They here pray, 1. For converting grace to prepare and qualify them for mercy:
Turn us to thee, O Lord! They had complained that God had forsaken and forgotten
them, and then their prayer is not, Turn thou to us, but, Turn us to thee, which implies
an acknowledgment that the cause of the distance was in themselves. God never leaves
any till they first leave him, nor stands afar off from any longer than while they stand
afar off from him; if therefore he turn them to him in a way of duty, no doubt but he will
quickly return to them in a way of mercy. This agrees with that repeated prayer (Psa_
80:3, Psa_80:7, Psa_80:19), Turn us again, and then cause thy face to shine. Turn us
from our idols to thyself, by a sincere repentance and reformation, and then we shall be
turned. This implies a further acknowledgment of their own weakness and inability to
turn themselves. There is in our nature a proneness to backslide from God, but no
disposition to return to him till his grace works in us both to will and to do. So necessary
is that grace that we may truly say, Turn us or we shall not be turned, but shall wander
endlessly; and so powerful and effectual is that grace that we may as truly say, Turn us,
and we shall be turned; for it is a day of power, almighty power, in which God's people
are made a willing people, Psa_110:3. 2. For restoring mercy: Turn us to thee, and then
renew our days as of old, put us into the same happy state that our ancestors were in
long ago and that they continued long in; let it be with us as it was at the first, and at the
beginning, Isa_1:26. Note, If God by his grace renew our hearts, he will be his favour
renew our days, so that we shall renew our youth as the eagle, Psa_103:5. Those that
repent, and do their first works, shall rejoice, and recover their first comforts. God's
mercies to his people have been ever of old (Psa_25:6); and therefore they may hope,
even then when he seems to have forsaken and forgotten them, that the mercy which
was from everlasting will be to everlasting.
JAMISO , "(Psa_80:3; Jer_31:18). “Restore us to favor with Thee, and so we shall
be restored to our old position” [Grotius]. Jeremiah is not speaking of spiritual
conversion, but of that outward turning whereby God receives men into His fatherly
favor, manifested in bestowing prosperity [Calvin]. Still, as Israel is a type of the Church,
temporal goods typify spiritual blessings; and so the sinner may use this prayer for God

90. to convert him.
K&D 21-22, "In many Hebrew MSS Lam_5:21 is found repeated after Lam_5:22, to
make the whole more suitable for public reading in the synagogue, that the poem may
not end with the mention of the wrath of God, as is the case also at the close of Isaiah,
Malachi, and Ecclesiastes: the intention is, to conclude with words of comfort. But v. 22,
rightly understood, did not require this repetition: for, as Rhabanas has already
remarked in Ghisleri commentar. on v. 22: non haec quasi desperando de salute populi
sui locutus est, sed ut dolorem suum nimium de contritione et objectione diutina gentis
suae manifestaret. This conclusion entirely agrees with the character of the
Lamentations, in which complaint and supplication should continue to the end, - not,
however, without an element of hope, although the latter may not rise to the heights of
joyful victory, but, as Gerlach expresses himself, "merely glimmers from afar, like the
morning star through the clouds, which does not indeed itself dispel the shadows of the
night, though it announces that the rising of the sun is near, and that it shall obtain the
victory."
CALVI , "The Prophet shews, in this verse, that the remedy is in God’s hand
whenever he is pleased to succor his people. He, then, exalts here the power of God,
as though he had said, that God is not without power, but that he can, whenever he
pleases, help his people. This is not, indeed, a sufficient ground for confidence, yet it
is the beginning of hope; for whence is it that despair weakens us, so that we cannot
call on God? because we think that it is all over with us; and whence is this? because
we impiously confine the power of God; nay, we in a manner, through our unbelief,
repel his power, which would otherwise be exerted in our behalf. As, then, we thus
close the door against God, when we extenuate his power, and think that our evils
will prevail; it is, therefore, as I have said, the beginning of hope to believe that all
the issues of death are in God’s hand, and that were we a hundred times swallowed
up, yet he, by stretching forth his hand to us, can become the author of salvation to
us at any moment.
This is now the argument which the Prophet handles, when he says, Turn us, O
Jehovah, and we shall be turned; that is, “If thou, O Jehovah, be pleased to gather
us, salvation is already certain to us.” And he does not speak here of repentance.
There is, indeed, a twofold turning or conversion of men to God, and a twofold
turning of God to men. There is all inward turning when God regenerates us by his
own Spirit; and turning with respect to us is said to be the feeling of true religion,
when, after having been alienated from him, we return to the right way and to a
fight mind. There is also all exterior turning as to God, that is, when he so receives
men into favor, that his paternal favor becomes apparent; but the interior turning
of men to God takes place when they recover life and joy.
Of this second turning, then, does the Prophet now speak, Turn us, O Jehovah, and
we shall be turned; that is, If thou, Jehovah, lookest on us, our condition will
immediately become prosperous, for in thy hand there is a sure salvation for us.”

91. As, then, the Jews were at that time like the dead, the Prophet says, that if it pleased
God to gather them, they could in a moment, as they say, have been restored, as it is
said also in the Psalms,
“Thou takest away life, and all things change; send forth thy Spirit, and renew the
face of the earth.” (Psalms 104:29.)
As, then, God renews the face of the earth and restores it by only looking at it, hence
now the Prophet says, that the Jews, though they had been destroyed, could yet be
immediately restored, if it were the will of God to receive them into favor. (239)
He adds, Renew our days as of old. This is an explanation of the former clause —
the renewing of days was restoration to their former state. God had been for many
ages the deliverer of his people; under David had been their greatest happiness;
under Solomon also they had greatly flourished; but from the time when God had
redeemed his people, he had given, as we know, many and constant proofs of his
favor and mercy. As, then, God’s goodness had, by so many evidences been made
conspicuous, the Prophet now says, Renew our days as formerly, that is, “Restore us
to that happiness, which was formerly a testimony of thy paternal favor towards thy
people.” We now then perceive the meaning of the Prophet.
But it ought to be noticed, that he grounds his hope on the ancient benefits of God;
for as God had formerly redeemed his people, had often helped the miserable, had
poured forth on them, posterity fullness of blessings, hence the Prophet encourages
himself to entertain good hope, and suggests also to others the same ground of
confidence. We see that this was done often by David; for whenever he mentions
ancient testimonies of God’s favor towards his people, he hence gathered, that God
would extend the same goodness and kindness to posterity. It follows, —
Restore us, O Jehovah, to thyself, that we may be restored.
And as Calvin, as well as Grotius, says, the following line is a confirmation, —
Renew our days as of old.
— Ed.
COKE, "Lamentations 5:21-22. Renew our days, &c.— Renew our days as of old;
Lamentations 5:22. After thou hast rejected us and hast been very wroth against us.
Houbigant.
REFLECTIO S.—1st, The prophet, in the name of his afflicted people, presents
their miserable case before the God of all mercy, intreating him to regard, consider,
and remove the reproach under which they groan. And no tear, no sigh of the truly
sincere passes unnoticed.

92. 1. He lays their present wretched state before God in a variety of particulars,
wherein their grievous reproach appeared. Deprived of the inheritance of their
fathers, strangers have seized their estates, and dwell in the houses which they had
built. In a natural, political, and spiritual sense, they were become orphans and
widows; the men slain with the sword, their king removed, and God himself had
forsaken them. In their captivity they were not only destitute of the comforts of life,
but the very necessaries were hardly to be procured by them; even their water and
their wood were to be purchased at an exorbitant rate. Groaning under heavy loads,
scarcely would their heathen masters allow them sleep, and probably forbade them
the observance of their sabbaths, wearing them out with incessant toil. For a morsel
of bread, to relieve their hunger, they yielded their necks to bondage in Egypt and
Assyria; and the meanest among the nations whither they were dispersed,
tyrannized over them. To a state of such ignominy and wretched servitude were they
reduced; and not a friend to interpose to mitigate their burdens, or deliver them
from their bondage: or their heathen masters suffered their very servants to insult
them without check or rebuke. During the siege, when, driven by hunger, any
ventured to go without the walls in quest of provision, the sword of the wilderness,
or of the plain, the Chaldeans, who guarded every avenue, exposed them to confront
peril of their lives: scorched up with famine, their shrivelled skins looked black, as if
burnt with fire. Sacrificed to brutal lust, their wives and virgins fell a prey to
lawless ravishers. Their princes were hanged by their cruel conquerors, and
perhaps, when dead, their bodies hanged up by their hand and exposed. The elders
in age or office were insulted, and no respect paid to dignity or hoary locks. The
young men are set to grind or carry the grist, as if they were beasts of burden; and
the very children sink under their loads of wood, unable to sustain them. The courts
of justice are no more; the judges slain, or captives: the voice of music silenced; their
joy is fled, and all their gaiety exchanged for mourning. The crown is fallen, their
king a prisoner, their kingdom enslaved. ote; This world is a scene of awful
changes: we must look to a better for never-fading crowns and uninterrupted joy.
2. Their sins have provoked these judgments: they own and lament it. Our fathers
have sinned, and are not, and we have borne their iniquities, having added their
own provocations to the past, till they had filled up the measure of their sins; woe
unto us, our case is deplorable and pitiable, that we have sinned; and, having
nothing to plead in indication of themselves, they cast their souls upon the free grace
and mercy of God, acknowledging the justice of all that they suffered; for this our
heart is faint, both for their miseries and their sins; for these things our eyes are dim
with weeping, because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the city and
temple in ruins; the foxes walk upon it, without interruption as in the desert. ote;
(1.) Among the bitterest griefs that affect the hearts of the pious, are the desolations
of Zion, the afflictions of God's church and people. (2.) Sin is the root of all our
sorrows, and more to be lamented than all the sufferings which it occasions.
2nd, The people of God, for whom the prophet speaks,
1. Express their dependance upon God. Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever, the same

93. unchangeable Jehovah, faithful to all his promises; and therefore his believing
people may comfort themselves in him, to whatever troubles they are exposed: thy
throne from generation to generation; his dominion is eternal; and he who rules
over all will over-rule every event for the good of them that love him. While Zion's
God reigns, his saints need never despair.
2. They expostulate with God on their unhappy case. Wherefore dost thou forget us
for ever, and forsake us so long time? It had been long, and they were ready to fear
that it would be for ever; yea, every moment of his displeasure seemed an age to
them; and their unbelief was ready often to suggest, but thou hast utterly rejected
us, and there is no more hope; thou art very wroth against us, to consume us. Or the
words may be read, For hast thou utterly rejected us? wilt thou be very wroth
against us? Humble expostulations are allowable: we may reason with God
concerning his judgments, though we may not quarrel with him on account of them.
3. They pray. Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned. Conscious of
their sad departures from him, and their utter inability to help themselves, they look
to him who alone can work the mighty change. Renew our days as of old: bring us to
our former state of happiness, and enable us to imitate the examples of our pious
ancestors. This verse is repeated at last, after the following one, by the Jewish
rabbins, who would not have the book conclude with the last melancholy words.
ote; However dark the scene may close upon God's suffering saints on earth, let
them patiently and perseveringly commend their souls to him, and then they shall
quickly wake up in glory, honour, and immortality.
PETT, "Verse 21-22
Turn you us unto you, O YHWH, and we will be turned,
Renew our days as of old.
Unless (ki ’im) you have utterly rejected us,
You are very angry against us.
But he also realises that they cannot expect YHWH to act if they remain unchanged.
There had to be a true turning to God. But he recognises that it will not come just
from the people themselves. So he calls on YHWH to right the situation. Let Him
turn His people towards Himself, and then they will be turned. He recognises that
man’s sinful condition is such that unless he is turned by the Lord he will not turn.
Let Him ‘renew their days as of old’. He recognises that what was needed was a
complete renewal resulting from repentance and a true response to God. Compare
Psalms 51:12; Jeremiah 31:18.
But then he adds a proviso, although he cannot really believe that it can be so. What
if YHWH has utterly rejected them? What if He is still very angry with them? Those
are the only reasons that he can think of as to why YHWH should not act.
And so the book ends on the note of a plea for true spiritual revival, subject to
YHWH’s will and purposes. He has removed from despair to hope, a hope based on

94. the salvation of God.
PULPIT, "Turn thou us, etc. ot "bring us back to thee," i.e. to the sacred land (as
Thenius), for it is not a speech of the exiles, but of the Jews left behind, at least for
the present, in Judea. "Turn thou us" means "Bring us into a state of reconciliation
with thee" The next petition, Renew our days as of old, means, "Restore the old
happy mode of life, each man with his own vine and his own fig tree, undisturbed by
the fear of invasion, and rejoicing in the sense of the favour of Jehovah." The first
petition has the priority because only on repentance and recovered purity of heart
and life can Jerusalem rise from her ashes. Isaiah had said this long ago (Isaiah
1:26, Isaiah 1:27), and the elegiac poet repeats it (comp. Jeremiah 31:18).
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.
BAR ES, "Literally, “Unless thou hast utterly rejected us,” unless “thou art very
wroth against us.” This is stated as a virtual impossibility. God’s anger can be but
temporary Psa_30:5, and therefore the very supposition is an indirect expression of
hope.
This verse speaks of the possibility of an utter rejection through God’s wrath.
Therefore, to remove so painful a thought, and to make the book more suited for public
reading, Lam_5:21 is repeated in many manuscripts intended for use in the synagogue.
The same rule is observed in the synagogue with the two last verses of Ecclesiastes,
Isaiah, and Malachi.
CLARKE, "But thou hast utterly rejected us - It appears as if thou hadst sealed
our final reprobation, because thou showest against us exceeding great wrath. But
convert us, O Lord, onto thee, and we shall be converted. We are now greatly humbled,
feel our sin, and see our folly: once more restore us, and we shall never again forsake
thee! He heard the prayer; and at the end of seventy years they were restored to their
own land.
This last verse is well rendered in the first printed edition of our Bible, 1535: - Renue
our daies as in olde tyme, for thou hast now banished us longe ynough, and bene sore
displeased at us.
My old MS. Bible is not less nervous: Newe thou our dais as fro the begynnyng: bot

95. castand aweie thou put us out: thou wrathedist ugein us hugely.
Dr. Blayney translates, “For surely thou hast cast us off altogether:” and adds, “‫כי‬ ki
ought certainly to be rendered as causal; God’s having rejected his people, and expressed
great indignation against them, being the cause and ground of the preceding application,
in which they pray to be restored to his favor, and the enjoyment of their ancient
privileges.”
Pareau thinks no good sense can be made of this place unless we translate
interrogatively, as in Jer_14:19 : -
“Hast thou utterly rejected Judah?
Hath thy soul loathed Sion?”
On this ground he translates here,
An enim prorsus nos rejecisses?
Nobis iratus esses usque adeo?
“Hast thou indeed utterly cast us off?
Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?”
Wilt thou extend thy wrath against us so as to show us no more mercy? This agrees
well with the state and feelings of the complainants.
Masoretic Notes
Number of verses in this Book, 154.
Middle verse, Lam_3:34.
In one of my oldest MSS., the twenty-first verse is repeated at the conclusion of the
twenty-second verse. In another, yet older, there is only the first word of it, ‫השיבנו‬
hashibenu, Convert us!
Having given in the preceding preface and notes what I judge necessary to explain the
principal difficulties in this very fine and affecting poem, very fitly termed The
Lamentations, as it justly stands at the head of every composition of the kind, I shall add
but a few words, and these shall be by way of recapitulation chiefly.
The Hebrews were accustomed to make lamentations or mourning songs upon the
death of great men, princes, and heroes, who had distinguished themselves in arms; and
upon any occasion or public miseries and calamities. Calmet thinks they had collections
of these sorts of Lamentations: and refers in proof to 2Ch_35:25 : “And Jeremiah
lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in
their lamentations, to this day; and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they
are written in the Lamentations.”
From this verse it is evident, that Jeremiah had composed a funeral elegy on Josiah:
but, from the complexion of this Book, it is most evident that it was not composed on the
death of Josiah, but upon the desolations of Jerusalem, etc., as has already been noted.
His lamentation for Josiah is therefore lost. It appears also, that on particular occasions,
perhaps anniversaries, these lamentations were sung by men and women singers, who
performed their several parts; for these were all alternate or responsive songs. And it is
very likely, that this book was sung in the same way; the men commencing with ‫א‬ aleph,

96. the women responding with ‫ב‬ beth and so on. Several of this sort of songs are still
extant. We have those which David composed on the death of his son Absalom, and on
the death of his friend Jonathan. And we have those made by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel, on the desolation of Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, and Babylon. See Isa_14:4, Isa_14:5;
Isa_15:1-9; Isa_16:1-14; Jer_7:29; Jer_9:10; Jer_48:32; Eze_19:1; Eze_28:11; Eze_
32:2; Jer_9:17. Besides these, we have fragments of others in different places; and
references to some, which are now finally lost.
In the two first chapters of this book, the prophet describes, principally, the calamities
of the siege of Jerusalem.
In the third, he deplores the persecutions which he himself had suffered; though he
may in this be personifying the city and state; many of his own sufferings being
illustrative of the calamities that fell generally upon the city and people at large.
The fourth chapter is employed chiefly on the ruin and desolation of the city and
temple; and upon the misfortunes of Zedekiah, of whom he speaks in a most respectful,
tender, and affecting manner: -
“The anointed of Jehovah,
the breadth of our nostrils,
was taken in their toils,
Under whose shadow we said,
We shall live among the nations.”
At the end he speaks of the cruelty of the Edomites, who had insulted Jerusalem in her
miseries, and contributed to its demolition. These he threatens with the wrath of God.
The fifth chapter is a kind of form of prayer for the Jews, in their dispersions and
captivity. In the conclusion of it, he speaks of their fallen royalty; attributes all their
calamities to their rebellion and wickedness; and acknowledges that there can be no end
to their misery, but in their restoration to the Divine favor.
This last chapter was probably written some considerable time after the rest: for it
supposes the temple to be so deserted, that the foxes walked undisturbed among its
ruins, and that the people were already in captivity.
The poem is a monument of the people’s iniquity and rebellion; of the displeasure and
judgment of God against them; and of the piety, eloquence, and incomparable ability of
the poet.
GILL, "But thou hast utterly rejected us,.... That looks as if they had no hope, and
were in despair of having their petitions granted; since God had entirely rejected them
from being his people, and would never more have mercy on them; but the words may
be rendered, "though thou hast in rejecting rejected us" (e); or else, "unless thou hast
utterly rejected us" (f); or rather by an interrogation, "for wilt thou utterly reject", or
"despise us?" (g) surely thou wilt not; such is thy grace and goodness:
thou art very wroth against us; thou hast been, and still continuest to be: or, "wilt
thou be exceeding wroth against us?" (h) or continue thy wrath to extremity, and for
ever? thou wait not; it is not consistent with, thy mercy and grace, truth and faithfulness;
and so it is an argument of faith in prayer, and not an expression of despondency;
though the Jews, because they would not have the book end in what is sorrowful and
distressing, repeat the foregoing verse; and the like method they take at the end of
Ecclesiastes, and the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, as Jarchi observes.

97. JAMISO , "Rather, “Unless haply Thou hast utterly rejected us, and art beyond
measure wroth against us,” that is, Unless Thou art implacable, which is impossible,
hear our prayer [Calvin]. Or, as Margin, “For wouldest Thou utterly reject us?” etc. - No;
that cannot be. The Jews, in this book, and in Isaiah and Malachi, to avoid the ill-omen
of a mournful closing sentence, repeat the verse immediately preceding the last [Calvin].
CALVI , "The two words ‫אם‬ ‫,כי‬ ki am, are differently explained: some render
them, “but if,” or “certainly if,” and thus separate the verse into two parts, “Surely
if thou hast rejected us, thou art very angry;” but this is a forced meaning, not
intended, as I think, by the Prophet. And these seem to have been compelled by
necessity to pervert the Prophet’s words; because it appears hard simply to declare
that the people had been wholly rejected by God. As, then, this harshness offended
them, they contrived this comment, “If thou hast rejected us, thou art very angry.”
But as I have said, this exposition I do not approve of, because it is a very forced
one; and the greater part of interpreters follow what I stated in the first place, for
they take ‫אם‬ ‫,כי‬ ki am, adversatively. The two particles are often connected together,
and rendered, “though” or although, — “Though thou hast rejected us:” and hence
the last verse has been repeated.
For the Jews labor under this superstition, that when a book ends with a hard and
severe sentence, or one containing a dreadful threatening, grating to the ears, in
order to avoid the sad omen, they repeat the last verse but one. So they do at the end
of Isaiah, and at the end of Malachi. As Isaiah says, “It shall be a horror (or
abomination) to all flesh;” they therefore repeat the previous verse. So in Malachi;
as he says, “Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse — ‫,חרם‬ cherem, ” they
think that as he pronounces there an anathema, it is a sort of charm that may
absorb this curse, to have the previous verse repeated after it. There is, then, no
doubt but that they took this passage in the same sense, “Though thou hast rejected
us,” etc.
If this explanation be approved, we must hold that the Prophet here exceeded due
limits, as also the faithful, in their prayers, do not always so restrain themselves, but
that some heat bubbles up; for we see how David, in the Psalms, too often shewed
this kind of feeling; and it is hence evident, that his mind was not always sufficiently
calm. We must then say, that the Prophet was impelled by a turbulent feeling when
he uttered these words.
But ‫אם‬ ‫,כי‬ ki am, may also be rendered, “Unless,” or except’ and it is singular that
no one has perceived this, though it be not an unsuitable meaning, “Except it may be
thou rejecting hast rejected us, and hast become very angry with us,” or above
measure angry; for ‫מאד‬ ‫,עד‬ od mad in Hebrew, means the same as above measure
(supra modum) in Latin. Though the Prophet seems to speak doubtingly, by laying
down t, his condition, there is vet no doubt but that he struggled against all unbelief,
when he said, Except it may be; for he reasons from what is impossible, “Turn thou
us to thee and we shall be turned, renew our days as formerly; except it may be thou
hast rejected us:” but this was impossible. Then, as I have said, the Prophet here

98. strengthens himself by setting up a shield against all the assaults of temptations
when he says, Except it may be thou hast rejected us (240)
But it cannot be that God will reject his people, and be so angry with them, as never
to be reconciled. We hence see that the Prophet does not simply set down the
condition, as though he said, “O God, if thou art to be perpetually angry with us,
and wilt never be reconciled, it is there all over with our salvation; but if thou wilt
be reconciled to us, we shall then entertain good hope.” o, the Prophet did not thus
keep his own mind and the minds of others in suspense, but had a sure confidence as
to God’s favor; for it cannot be that God will ever forsake those whom he has
chosen, as Paul also shews in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
As it has so seemed good to the brethren, I will begin tomorrow the explanation of
Ezekiel.
For surely rejecting thou hast rejected us,
Thou hast been wroth with us exceedingly,
or, more literally,
Thou hast foamed against us exceedingly.
The first line here corresponds with the latter part of the previous verse, “Restore us
to our land, and renew the ancient days,” — “Thou hast wholly rejected us.” He
speaks of things as they were then. Then the last line in this verse bears a relation to
the first part of the preceding verse, “Restore us to thy favor,” — “Thou hast been
exceedingly displeased with us.” Thus, for displeasure he asked favor, and for
repudiation, a restoration. — Ed.
CO STABLE, "The only reason the Lord might not restore Israel was if He had
fully and permanently rejected His people because He was so angry with them. By
mentioning this possibility at the very end of the book, Jeremiah led his readers to
recall God"s promises that He would never completely abandon His chosen people.
Because this last verse of the book is so negative, many Hebrew manuscripts of
Lamentations end by repeating Lamentations 5:21 after Lamentations 5:22. It also
became customary, when the Jews read the book in synagogue worship, for them to
repeat Lamentations 5:21 at the end. They also did this when they read other books
that end on a negative note (i.e, Ecclesiastes ,, Isaiah , and Malachi).
In view of God"s promises to Israel, He would not abandon the nation completely.
He would bless them in the future (cf. Leviticus 26:44; Jeremiah 31:31-37; Romans
11:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:13). evertheless the focus of this book is on the misery that sin
produces, not the hope of future deliverance.
"The theological message of Lamentations may be summarized as follows: God"s

99. angry disciplinary judgment of His people, while severe and deserved, was not
final." [ ote: Chisholm, p359.]
PULPIT, "But; rather, unless. The poet wishes to suggest that the idea seems to him
inconsistent with the covenant relationship of Jehovah towards Israel. May we not
compare a striking passage in Isaiah which should probably be rendered thus: "A
wife of one's youth, can she be rejected? saith thy God" (Isaiah 54:6)? Both passages
express, in a most delicate way, the incredulity of the writers with regard to the
absolute rejection of Israel. And thus this melancholy Book of Lamentations
concludes with a hope, "faint, yet pursuing," of the final realization of the promises
to Israel. The interpretation adopted admits of no reasonable doubt, in spite of the
fact that ancient doctors of the synagogue thought otherwise when they established
the custom of repeating verse 21 after verse 22 had been read, in order to soften the
supposed gloomy impression of verse 22.