4 The tongue of the child at the breast is fixed to the roof of his mouth for need of drink: the young children are crying out for bread, and no man gives it to them.
My throat is dry like a broken vessel; my tongue is fixed to the roof of my mouth, and the dust of death is on my lips.
My eyes are wasted with weeping, the inmost parts of my body are deeply moved, my inner parts are drained out on the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because of the young children and babies at the breast who are falling without strength in the open squares of the town. They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast.
If I let you go out of my thoughts, and if I do not put Jerusalem before my greatest joy, let my tongue be fixed to the roof of my mouth.
Breathing out grief all her people are looking for bread; they have given their desired things for food to give them life: see, O Lord, and take note; for she has become a thing of shame.
Or which of you, if his son makes a request for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he makes a request for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, being evil, are able to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who make requests to him?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Lamentations 4
Commentary on Lamentations 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
This chapter is another single alphabet of Lamentations for the destruction of Jerusalem, like those in the first two chapters.
Lam 4:1-12
The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamentation of the very sad and doleful change which the judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The city that was formerly as gold, as the most fine gold, so rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth, has become dim, and is changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value, is not what it was; it has become dross. Alas! what an alteration is here!
Lam 4:13-20
We have here,
Lam 4:21-22
David's psalms of lamentation commonly conclude with some word of comfort, which is as life from the dead and light shining out of darkness; so does this lamentation here in this chapter. The people of God are now in great distress, their aspects all doleful, their prospects all frightful, and their ill-natured neighbours the Edomites insult over them and do all they can to exasperate their destroyers against them. Such was their violence against their brother Jacob (Obad. 10), such their spleen at Jerusalem, of which they cried, Rase it, rase it, Ps. 137:7. Now it is here foretold, for the encouragement of God's people,