18 Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
If ye fear Jehovah, and serve him, and hearken to his voice, and rebel not against the commandment of Jehovah, then both ye and the king also that reigns over you shall continue following Jehovah your God. But if ye will not hearken to the voice of Jehovah, and if ye rebel against the commandment of Jehovah, then will the hand of Jehovah be against you, as against your fathers.
And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Ye shall certainly drink. For behold, I begin to bring evil on the city that is called by my name, and should ye be altogether unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished; for I call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith Jehovah of hosts.
And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Thou art righteous, who art and wast, the holy one, that thou hast judged so; for they have poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; they are worthy. And I heard the altar saying, Yea, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous [are] thy judgments.
And they sing the song of Moses bondman of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and wonderful [are] thy works, Lord God Almighty; righteous and true [are] thy ways, O King of nations. Who shall not fear [thee], O Lord, and glorify thy name? for [thou] only [art] holy; for all nations shall come and do homage before thee; for thy righteousnesses have been made manifest.
With the Lord our God are mercies and pardons, for we have rebelled against him; and we have not hearkened unto the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us through his servants the prophets. And all Israel have transgressed thy law, even turning aside so as not to listen unto thy voice. And the curse hath been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God: for we have sinned against him. And he hath performed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; so that there hath not been done under the whole heaven as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet we besought not Jehovah our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. And Jehovah hath watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Jehovah our God is righteous in all his works which he hath done; and we have not hearkened unto his voice. -- And now, O Lord our God, who broughtest thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name, as it is this day, -- we have sinned, we have done wickedly. Lord, according to all thy righteousnesses, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain; for because of our sins, and because of the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people [are become] a reproach to all round about us.
But behold, there shall be left in it those that escape, who shall be brought out of [it], sons and daughters. Behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings; and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, as to all that I have brought upon it. And they shall comfort you, when ye see their way and their doings; and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the adversary. And from the daughter of Zion all her splendour is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture; and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath Jehovah done thus unto this great city? And they shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.
Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, confessing the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very perversely against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances that thou commandedst thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the peoples;
and this house, [which] is high, every one that passes by it shall be astonished at, and shall hiss, and they shall say, Why has Jehovah done thus to this land and to this house? And they shall say, Because they forsook Jehovah their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have attached themselves to other gods, and have worshipped them and served them; therefore has Jehovah brought upon them all this evil.
And the generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its sicknesses wherewith Jehovah hath visited it, [that] the whole ground thereof is brimstone and salt, [and] burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, and no grass groweth in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger and in his fury: even all nations shall say, Why has Jehovah done thus to this land? whence the heat of this great anger? And men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah the God of their fathers, which he had made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; and they went and served other gods, and bowed down to them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not assigned to them. And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book; and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in fury, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as [it appears] this day.
Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and languish for them all the day long; and there shall be no power in thy hand [to help it]. The fruit of thy ground and all thy labour, shall a people that thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed continually. And thou shalt be mad through the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. Jehovah will smite thee in the knees and in the legs with evil ulcers, whereof thou canst not be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head. Jehovah will bring thee, and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation that neither thou nor thy fathers have known, and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples whither Jehovah shall lead thee. Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall devour it. Thou shalt plant and till vineyards, but shalt drink no wine, nor gather [the fruit]; for the worms shall eat it. Olive-trees shalt thou have throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil; for thine olive-tree shall cast its fruit. Sons and daughters shalt thou beget, but thou shalt not have them [to be with thee]; for they shall go into captivity.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Lamentations 1
Commentary on Lamentations 1 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 1
La 1:1-22.
Aleph.
1. how is she … widow! she that was great, &c.—English Version is according to the accents. But the members of each sentence are better balanced in antithesis, thus, "how is she that was great among the nations become as a widow! (how) she who was princess among the provinces (that is, she who ruled over the surrounding provinces from the Nile to the Euphrates, Ge 15:18; 1Ki 4:21; 2Ch 9:26; Ezr 4:20) become tributary!" [Maurer].
sit—on the ground; the posture of mourners (La 2:10; Ezr 9:3). The coin struck on the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, representing Judea as a female sitting solitary under a palm tree, with the inscription, Judæa Capta, singularly corresponds to the image here; the language therefore must be prophetical of her state subsequent to Titus, as well as referring retrospectively to her Babylonian captivity.
Beth.
2. in the night—even in the night, the period of rest and oblivion of griefs (Job 7:3).
lovers … friends—the heathen states allied to Judah, and their idols. The idols whom she "loved" (Jer 2:20-25) could not comfort her. Her former allies would not: nay, some "treacherously" joined her enemies against her (2Ki 24:2, 7; Ps 137:7).
Gimel.
3. (Jer 52:27).
because of great servitude—that is, in a state "of great servitude," endured from the Chaldeans. "Because" is made by Vatablus indicative of the cause of her captivity; namely, her having "afflicted" and unjustly brought into "servitude" the manumitted bond-servants (Jer 34:8-22). Maurer explains it, "Judah has left her land (not literally 'gone into captivity') because of the yoke imposed on it by Nebuchadnezzar."
no rest—(De 28:64, 65).
overtook her between … straits—image from robbers, who in the East intercept travellers at the narrow passes in hilly regions.
Daleth.
4. feasts—the passover, pentecost (or the feast of weeks), and the feast of tabernacles.
gates—once the place of concourse.
He.
5. the chief—rule her (De 28:43, 44).
adversaries … prosper; for the Lord—All the foes' attempts would have failed, had not God delivered His people into their hands (Jer 30:15).
Vau.
6. beauty … departed—her temple, throne, and priesthood.
harts that find no pasture—an animal timid and fleet, especially when seeking and not able to "find pasture."
Zain.
7. remembered—rather, "remembers," now, in her afflicted state. In the days of her prosperity she did not appreciate, as she ought, the favors of God to her. Now, awakening out of her past lethargy, she feels from what high privileges she has fallen.
when her people fell, &c.—that is, after which days of prosperity "her people fell."
mock at her sabbaths—The heathen used to mock at the Jews' Sabbath, as showing their idleness, and term them Sabbatarians [Martial, 4.4]. Now, said they ironically, ye may keep a continuous Sabbath. So God appointed the length of the captivity (seventy years) to be exactly that of the sum of the Sabbaths in the four hundred ninety years in which the land was denied its Sabbaths (Le 26:33-35). Maurer translates it "ruin." But English Version better expresses the point of their "mocking," namely, their involuntary "Sabbaths," that is, the cessation of all national movements. A fourth line is added in this stanza, whereas in all the others there are but three. So in La 2:19.
Cheth.
8. (1Ki 8:46).
is removed—as a woman separated from the congregation of God for legal impurity, which is a type of moral impurity. So La 1:17; Le 12:2; 15:19, &c.
her nakedness—They have treated her as contumeliously as courtesans from whom their clothes are stripped.
turneth backward—as modest women do from shame, that is, she is cast down from all hope of restoration [Calvin].
Teth.
9. Continuation of the image in La 1:8. Her ignominy and misery cannot be concealed but are apparent to all, as if a woman were suffering under such a flow as to reach the end of her skirts.
remembereth not … last end—(De 32:29; Isa 47:7). She forgot how fatal must be the end of her iniquity. Or, as the words following imply: She, in despair, cannot lift herself up to lay hold of God's promises as to her "latter end" [Calvin].
wonderfully—Hebrew, "wonders," that is, with amazing dejection.
O Lord, behold—Judah here breaks in, speaking for herself.
for the enemy hath magnified himself—What might seem ground for despair, the elated insulting of the enemy, is rather ground for good hope.
Jod.
10. for—surely she hath seen, &c.
heathen … command … not enter … congregation—for instance, the Ammonites and Moabites (De 23:3; Ne 13:1, 2). If the heathen, as such, were not allowed to enter the sanctuary for worship, much less were they allowed to enter in order to rob and destroy.
Caph.
11. (Jer 37:21; 38:9; 52:6).
given … pleasant things for meat—(2Ki 6:25; Job 2:4).
relieve … soul—literally, "to cause the soul or life to return."
for I am become vile—Her sins and consequent sorrows are made the plea in craving God's mercy. Compare the like plea in Ps 25:11.
Lamed.
12. The pathetic appeal of Jerusalem, not only to her neighbors, but even to the strangers "passing by," as her sorrow is such as should excite the compassion even of those unconnected with her. She here prefigures Christ, whom the language is prophetically made to suit, more than Jerusalem. Compare Israel, that is, Messiah, Isa 49:3. Compare with "pass by," Mt 27:39; Mr 15:29. As to Jerusalem, Da 9:12. M AURER, from the Arabic idiom, translates, "do not go off on your way," that is, stop, whoever ye are that pass by. English Version is simpler.
Mem.
13. bones—a fire which not only consumes the skin and flesh, but penetrates even to my "bones" (that is, my vital powers).
prevaileth against—not as Rosenmuller, "He (Jehovah) hath broken them"; a sense not in the Hebrew.
net—(Eze 12:13); image from hunting wild beasts. He has so entangled me in His judgments that I cannot escape.
turned me back—so that I cannot go forward and get free from His meshes.
Nun.
14. yoke … is bound by his hand—(De 28:48). Metaphor from husbandmen, who, after they have bound the yoke to the neck of oxen, hold the rein firmly twisted round the hand. Thus the translation will be, "in His hand." Or else, "the yoke of my transgressions" (that is, of punishment for my transgressions) is held so fast fixed on me "by" God, that there is no loosening of it; thus English Version, "by His hand."
wreathed—My sins are like the withes entwined about the neck to fasten the yoke to.
into their hands, from whom—into the hands of those, from whom, &c. Maurer translates, "before whom I am not able to stand."
Samech.
15. trodden, &c.—Maurer, from Syriac root, translates, "cast away"; so 2Ki 23:27. But Ps 119:118, supports English Version.
in … midst of me—They fell not on the battlefield, but in the heart of the city; a sign of the divine wrath.
assembly—the collected forces of Babylon; a very different "assembly" from the solemn ones which once met at Jerusalem on the great feasts. The Hebrew means, literally, such a solemn "assembly" or feast (compare La 2:22).
trodden … virgin … in a wine-press—hath forced her blood to burst forth, as the red wine from the grapes trodden in the press (Isa 63:3; Re 14:19, 20; 19:15).
Ain.
16. (Jer 13:17; 14:17). Jerusalem is the speaker.
mine eye, mine eye—so La 4:18, "our end … our end"; repetition for emphasis.
Pe.
17. Like a woman in labor-throes (Jer 4:31).
menstruous woman—held unclean, and shunned by all; separated from her husband and from the temple (compare La 1:8; Le 14:19, &c.).
Tzaddi.
18. The sure sign of repentance; justifying God, condemning herself (Ne 9:33; Ps 51:4; Da 9:7-14).
his commandment—literally, "mouth"; His word in the mouth of the prophets.
Koph.
19. lovers—(La 1:2; Jer 30:14).
elders—in dignity, not merely age.
sought … meat—Their dignity did not exempt them from having to go and seek bread (La 1:11).
Resh.
20. bowels … troubled—(Job 30:27; Isa 16:11; Jer 4:19; 31:20). Extreme mental distress affects the bowels and the whole internal frame.
heart … turned—(Ho 11:8); is agitated or fluttered.
abroad … sword … at home … as death—(De 32:25; Eze 7:15). The "as" does not modify, but intensifies. "Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home as it were death itself" (personified), in the form of famine and pestilence (2Ki 25:3; Jer 14:18; 52:6). So Hab 2:5, "as death" [Michaelis].
Schin.
21. they are glad that thou hast done it—because they thought that therefore Judah is irretrievably ruined (Jer 40:3).
the day … called—(but) thou wilt bring on them the day of calamity which thou hast announced, namely, by the prophets (Jer 50:1-46; 48:27).
like … me—in calamities (Ps 137:8, 9; Jer 51:25, &c.).
Tau.
22. Such prayers against foes are lawful, if the foe be an enemy of God, and if our concern be not for our own personal feeling, but for the glory of God and the welfare of His people.
come before thee—so Re 16:19, "Babylon came in remembrance before God" (compare Ps 109:15).