20 See, Jehovah, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled: without, the sword hath bereaved [me], within, it is as death.
Mine eyes are consumed with tears, my bowels are troubled; my liver is poured upon the earth, because of the ruin of the daughter of my people; because infant and suckling swoon in the streets of the city.
The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die by the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.
From without shall the sword bereave them, and in the chambers, terror -- Both the young man and the virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs.
My bowels! my bowels! I am in travail! [Oh,] the walls of my heart! My heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace: for thou hearest, my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the clamour of war.
Her impurity was in her skirts, she remembered not her latter end; and she came down wonderfully: she hath no comforter. Jehovah, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.
And the tax-gatherer, standing afar off, would not lift up even his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, O God, have compassion on me, the sinner. I say unto you, This [man] went down to his house justified rather than that [other]. For every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.
I heard, and my belly trembled; My lips quivered at the voice; Rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in my place, That I might rest in the day of distress, When their invader shall come up against the people.
How shall I give thee over, Ephraim? [how] shall I deliver thee up, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? [how] shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
The slain with the sword are happier than the slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. The hands of pitiful women have boiled their own children: they were their meat in the ruin of the daughter of my people.
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.
All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to revive [their] soul. See, Jehovah, and consider, for I am become vile.
And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, through their unfaithfulness wherein they were unfaithful to me, and also that they have walked contrary unto me, so that I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.
Therefore my heart shall sound for Moab like pipes, and my heart shall sound like pipes for the men of Kir-heres; because the abundance that he hath gotten is perished.
Is Ephraim a dear son unto me? is he a child of delights? For whilst I have been speaking against him, I do constantly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will certainly have mercy upon him, saith Jehovah.
For death is come up through our windows, is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the broadways. Speak, Thus saith Jehovah: Yea, the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the reaper, and there shall be none to gather.
Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast turned thy ways hither and thither to the strangers under every green tree; and ye have not hearkened to my voice, saith Jehovah.
Like a swallow [or] a crane, so did I chatter; I mourned as a dove; mine eyes failed [with looking] upward: Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh [them] shall obtain mercy.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is become like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
He will sing before men, and say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it hath not been requited to me;
and if they shall take it to heart in the land whither they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captive, saying, We have sinned, and have done iniquity, we have dealt perversely; and if they return unto thee with all their heart and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies who led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name; then hear thou in the heavens, the settled place of thy dwelling, their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their right; and forgive thy people their sin against thee, and all their transgressions whereby they have transgressed against thee, and give them to find compassion with those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Lamentations 1
Commentary on Lamentations 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Lamentations of Jeremiah
Chapter 1
We have here the first alphabet of this lamentation, twenty-two stanzas, in which the miseries of Jerusalem are bitterly bewailed and her present deplorable condition is aggravated by comparing it with her former prosperous state; all along, sin is acknowledged and complained of as the procuring cause of all these miseries; and God is appealed to for justice against their enemies and applied to for compassion towards them. The chapter is all of a piece, and the several remonstrances are interwoven; but here is,
Lam 1:1-11
Those that have any disposition to weep with those that weep, one would think, should scarcely be able to refrain from tears at the reading of these verses, so very pathetic are the lamentations here.
Lam 1:12-22
The complaints here are, for substance, the same with those in the foregoing part of the chapter; but in these verses the prophet, in the name of the lamenting church, does more particularly acknowledge the hand of god in these calamities, and the righteousness of his hand.