1 Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
4 Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.
5 Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.
8 Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.
9 We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.
11 They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.
13 The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.
15 The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.
19 Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
22 Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Lamentations 5
Commentary on Lamentations 5 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 5
This chapter, though it has the same number of verses with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th, is not alphabetical, as they were, but the scope of it is the same with that of all the foregoing elegies. We have in it,
Some ancient versions call this chapter, "The Prayer of Jeremiah.'
Lam 5:1-16
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, v. 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?
Lam 5:17-22
Here,