9 Better have been the pierced of a sword Than the pierced of famine, For these flow away, pierced through, Without the increase of the field.
`And those who are left of you -- they consume away in their iniquity, in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, with them they consume away.
And your bonnets `are' on your heads, And your shoes `are' on your feet, Ye do not mourn nor do ye weep, And ye have wasted away for your iniquities, And ye have howled one unto another.
Of painful deaths they die, They are not lamented, nor are they buried, For dung on the face of the ground they are, And by sword and by famine are consumed, And their carcase hath been for food To the fowl of the heavens, And to the beast of the earth.
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,