Lamentations 5

This chapter would be a pleasure to hear in Hebrew. It is not an acrostic like the other chapters of Lamentations. The verse pairs, however, match in topic and have similar sounds.


Text
Comments
 1 ¶ Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
 2  Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
  A prayer after the destruction of Jerusalem.
 3  We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
 4  We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
  Widows See on la0101.
 5  Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.
 6  We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
  Necks An expression of bondage. Egyptian inscription show prisoners bound together by their necks.
  Egyptians The book is about problems from the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. Egypt dominated the land earlier. The next verse also looks back.
  Assyrians See ezr0622.
 7  Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
 8  Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
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 9  We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
 10  Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
  Skin was black Literally, "grew hot." They had a fever.
 11  They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
 12  Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.
  Women ravished This had been predicted by moses de2830,32 and by Jeremiah je0612.
  Hanged ... by their hand "a piece of wanton cruelty invented by the Chaldeans. GROTIUS translates, "Princes were hung by the hand of the enemy"; hanging was a usual mode of execution (Ge 40:19)." (JFB)
 13. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
 14. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
  Took young men ... grind See jg1621, jb3110.
 15  The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
16  The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
  Dance This was an expression of joy ps14903.
 17 ¶ For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.
.18  Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
  Zion Jerusalem. Compare ne0403.
 19  Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
.20  Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
  Remainest for ever From ps10212. "The perpetuity of God's rule over human affairs, however He may seem to let His people be oppressed for a time, is their ground of hope of restoration." (JFB)
 21  Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
 22  But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.
  Turn Prayer for spiritual as well as political restoration.
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