Bible Commentaries

This final chapter Lamentations 5 consists of the same number of verses as there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet, but they no longer begin with the letters in regular order. Strict care is shown in the form and arrangement of the poem, each verse being compressed into a very brief compass, consisting of two members which answer to one another both in idea and expression. It is mainly occupied with the recapitulation of sufferings Lamentations 5:2-18, and finally closes with earnest prayer.

What is come upon us - literally, "what" has happened "to us:" our national disgrace.

Turned - "transferred." The inheritance was the land of Canaan Leviticus 20:24.

Aliens - Or, "foreigners:" i. e. the Chaldaeans upon their conquest of the country.

Our mothers are as widows - The particle "as" suggests that the whole verse is metaphorical. Our distress and desolation is comparable only to that of fatherless orphans or wives just bereaved of their husbands.

Better as in the margin cometh to us for price. The rendering of the the King James Version spoils the carefully studied rhythm of the original. The bitterness of the complaint lies in this, that it was their own property which they had to buy.

Our necks ... - i. e. we were pursued so actively that our enemies seemed to be leaning over our necks ready to seize us.

We labor - We were wearied, "there was no rest for us:" being chased incessantly.

"To give the hand" means to submit oneself. Absolutely it was Babylon that had just destroyed their national existence, but Jeremiah means that all feelings of patriotism were crushed, and the sole care that remained was the desire for personal preservation. To secure this the people would readily have submitted to the yoke either of Egypt or Assyria, the great powers from which in their past history they had so often suffered.

And are not; and we ... - Or, they are not; "we have borne their iniquities." Our fathers who began this national apostasy died before the hour of punishment.