Lamentations 4

Chap. IV. Ver. 1—22. Zion deeply bewails her situation, and laments her sins. Edom is then threatened, and Zion comforted.—The prophet contrasts, in various affecting instances, the wretched and deplorable circumstances of the Jewish nation with the flourishing state of their affairs in former times; and ascribes the unhappy change, principally, to the profligacy of their priests and shepherds, which had drawn upon them a universal abhorrence of God and man. The whole people proceed with lamenting their hopeless condition; and, in a particular manner, the captivity of their sovereign. Final cessation of Zion’s calamities. (Dr. Blayney.) “The glory of outward distinctions and privileges may soon be obscured; sin tarnishes the beauty of the most excellent gifts; and when the Lord leaves churches or nations, their glory is departed. But that ‘gold tried in the fire,’ which Christ bestows, will never be taken from us; nor can its excellency be diminished.—The stones of the earthly sanctuary were repeatedly poured out in the streets, so that not one of them was left upon another: but the spiritual temple experiences no such demolitions; it is built upon a Rock, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail; and every believer being one with Christ, is ‘a habitation of God through the Spirit’—Indeed the most ‘precious of the sons of Zion,’ incomparably more valuable in the sight of God than the finest gold, are esteemed by ungodly men ‘as earthen pitchers,’ fit for nothing but the basest uses, or to be dashed in pieces; and but even Christ himself was despised and vilified more than any of them.—All the troubles of the church will soon be accomplished; and believers ere long will have done with captivity, punishment, sin, and sorrow: but the doom of their insulting enemies approaches; the Lord will soon bring their sins to light; he will put the cup of vengeance into their hands; and they shall drink it to the dregs, and lie down in eternal shame and sorrow.”—T. Scott.