Lamentations 5

Chap. V. Ver. 1—22. Zion’s complaint and prayer to God. —In the Synac, Arabic, and Vulgate versions, this chapter is entitled The Prayer of Jeremiah; but no such title appears, either in the Hebrew or the Septuagint: it is rather a memorial, representing, in the name of the whole body of Jewish exiles, the many and grievous hardships they groaned under, and humbly entreating God to commiserate their wretchedness, and to restore them once more to his favour, and to their ancient prosperity. The whole may be considered as an epilogue or conclusion, well adapted to the contents of the preceding chapters. “In all troubles, prayer is our great duty and privilege, and the best means of relief: and all our sorrows should lead us to beseech the Lord to remember and help us.

Though our sins and his just displeasure have caused our sufferings; yet we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence.—As wasting wars, terrible famines, and heavy oppressions, or persecutions, come upon nations, for the sins of former and present generations, when their appointed measure of iniquity is filled up; so the accumulating sins of a man’s whole life will be punished with tremendous vengeance at last; except he obtain by faith an interest in _ Ver. 22. He will discover thy sins.—Margin, “Carry thee captive for thy wrath of God turns the sinner’s mirth into mourning, his liberty into bondage, and his honour into disgrace: ‘for this the crown is fallen from our heads, and wo unto us that we have sinned!

This first reduced the race of man to its present wretched condition; and the desolations of the church originate from the same source.—But though we should mourn over the miseries of the world, and the low estate of the church; yet the true Zion, to which believers are come, cannot be desolated, but remains for ever, even as the throne of our God in heaven. This inheritance cannot be forfeited or alienated: nor can our mansions be possessed by strangers; or our relation to God, as espoused and adopted into His family, abrogated; or ‘the liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free,’ taken from us; the freeness of our salvation disannulled; or our joy and glorying in Christ made void. Various tribulations may make our hearts faint and our eyes dim; but our way to the mercy-seat of our reconciled God is still open: and we may beseech him not to forsake or forget us; and plead with him to turn and renew us, more and more, by his grace, that our hopes may revive and our consolations abound ‘as in the days of old.’ For the eternal and unchangeable God will not utterly reject his church, or any true believer, whatever our trials, fears, or lamentations may be.

Let us then, ‘in all our troubles, put our whole trust and confidence in his mercy;’ let us confess our sins, and pour out our hearts before him; and let us watch against repinings or despondency, whatever we suffer, or whatever we witness of the troubles of our brethren; for this we surely know, that it shall be well in the event, with all who trust, fear, love, and serve God.”— T. Scott. Ver. 9. The sword of the wilderness.—That is, the Arabian freebooters, to it came to pass in the thirtieth year, |,..,,,, |ed brass. 3. ae 3 The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.

4] And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about 7 And their feet were * straight feet; the sole

Notes on the verses

Chap. V. Ver. 4. Is sold unto us.—‘‘Cometh for price;” i. e. they were obliged to purchase, not only wood, but water also. Ver. 5, Our necks are under persecution.—“On our necks are we persecuted;” i. e. we are under the yoke of foreigners. Ver. 6. We have given the hand—i. e. submitted. See (Jeremiah 50:15). {THE Lamentations of Jeremiah, as Bishop Lowth observes, consist of a number of plaintive effusions, composed upon the plan of the funeral dirges, all upon the same subject, and uttered without connexion as they rose in the mind, in a long course of separate stanzas. These have afterwards been put together, and formed into a collection or correspondent whole. In the character of a mourner, he celebrates in plaintive strains the obsequies of his ruined country: whatever presented itself to his mind in the midst of desolation and misery, whatever struck him as particularly wretched and calamitous, whatever the instant sentiment of sorrow dictated, he pours forth in a kind of spontaneous effusion.

The prophet has so copiously, so tenderly, and poetically bewailed the misfortunes of his country, that he seems completely to have fulfilled the office and duty of a mourner. It may be doubted, if there be extant any poem, which displays such a happy and splendid selection of imagery in so concentrated a state. Never was there a more rich and elegant variety of beautiful images and adjuncts arranged together within so small a compass, nor more happily chosen and applied; and though there is no artificial or methodical arrangement in these incomparable elegies, yet they are totally free from wild incoherency, or abrupt transition. What can be more elegant and poetical than the description of that once flourishing city, lately chief among the nations, sitting in the character of a female, solitary, afflicted, in a state of widowhood, fled by her friends, betrayed by her dearest connexions, imploring relief, and seeking consolation in vain!

What a beautiful personification is that of ‘‘the ways of Zion mourning because none are come to her solemn feasts!” How tender and pathetic is the following complaint: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, behold, and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow, Which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord which they were probably exposed, in seeking for wood, &c. Ver. 10. Our skin was black.—That is, scorched, or burnt, by the heat of the climate, with the want of drink and food. See (Job 30:30). (Jeremiah 4:8).; vn, 21. Ver. 12. Princes are hanged by their hand—i. e. tied up by one hand and left to perish: a cruel mode of execution, sometimes practised hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger!”

But to detail its beauties would be to transcribe the entire poem. “Nor can we too much admire,” says Dr. Blayney, the full and grateful flow of that pathetic eloquence, in which the author pours forth the effusions of a patriotic heart, and piously weeps over the ruins of his venerable country… But the prophet’s peculiar talent lay in working up, and expressing the passions of grief and pity; and unhappily for him, as a man and a citizen, he met with a subject but too well calculated to give his genius its full display.” ‘‘One would think,” says Dr. South, ‘‘that every letter was written with a tear—every word the noise of a broken heart;—that the author was a man compuncted of sorrows, disciplined to grief from his infancy; one who never breathed but in sighs, nor spoke but in a groan.”’ “David,” observes Dr.

A. Clarke, “has forcibly depicted the sorrows of a heart oppressed with penitential sorrow: but where, in a composition of such length, have bodily misery and mental agony been more successfully painted? All the expressions and images of sorrow are here exhibited in various combinations, and in various points of view. Misery has no expression that the author of the Lamentations has not employed. Patriots you who tell us you burn for your country’s welfare, look at the prophecies and history of this extraordinary man;—look at his Lamentations;—take him through his life to his death, and learn from him what true patriotism means! The man who watched, prayed, and lived, for the welfare of his country; who chose to share her adversities, her sorrows, her wants, her afflictions, and disgrace, when he might have been a companion of princes, and have sat at the table of kings!—who only ceased to live for his country when he ceased to breathe:—that was a patriot, in comparison with whom almost all others are obscured, diminished, and brought low; or are totally annihilated!”—Bagster.

_ Ver. 15. With his four [wheels] is, as Archbishop Newcome explains it, ‘‘One wheel intersected another at right angles, like the two colures; and the four spherical portions thus formed, seem to be called the four faces, or sides;” ver. 17. See Chap. x. 13. Ver. 16. Colour of a beryl.—That is, pale sea-green.— Wheel in the middle of a wheel.—(These are supposed to denote the revolutions of God’s providence, which are regular, though intricate; and by “a wheel in the middle of a wheel,” that is, like two circles in a sphere, cutting each other at right angles, is expressed the stability and uniformity of their motion, and the subserviency of one part of Divine providence to another.]—Bagster.

Ver. 18. Their rings.—That is, the outer circles. Ver. 22. Firmament upon.—Rather, ‘expanse over,’ &c.—See note on (Genesis 1:8).—As the terrible.—Or ‘‘sparkling” crystal; perhaps so called from its resemblance to icicles in the sun.—[Kerach, which generally denotes ice, doubtless here signifies crystal, krystallos, from kryos, cold, ice, and stellomai, to concrete, as it is rendered by the LXX. and Vulgate. It is a very large class of silicious minerals, hard, pellucid, naturally colourless, of regularly angular figures, and of simple plates; not flexible, nor elastic, but giving fire with steel; not fermenting by acid menstrua, but calcinable in a strong fire. ‘There are three orders of pure crystal: the first is perfect columnar crystals at each tals, with double pyramids, of 18 planes, in a hexangular pend; the second is that of perfect crystals without a column, of 12 or 16 planes, in two hexangular pyramids; and the third is that of imperfect crystals, with single pyramids, of 10 or 12 planes, in a hexangular or pentangular column.

Terrible crystal seems to denote that which was well cut and polished, vividly refracting the rays of light.]}——Bagster. Ver. 25. And had let down their wings.—These words are omitted by the LXX., Syriac, and Arabic, and supposed to be here repeated by mistake from the verse preceding. Ver. 26. Sapphire stone.—See note on (Exodus 24:10). Ver. 27. And it had brightness round about.—Newcome, “And a brightness was round about him; i. e. the man in glory: “the representative of the invisible God, his ever blessed and only begotten Son.” Compare (Revelation 4:3).—[Archbishop Newcome judiciously observes, ‘‘We need not allegorize the circumstances of this august vision too minutely. Many of them may serve only to fill up the splendour of the scene, though others, no doubt, have much significance; which should be pointed out rather by a correct judgment, than a luxuriant imagination.”

}—Bagster. ——