Lamentations 1

Lamentations 1:12-22

The same complaints are here continued.

1. She demands some compaillon from the spectators of her misery, in the view of the heavy hand of God upon her, whom she acknowledges the author of her troubles. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Can you unconnected behold these desolations, and not drop a tear over these ruins? Let it there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow; so bitter and overwhelming. How ready are we all in distress to think our own burden peculiarly heavy, when in fact we only share the calamities common to men: yet it must be owned her cafe was deplorable indeed. In anger, in fierce anger, the Lord had afflicted her; a sense of this added bitterness to every burden: his fire is kindled in her palaces, or borne with fiercer flames within her guilty conscience. Entangled in his net she could not flee, but falls back ward, faint and unable to oppose the desolations of her Children see, v. 13. Under complicated judgments her yoke was made heavy, and her soul transgressions the cause of all; delivered into her enemy’s hands, without the possibility of escaping, v. 14. Her warriors, her valiant youth, and all her inhabitants, like grapes in the wine-preis, are trodden under foot by the Babylonish army, and their blood shed on every side, v. 15. Note, Whatever judgments weigh us down, we may be assured, our transgressions have wreathed the yoke, and bound on the burden.

2. She bewails with floods of tears her bitter anguish; and surely there is a crash for them. For their things I weep; both for her sin and for her suffering; and particularly, (1.) Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is for from me. When God departs, our misery must needs be great: all other afflictions are made right by the sense of his presence and love; but when the comforter, the only comforter of the final soul, is far from us, and nothing but wrath appears and despair, then

3. Because her children are depletes, in captivity, v. 18. or destroyed by the sword of the merciless enemy; unable to comfort her, yes, their sad fate, is the cause of her consent. (3.) Because she could not find a friend. In vain the spread forth her hands, untrusting help, and pleading for compulsion: her lovers, who promised once so fair, deceived her, v. 19. yes, shunned her, as if her touch communicated deblenent, v. 17. and none either cared or dared to interpose, when the destruction was by the divine decree, and her adversaries acted under his commission. Note. (1.) When God is our friend, we shall never want a comforter; if he is our enemy, none can comfort us. (2.) Constant confidences are sure to fail us in the day of calumny. (4.) Because of the terrible famine. My priests and my elders gave up the graft in the city, while they fought most to relieve their feuds; and if there were perishing for wars, how much more the common people? (5.) Because of the desolations she beheld. Abused the sword bereaved, at least there is at death, inevitable from the famine and the pestilence. (6.) Because of her insulting enemies. They heard of her trouble, and with malicious pleasure rejoiced in it, v. 21. and for these things her tears run down without intermission.

4. She justifies God in these his judgments. The Lord is righteous; however faithless her friends, or inhuman her foes, her sufferings were no more than she deferred; for I have no belief, generally rebelled against his commandments. Note. True penitents ever acknowledge the justice of God in punishing them; and never desire to excuse themselves, but speak of their sins with every aggravation.

5. She presents her miserable case to the God of all mercy. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress; deeply afflicted, not only with her sufferings, but from a sense of her sins: my benefit are troubled, my heart is turned within me; distracted and torn, uneasy and restless; and when the foul thus broken and contrite approaches God, he will not despise our prayer.

6. She expects and intrests that God would visit her enemies. Then will bring the day that thou hast called; the time fixed in God’s counsels for their punishment; and they shall be like unto me, in suffering; and as the believers this will come, the prayer it may. Let their wickedness come before this; be remembered and avenged: and do unto them as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions; as equally guilty, let them meet the same Genuine; and heavy indeed that has been, as her anguish restless; for my right are many, and my heart is faint. Note. (4.) They who are alike guilty, may expect to be alike miserable. (2.) Though all private resentment is forbidden, we may pray to the God glorified by the ruin of his own and his people’s enemies.

Lamentations 1:16

We have here the miseries of Jerusalem bitterly bewailed, and her present deplorable condition aggravated, by comparing it with her former prosperous state; and all along sin is acknowledged and complained of as the procuring cause of all these miseries; and God is appealed to for justice against her enemies, and applied to for compassion towards them. Here is, 1. A complaint made to God of their calamities, and his compassionate consideration desired, ver. 1—11. 2. The same complaint made to their friends, and their compassionate consideration desired, ver. 12—17. 3. An appeal to God and his righteousness concerning it, ver. 18—22. to which he is justified in their affliction, and is humbly solicited to justify himself in their deliverance.

HOW don’t the city sit solitary, that was full of people? * how is she become as a widow? she that was great among the nations, * and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary? a. She * weepeth fore in the * night, and her tears are on her cheeks: * among all her lovers: she hath none to comfort her, all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. 3. Judah is gone into captivity, because of affliction, and because of great servitude: * she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her perfecutors * over-

took her between the straits. 4. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. 5. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper: for the LORD hath afflicted her; * for the multitude of her transgressions, * her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. 7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction, and of her miseries, all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her, the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. 8. Jerusalem hath grievously finned: therefore she is removed: all that honoured her, despise her, because * they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. 9. * Her filthiness is in her skirts, * she rememberseth not her last end, therefore she came down wonderfully: * she had no comforter: O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself. 10. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that * the heathen en-

9. 1—11. With plaintive notes of woe the prophet’s mournful mule begins, and bids each reader drop the sympathetic tear.

10. He bewails the desolations of Jerusalem: how changed from all her former glory, fallen into what an abys of wretchedness, amused at what he beheld, and commiserating her afflicted cafe, he breaks forth, How doth the city is solitary, that man; full of people! Silence reigns in the once-changed thorns, and brooding over the ruins, with anguish too big for utterance, in melancholy solitude, Jerusalem, as a discomblance widow, for on the ground, deserted of God, her king a captive, her inhabitants dead with famine, pestilence, or the sword, or under the yoke of forwinde in a strange land. A pretext once among the nations; courted, respected, and obeyed; now bound with captive hands, an ignominious tributary to a heathen lord, v. 2. No marvel tears incesfist forrow her cheeks; and, as if too short the day for forrow such as hers, all night they flow, without a comaster, without a friend to pity her, and by partaking to alleviate her anguish. Her lovers, who in the days of her prosperity with warm professions testified their regard, desert her in the day of her calamity; and her treacherous friends throw off the mull, and act as open enemies. v. 2. Her children grown in servitude; subject to the captive and tyranny of heathen matters; and finding in red, no end of toil, no peace of mind, no settled abode. Hemmed in like a heath in the toils, her persecutors have seized her, without the possibility of escape, v. 3. Her adversaries are thief; her enemies prefer: and no marvel, since the Lord hath afflicted her, which wrath is the cause of all her sufferings, v. 5. Like harta families for want of paffism; and weak as these timorous animals, her process are unable to fight or fly, and fall an easy prey, v. 6. despised now by those who honoured her; Shipped of all her wealth and ornaments, her nakedness appears; and confounded the light and turns backward, as if to hide her shame, v. 8. Fusing with famine, and sunk in depondence, her people sink bread, and gladly part with all their jewels and pleasant things to procure the smallest refreshment: so low are they reduced from that plenty in which they once rioted, and so grievously abused, v. 11. Note, (1.) They who wilfully depart from God, the soul’s true rest, may not hope to find rest in any thing beside. (2.) All afflictions are doubly heavy when we see them as coming from God, not in mercy, but in wrath. (3.) Men’s sins will surely bring them into trusts, when too late they will bewail their folly. (4.) Affluence abused is the ready way to pining want.

Great were these miseries under which the State groaned; yet greater anguish to the gracious soul it was, to behold the sacred service of the temple interrupted. Unfrequented now the ways of Zion mourn; her gates no longer thronged by those who hailed to her solemn feasts, are distorted, idolistic. Her priests fight; no sacrifice bleeds; no incense femains upon the altar; destitute of their portion, fancishing through want: Her virgins are afflicted; their songs of joy funk into mourning and woe; and she is in bitterness, overwhelmed with anguish and distress, v. 4. Her beauty is departed; not only her king and nobles captives, her country wafted, but, above all, the beautiful hands of her sanctuary in morn, v. 6. With sacrilegious hands her enemies have seized all her pleasant things, her ark, her altars; and those who might not even enter the congregation, now run in the very sanctuary, plunder and spoil its sacred treasures, v. 10. and, adding inflict to their ravages, mocked at their fableths; or, as some think, in devilsen laid upon them that day heaven burdens, v. 7. And what aggravated all, was the remembrance of the happy days of old, fled, to appearance for ever fled, and nothing now remaining but affliction and misery, v. 7. Note, (1.) Nothing affects a good man’s heart so deeply as the decay of vital godliness. (2.) To hear God dishonoured, his worship and ordinances despised and ridiculed, is bitter to the faithful soul. (3.) The remembrance of the communion we have enjoyed with God, and the comforts we have taffed, serve but to aggravate our grafs, when by our enfatholishness we have provoked God to withdraw, and leave us to our misery.

2. He laments over their sins, the cause of these desolations; for God is righteous in these his judgments. Her transgressions are undefeated, v. 5. and very grievous, v. 8. unanecled and aggravated. Her fathiness is in her spirit, open and avowed: careless and secure, she remembers not her left and, nor considers in what misery her iniquities will issue: and having been most oppressive herself, the rich afflicting their poor brethren, and making their servitude heavy, v. 9. justly therefore she is deserved to the yoke, and her full wonderful, v. 9. as her persecutors had persuaded. Note, (1.) Sin and ruin are interpretable. (2.) No sins are so aggravated as those of God’s professing people.

Vol. II.

3. Zion is introduced breaking forth into an earnest cry to God under her sufferings. O Lord, behold my afflictions, with an eye of pity and compailless, since every other comforter is no more: See, O Lord, and consider, for I am become wise, reduced to the most abject misery, and ready to sink into despair, if thou dost not interpose. Note, (1.) The only relief for the miserable is earnest application to the merciful God. When all other’s compailless fall, his fall not. (2.) If God afflicts his own people, it is in order to excite their more fervent applications to him, and make them know more of the wonders of his grace.

4. ¶ Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger. 13. From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaleth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate, and faint all the day. 14. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wrecked, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the LORD hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to ride up. 15. The LORD hath troden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me, to couth my young men: the LORD hath troden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-preis. 16. For these things I weep, mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul, is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed. 17. Zion (preadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. 18. ¶ The LORD is righteous, for I have: rebelled against his commandment: heart, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. 19. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls. 20. Behold, O LORD, for I am in distress; my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is death. 21. They have heard that I sigh, there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble, they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. 22. Let all their wick, edneds come before thee: and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.