Lamentations 4

Lamentations 4:1-12

This chapter is another single alphabet of Lamentations for the deprivation of Jerusalem, like those in the true first chapters. 1. The prophet here laments the injuries and indignities done to those that used to be repented, ver. 1, 2. 2. He laments the direful effects of the famine, which they were reduced to by the fage, ver. 3-10. 3. He laments the taking and picking of Jerusalem, ver. 11, 12. 4. He acknowledges that the first of their leaders were the cause of all their calamities, ver. 13-16. 5. He gives up all as damned to utter ruin, for their enemies were quite too hard for them, ver. 17-20. 6. He foretells the deprivation of the Edomites, who triumphed in Jerusalem’s fall, ver. 21. 7. He foretells the return of the captivity of Zion at last, ver. 22.

1. HOW is the gold become dim? how is the most fine gold changed? the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. 2. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! 3. Even the 1/4 sea-monsters draw out the bread, they give sack to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 4. The tongue of the locking child cleaved to the roof of his mouth for thrift: the young children all bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. 5. They that did feed delicately, are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in fearless embrace doughills. 6. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people, is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. 7. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing man of sapphire. 8. Their visage is blacker than a coal: they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaved to their bones: it is withered, it is become like a thick. 9. They that be slain with the sword, are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for many of the fruits of the field. 10. The hands of the pitiful women have foddled their own children, they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. 11. The LORD hath accomplished his fury, he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof. 12. The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed, that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

Who can, unaffected, behold the desolations here described?

1. The temple is laid in ruins; the gold浇注, the flames of the demolished sanctuary scattered on every side. Which may also be understood figuratively, as in the next verb, of the precious sons of Zion, the children of God, comparable to gold

for their excellence, and living flames in the spiritual building the church; but now broken by the Chaldeans as an earthen pitcher, and lying slain in every street of the city.

2. People of all ranks and ages perish in the famine. The tongue of the locking child cleaved to the roof of his mouth for thrift, the fortified mother’s breath are dry, and, unable to mourn their lips, they learned more cruel than the sea monsters, or the ostriches of the wilderness. The immed infant cried for bread, and the distressed parent hath it not to give, or, preyed by insufferable hunger, is dead to his lipping, and cannot spare the least morbid, v. 3, 4. They who were used to every delicacy which affluence could procure, and were brought up in fearless or upon fearless corpses spread under them, were murder in its street, and race the doughill for the viles’ scrap to appease their raging appetites: to such distresses may the greatest be reduced, v. 5. Their Nazarites, who were expected for God, and abstained with nicest care from every disarmament; or her nobles, as some interpret it, that were so elegant and curious, white as snow, ruddy as rubies, and their skins smooth as polished sapphire; now, black with famine, grief, and melancholy, are so changed, that their visage is no longer known, withered and destitute of all moisture as a dry flick, v. 7, 8. perishing miserably for want, a lingering death more terrible than the sword, multitudes fall on every side; whilst, driven by raging hunger, horrible to tell even mothers murder their infants, and ravenously feed upon the foddled corpses, v. 10.

3. The cause of all is the sin of Jerusalem, provoking the fierce anger of the Lord; and now his fury poured out hath accomplished her ruin. Greater than Sodom’s punishment is here, because more aggravated her fate: that devoted city never slighted those means Jerusalem had enjoyed; therefore her overthrow, though terrible, was foddled; whilst, by a lingering death upon the rack, the destruction of Zion is completed.

4. They who behold their desolations are astonished. So strong the forests, so numerous the forces, so highly honoured by the residence of the great God, so signally before refused by his interposition, the kings of the neighbouring nations never conceived it possible for the Chaldeans to have prevailed. Nor could they, if Zion’s defence had not first departed, and God been turned against her as an enemy; and then no marvel ruin terrible and remodelers overtook her.

5. ¶ For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her: 14. They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. 15. They cried unto them, ‘Depart ye, it is unclean, depart, depart, touch not, when they fled away and wandered: they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there. 16. The anger of the LORD hath divided them, he will no more regard them: ’they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders. 17. As for us, ‘our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us. 18. They hunt our steps that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled, for our end is come. 19. Our periscutes are: ‘fielder than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. 20. ‘The breath of our nostrils, the moistened of the LORD: was taken in their pen, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. 21. ‘Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwelled in the land of 12s: ’the cup affix shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked. 22. ¶ ‘The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion: ‘he will no more carry thee away into captivity: ‘he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will discover thy sins.

Lamentations 4:17-22

We have here,

1. The principal cause of Jerusalem’s destruction. The sin of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who, whilst by office and protection they should have reformed others, were the great examples and encourages of iniquity, and filled up fast the measure of the national guilt. They find the blood of the just, being the first to periclute God’s faithful ones, especially the true prophets, who remonstrated against their wickedness. They wandered as blind men in the streets, pretending to lead others whilst themselves were bewildered in error, ignorance, and sin; and, thus suffered with blood, every good man thinned their company as deliling, and cried unto all near them to beware of them, as if their touch or breath communicated infidelsen; depart ye, it is unclean, touch not: and in the lands whither they were carried captive these destroyers of their country were marked with a peculiar

(qtd.) EVANGELICAL EXPOSITOR; OR, A PRACTICAL COMMENT Upon the Book of the PROPHET EZEKIEL.

WHEN we entred upon the writings of the Prophets, which speak of the things that should be hereafter, methought we had the same call given us that St. John had, Rev. iv. 1. Come up hither; but, when we enter upon the prophecy of this book, methinks we are called to come up higher. These waters of the sanctuary still grow deeper as they flow, so far from being fordable, that in some places they are scarce fathomable.

(1.) The penman of this prophecy was Ezekiel: his name signifies The strength of God, or one girl or strengthened of God. Where he gives a commission he will give power to execute it. Ezekiel’s name was answered when God said, I have made thy face strong against their faces.

(2.) Concerning the date of it, the place whence it is dated, and the time when. The scene is laid in Babylon, when it was a house of bondage to the Israel of God: there the prophecies of this book were preached, there they were written, when the prophet himself and the people to whom he prophesied were captives there. Ezekiel and Daniel are the only writing prophets of the Old Testament that lived and prophesied any where but in the land of Israel, except we add Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh to prophesy. Ezekiel prophesied in the beginning of the captivity, Daniel in the latter end of it; it was an indication of God’s good will to them, and his gracious designs concerning them in their affliction, that he raised up prophets among them, both to convince them when in the beginning of their troubles they were secure and unhumbled, which was Ezekiel’s business, and to comfort them when in the latter end of their troubles they were dejected and discouraged. If the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would not have used such apt and proper means to cure them.

(3.) Concerning the matter and scope of it; 1. There is much in it that is very mysterious, dark and hard to be understood; especially in the beginning and latter end of it; which therefore the Jewish rabbins forbade the reading of to their young men, till they came to be thirty years of age, left by the difficulties they met with there they should be prejudiced against the Scriptures: but if we read these difficult parts of Scripture with humility and reverence, and search them diligently, though we may not be able to unty all the knots we meet with, no more than we can solve all the phenomena in the book of nature, yet we may from them, as from the book of nature, gather a great deal for the conferring of our faith, and the encouraging of our hope in God. 2. Though the visions here be intricate, such as an elephant may swim in, yet the sermons are mostly plain, such as a lamb may wade in; and the chief design of them is to shew God’s people their transgressions, that in their captivity they might be repenting, and not repining. 3. The reproof here and the threatnings be very sharp and bold, yet, towards the close of the book, very comfortable assurances are given of great mercy God had in store for them, with particular reference to the Messiah’s kingdom, to whom bore all the prophets witness. The visions, which were the prophet’s credentials, we have, chap. i—iii. the reproofs and threatnings, chap. iv—xxiv. and betwixt the comforts we have in the latter part of the book, we have messages sent to the nations that bordered upon the land of Israel, whose destruction is foretold chap. xxv—xxxv. to make way for the restoration of God’s Israel, and the re-establishment of their city and temple, which are foretold chap. xxxvi. ad finem. And those who would apply the comforts to themselves must apply the convictions to themselves.

VOL. II. B b CHAP.