Lamentations 5

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Lamentations 5:1

CONSIDER, and behold our reproach. Which we suffer from the heathen. (Compare ii. 15. iii. 61. Psal. Ixxxix. 50, 51.)

Lamentations 5:4

We have driinken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. When our country was in our own possession, we had free use of water and wood, which now we are forced to buy.

Lamentations 5:5

Our necks are under persecution.* We are become slaves to our enemies, who put an iron yoke upon our necks, according to the threatening denounced by Moses, Deut. xxviii. 48.

Lamentations 5:6

We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, &c. We have made ourselves slaves or tributaries to those people: which was done by the ceremony of giving the hand, a form used when an oath or covenant was entered into. (See Ezek. xvii. 18. Gen. xxiv. 2.) The Jews are often upbraided for the alliances they made with Egypt and Assyria, for which they are threatened with being forced to live there as exiles. (See Hos. vii. 11. ix. 3. xii. 1.) These’two countries being the places whither many Jews fled for refuge from the calamities which threatened them at home; the prophecies that mention their return from their several dispersions, speak of Assyria and Egypt, as the principal places from whence they should return: as hath been observed in the notes upon Isa. xi. 16.

Lamentations 5:7

Our fathers have sinned, and are not, &c. See the note on Jer. xxxi. 29. The expression is not, or are not, is used of those who are departed out of this world. (See Gen. xlii. 13.)

Lamentations 5:8

Servants have ruled over us. Servants to the great men among the Chaldeans, and other strangers, are become our masters. (See Nehem. v. 15.)

Lamentations 5:9

We got our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness. If we fly to the most solitary places, in hopes to get a livelihood there, yet thither the enemy pursues us.

Lamentations 5:10

Our skin was black like an oven, &c. See iv.8.

Lamentations 5:11

They ravished the women in Zion. See Isa. xiii. 6. Zech. xiv. 2.

Lamentations 5:12

Princes are hanged up by their hand. By the hand of their enemies. % Hie faces of elders were not honoured.] Sec iv. 16.

Lamentations 5:13

They took the young men to grind. To grind at the mill, was the common employment of slaves. (See Exod. xi. 5.) Such was the pistrinum among the Romans. The children fell tinder the wood.] They made children turn the handle of the mill, till they fell down for weariness: so some explain it, with relation to the former part of the verse. But it may be understood of making them 4T A COMMENTARY UPON THE LAMENTATIONS. [chap. v. carry such heavy burdens of wood, that they fainted under the load. Vcr. 16. The crown is fallen from our head.] All our glory is at an end, together with the advantages of being thy people, and enjoying thy presence amongst us, by which we were distinguished from the rest of the world. (Compare Job xix. 9.) The word crown may signify both tho kingdom and the priesthood: tho mitre being sometimes called the crown* (See Zech. vi. 11.)

Lamentations 5:17

For these things our eyes are dim. See ii. 11.

Lamentations 5:19

Tliou, O Lord, remainestfor ever, &c. Our only hope is in the eternity and unchangeableness of thy nature; and that thou still governest the world, and orderest all the events of it; whereby thou art always able to help us, and art never forgetful of the promises which thou hast made to thy people. (Compare Psal. cii. 28. Habak.i.12.) Vcr. 21. Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned, &c.] Do thou give us the grace of conversion and amendment, and then thou wilt remove thy heavy judgments, and restore us to that happiness and prosperity which we formerly enjoyed.

Lamentations 5:22

But thou hast utterly rejected us. Thou art resolved to cast off the Jews of this generation, and wilt not shew us any favoar, till the seventy years of our captivity are expired. END OF Printed by J. F. Dove, St. John’s Square.