Lamentations 4:5 NIV

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Lamentations 4:1-12

The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamentation of the very sad and doleful change which the judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The city that was formerly as gold, as the most fine gold, so rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth, has become dim, and is changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value, is not what it was; it has become dross. Alas! what an alteration is here! I. The temple was laid waste, which was the glory of Jerusalem and its... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets ,.... That were brought up in the king's palace, or in the houses of noblemen; or, however, born of parents rich and wealthy, and had been used to good living, and had fared sumptuously and deliciously every day, were now wandering about in the streets in the most forlorn and distressed condition, seeking for food of any sort, but could find none to satisfy their hunger; and so, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, perished in the... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Lamentations 4:5

Embrace dunghills - Lie on straw or rubbish, instead of the costly carpets and sofas on which they formerly stretched themselves. read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Lamentations 4:5

Verse 5 Here he goes on farther, and says, that they had perished with famine who had been accustomed to the most delicate food. He had said generally that infants found nothing in their mothers’ breasts, but pined away with thirst, and also that children died through want of bread. But he now amplifies this calamity by saying, that this not only happened to the children of the common people, but also to those who had been brought up delicately, and had been clothed in scarlet and purple. Then... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:3-5

The horrors of famine. A more graphic, a more terrible picture than this of the misery of a captured, starved, and desolated city, no pencil could paint. If the circumstances of the famine-stricken population of Jerusalem are portrayed with too literal a skill and with too sickening an effect, it must be borne in mind that the description is not that of an artist, but of a prophet, and that the aim is not merely to horrify, but to instruct, and especially to represent the frightful... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

They that did feed delicately, etc. i.e. luxuriously. The rendering has been disputed, but without sufficient ground. "They that did eat at dainties," i.e. pink at their dainty food, is forced. The Aramaic mark of the accusative need not surprise us in Lamentations (comp. Jeremiah 40:2 ). Brought up in scarlet ; rather, borne upon scarlet; i.e. resting upon scarlet-covered couches. The poet speaks of adults, not of children. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

Reverses of fortune. I. REVERSES OF FORTUNE ARE NOT UNCOMMON . It is not only in the rare case of a protracted siege, when at last rich and poor both suffer from the severities of famine, that we may see some who once fed delicately wandering desolate in the street. All who have gone down into the haunts of the very poor and have investigated the severest cases of wretchedness know how many of the most abject paupers have enjoyed wealth and luxury in former years. Even in an... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

Social revolution. I. AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN SOCIETY . We may consider it either as the instability of wealth or the instability of rank. It shows how no class of the community is able to say that, whatever happens in the way of stress or destitution, it will keep right. Men build up societies in which rank comes from the accumulation of wealth or the exercise of power that is in a man by nature. But these human societies thus built up cannot reckon on... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Lamentations 4:5

They that were brought up in scarlet - literally, “those that were carried upon scarlet;” young children in arms and of the highest birth now lie on the dirt-heaps of the city. read more

Joseph Benson

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Lamentations 4:3-5

Lamentations 4:3-5. Even the sea-monsters draw out the breast The very dragons have drawn out the breast: so Blaney. Even these fierce and destructive animals are not so unnatural as to neglect the care of their young ones; whereas the women of Jerusalem have been reduced to that miserable necessity as to disregard their children, as the ostrich does her eggs. The tongue of the sucking child, &c. Such was the scarcity of food, that the women had not nourishment sufficient to produce... read more

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Lamentations 4:1-12

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Lamentations 4:5

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Lamentations 4:5

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:3-5

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 4:5

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Lamentations 4:5

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Lamentations 4:3-5

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