Lamentations 4:1

This lament resumes the characteristic "How" introduction (cf. Lamentations 1:1; Lamentations 2:1). The gold and precious stones that had decorated the temple no longer served that function. Jeremiah compared the precious inhabitants of Jerusalem (cf. Exodus 19:5-6) to gold and gems. They now lay in the streets of the city defiled and dead.

"For those who esteemed themselves as high-quality gold, the kind of experience which reduced them to the level of base metal in the opinion of their enemies was of harrowing psychological and spiritual proportions." [Note: Harrison, Jeremiah and . . ., p. 232.]