Lamentations 4:15 - Exposition

They cried unto them, etc. As they leave the city they are pursued by the maledictions of those whom they have oppressed. It is unclean . The cry with which the leper was directed to warn off passengers, lest they should become infected (Le 13:45). There may be an allusion to this, but, though commonly accepted, the view is not certain, as the" leper" in the present case is not the person who raises the cry, but those who meet him. When they fled away and wandered. The clause is difficult. If the text is correct, Keil's explanation may perhaps pass, "When they fled away, (there) also they wandered," alluding to the "wandering" ascribed to them with a somewhat different shade of meaning in the preceding verso. In any case there ought to be a fuller stop than a comma after "touch not," which words close the first of the two parallel lines of which the verse consists. But very probably "when" (Hebrew, ki ) is an intrusion, and we should begin the second line thus: "They fled, they also wandered about." They said among the heathen, etc. Even in their place of exile they found no rest (comp. Deuteronomy 28:65 ). This is better than understanding "the heathen" (literally, the nations ) to mean "the Chaldean army," and the place of sojourn prohibited to be Jerusalem.