Even to get enough food to live, the people had to appeal to Egypt and Assyria for help. This may refer to Judah’s earlier alliances with these nations that proved futile (cf. Ezekiel 16:26-28; Ezekiel 23:12; Ezekiel 23:21). But probably the writer used Assyria as a surrogate for Babylonia (cf. Jeremiah 2:18). Judah could no longer provide for herself but had to beg for help from her Gentile enemies. read more
The present generation of Judeans was bearing the punishment for the sins that their fathers, who had long since died, had initiated. They had continued and increased the sins of their fathers. Jeremiah rejected the idea that God was punishing his generation solely because of the sins of former generations (Jeremiah 31:29-30). His contemporaries had brought the apostasy of earlier generations to its worst level, and now they were reaping its results. read more
Even slaves among the oppressors were dominating God’s people, and there was no one to deliver them. Only the poorest of the Judahites remained in the land following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., but even the lowest classes of Chaldeans were dominating them."Israel, once a ’kingdom of priests’ (Exodus 19:6), is become like Canaan, ’a servant of servants,’ according to the curse (Genesis 9:25). The Chaldeans were designed to be ’servants’ of Shem, being descended from Ham (Genesis... read more
It had become life-threatening for the Judahites even to acquire essential food, because their enemies tried to kill them when they traveled to obtain bread. Famine had resulted in fever, which had given the people’s skin a scorched appearance. [Note: Ellison, p. 731.] read more
The enemy had raped the women and girls in Jerusalem and Judah. Respected princes had experienced the most humiliating deaths, and the enemy gave no respect to Judah’s elderly. Since Nebuchadnezzar evidently did not torture his victims (cf. Jeremiah 52:10-11; Jeremiah 52:24-27), it may be that the Chaldeans strung up the princes by their hands-after they had died-to dishonor them (cf. Deuteronomy 21:22-23). [Note: Keil, 2:451.] read more
Young men had to grind grain like animals (cf. Judges 16:21), and small children buckled under the loads of firewood that the enemy forced them to carry. Elders no longer sat at the town gates dispensing wisdom and justice, and young men no longer played music, bringing joy and happiness into the people’s lives. These were marks of the disappearance of peaceful and prosperous community living conditions. read more
Zion’s earnest Petition for DeliveranceThis final poem is not so much an elegy as a prayer or meditation. The tone is more calm and spiritual than the others, with no trace of vindictiveness. The poet, speaking for the people, ’will have God know everything.’ Though divided into 22 vv., it is not an acrostic. Rhyme takes the place of the alphabetical structure, the poem having not less than 45 words ending in the sound u: cp. Psalms 124. Like Lamentations 4, each v. is composed of two members... read more
V.(1) Remember, O Lord.—The fact that the number of verses is, as in Lamentations 1:2, Lamentations 1:4, the same as that of the Hebrew alphabet suggests the inference that this chapter also, though not actually alphabetic, was intended to have been so, and that we have the last of the five elegies in a half-finished state. It would seem as if Jeremiah first wrote freely what was in his mind, and then set to work as an artist to bring it under the alphabetic scheme. This chapter, it may be... read more
(2) Turned.—Used here as in the sense of transferred.Houses.—In Jer. Iii. 13, the Chaldæans are said to have burnt the houses of Jerusalem, and those of the great men elsewhere; here, therefore, the “houses” spoken of are those of the farmers and peasants in the country. read more
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Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Lamentations 5:4-5
The extent of their oppression was evident in their having to purchase water and firewood, commodities that were normally free. The Judahites’ enemies were trying to squeeze the life out of them (cf. Joshua 10:24; Isaiah 51:23). They had worn them out with their heavy demands and taxes (cf. Deuteronomy 28:65-67; Ezekiel 5:2; Ezekiel 5:12). read more