Lam 1:12-22 | KD | STEP | The lamentation of the city . - Lam 1:12. The first words, לוא אליכם, are difficult to explain. The lxx have οἱ πρὸς ὑμᾶς; but the reading ought certainly to be οἴ π. ὑ.. The Vulgate is, o vos omnes ; the Chaldee, adjuro vos omnes . They all seem to have taken לוא as an exclamation. Hence Le Clerc and others would read לוּא; but in this case one would require to supply a verb: thus, Le Clerc renders utinam adspiciatis , or, "O that my cry might reach you!" But these insertions are very suspicious. The same holds true of the explanation offered by J. D. Michaelis in his edition of Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, Lect. xxii.: non vobis, transeuntes in via, haec acclamo (viz., the closing words of ): this is decidedly opposed by the mere fact that passers-by certainly could not regard a call addressed to Jahveh as applying to them. Without supplying something or other, the words, as they stand, remain incomprehensible. Nägelsbach would connect them with what follows: "[Look] not to yourselves...but look and see...." But the antithesis, "Look not upon yourselves, but look on me (or on my sorrow)," has no proper meaning. If we compare the kindred thought presented in , "Hear, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow," then לוא seems to express an idea corresponding to שׁמעוּ נא. But we obtain this result only if we take the words as a question, as if לוא = הלוא, though not in the sense of an asseveration (which would be unsuitable here, for which reason also הלוא is not used); the question is shown to be such merely by the tone, as in ; 2Sa 23:5. Thus, we might render the sense with Gerlach: Does not (my sighing - or, more generally, my misery - come) to you? The Syriac, Lowth, Ewald, Thenius, and Vaihinger have taken the words as a question; Ewald, following , would supply אקרא. But such an insertion gives a rendering which is both harsh and unjustifiable, although it lies at the foundation of Luther’s "I say unto you." Hence we prefer Gerlach’s explanation, and accordingly give the free rendering, "Do ye not observe, sc. what has befallen me, - or, my misery?" The words are, in any case, intended to prepare the way for, and thereby render more impressive, the summons addressed to all those passing by to look on and consider her sorrow. עולל is passive (Poal): "which is done to me." Since הוגה has no object, the second אשׁר does not permit of being taken as parallel with the first, though the Chaldee, Rosenmüller, Kalkschmidt, and others have so regarded it, and translate: "with which Jahveh hath afflicted me." With Ewald, Thenius, Gerlach, etc., we must refer it to לי: "me whom Jahveh hath afflicted." The expression, "on the day of the burning of His anger," is pretty often found in Jeremiah; see , ; , etc.

‏ Lamentations 1:12-22

Lam 1:12-16 The lamentation of the city. - Lam 1:12. The first words, לוא אליכם, are difficult to explain. The lxx have οἱ πρὸς ὑμᾶς; but the reading ought certainly to be οἴ π. ὑ.. The Vulgate is, o vos omnes; the Chaldee, adjuro vos omnes. They all seem to have taken לוא as an exclamation. Hence Le Clerc and others would read לוּא; but in this case one would require to supply a verb: thus, Le Clerc renders utinam adspiciatis, or, "O that my cry might reach you!" But these insertions are very suspicious. The same holds true of the explanation offered by J. D. Michaelis in his edition of Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, Lect. xxii.: non vobis, transeuntes in via, haec acclamo (viz., the closing words of Lam 1:11): this is decidedly opposed by the mere fact that passers-by certainly could not regard a call addressed to Jahveh as applying to them. Without supplying something or other, the words, as they stand, remain incomprehensible. Nägelsbach would connect them with what follows: "[Look] not to yourselves...but look and see...." But the antithesis, "Look not upon yourselves, but look on me (or on my sorrow)," has no proper meaning. If we compare the kindred thought presented in Lam 1:18, "Hear, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow," then לוא seems to express an idea corresponding to שׁמעוּ נא. But we obtain this result only if we take the words as a question, as if לוא = הלוא, though not in the sense of an asseveration (which would be unsuitable here, for which reason also הלוא is not used); the question is shown to be such merely by the tone, as in Exo 8:22; 2Sa 23:5. Thus, we might render the sense with Gerlach: Does not (my sighing - or, more generally, my misery - come) to you? The Syriac, Lowth, Ewald, Thenius, and Vaihinger have taken the words as a question; Ewald, following Pro 8:4, would supply אקרא. But such an insertion gives a rendering which is both harsh and unjustifiable, although it lies at the foundation of Luther’s "I say unto you." Hence we prefer Gerlach’s explanation, and accordingly give the free rendering, "Do ye not observe, sc. what has befallen me, - or, my misery?" The words are, in any case, intended to prepare the way for, and thereby render more impressive, the summons addressed to all those passing by to look on and consider her sorrow. עולל is passive (Poal): "which is done to me." Since הוגה has no object, the second אשׁר does not permit of being taken as parallel with the first, though the Chaldee, Rosenmüller, Kalkschmidt, and others have so regarded it, and translate: "with which Jahveh hath afflicted me." With Ewald, Thenius, Gerlach, etc., we must refer it to לי: "me whom Jahveh hath afflicted." The expression, "on the day of the burning of His anger," is pretty often found in Jeremiah; see Jer 4:8, Jer 4:26; Jer 25:37, etc. Lam 1:17-18

The complaint regarding the want of comforters is corroborated by the writer, who further developes this thought, and gives some proof of it. By this contemplative digression he breaks in on the lamentation of the city, as if the voice of the weeping one were choked with tears, thus he introduces into the complaint a suitable pause, that both serves to divide the lamentation into two, and also brings a turn in its contents. It is in vain that Zion stretches out her hands (פּרשׁ בּ, to make a spreading out with the hands) for comforters and helpers; there is none she can embrace, for Jahveh has given orders against Jacob, that those round about him should act as oppressors. סביביו are the neighbouring nations round about Israel. These are all of hostile disposition, and strive but to increase his misery; cf. Lam 1:2. Jerusalem has become their abomination (cf. Lam 1:8), since God, in punishment for sins, has exposed her before the heathen nations (cf. Lam 1:8). בּיניהם, "between them," the neighbouring nations, who live round about Judah. The thought that Jahveh has decreed the suffering which has come on Jerusalem, is laid to heart by her who makes complaint, so that, in Lam 1:18, she owns God’s justice, and lets herself be roused to ask for pity, Lam 1:19-22.

Starting with the acknowledgment that Jahveh is righteous, because Jerusalem has opposed His word, the sorrowing one anew (Lam 1:18, as in Lam 1:12) calls on the nations to regard her sorrow, which attains its climax when her children, in the bloom of youth, are taken captives by the enemy. But she finds no commiseration among men; for some, her former friends, prove faithless, and her counsellors have perished (Lam 1:19); therefore she turns to God, making complaint to Him of her great misery (Lam 1:20), because the rest, her enemies, even rejoice over her misery (Lam 1:21): she prays that God may punish these. Gerlach has properly remarked, that this conclusion of the chapter shows Jerusalem does not set forth her fate as an example for the warning of the nations, nor desires thereby to obtain commiseration from them in her present state (Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Thenius, Vaihinger); but that the apostrophe addressed to the nations, as well as that to passers-by (Lam 1:12), is nothing more than a poetic turn, used to express the boundless magnitude of this her sorrow and her suffering. On the confession "Righteous is Jahveh," cf. Jer 12:1; Deu 32:4; 2Ch 12:6; Psa 119:37, etc. "Because I have rebelled against His mouth" (i.e., His words and commandments), therefore I am suffering what I have merited. On מרה , cf. Num 20:24; 1Ki 13:26. כּל־עמּים (without the article, which the Qeri supplies) is a form of expression used in poetry, which often drops the article; moreover, we must here bear in mind, that it is not by any means the idea of the totality of the nations that predominates, but nations are addressed merely in indefinite generality: the expression in the text means nations of all places and countries. In order to indicate the greatness of her grief, the sorrowing one mentions the carrying into captivity of the young men and virgins, who are a mother’s joy and hope.

Lam 1:19 is not a continuation of the direct address to the nations, to whom she complains of her distress, but merely a complaint to God regarding the sorrow she endures. The perfects קראתי, רמּוּני, are not preterites, and thus are not to be referred to the past, as if complaint were made that, in the time of need, the lovers of Jerusalem forsook her; they rather indicate accomplished facts, whose consequences reach down to the present time. It was not merely in former times, during the siege, that Jerusalem called to her friends for help; but even now she still calls, that she may be comforted by them, yet all in vain. Her friends have deceived her, i.e., shamefully disappointed her expectations. From those who are connected with her, too, she can expect neither comfort nor counsel. The priests and the elders, as the helpers and advisers of the city, - the former as representing the community before God, and being the medium of His grace, the latter as being leaders in civil matters, - pined away ( ,גּועexspirare; here, to pine away through hunger, and expire). כּי is a temporal particle: "when they were seeking for bread" to prolong their life ('השׁיב נ as in Lam 1:11). The lxx have added καὶ οὐχ ευ, which Thenius is inclined to regard as a portion of the original text; but it is very evidently a mere conjecture from the context, and becomes superfluous when כּי ne is taken as a particle of time. Lam 1:20-22

Since neither comfort nor advice is to be found with men, Jerusalem makes her complaint of need to God the Lord. "See, Jahveh, that I am distressed. My bowels glow." חמרמרוּ, the passive enhancing form, from חמר, is found, besides, only in Lam 2:11, where the clause before us is repeated, and in Job 16:16, where it is used of the countenance, and can only mean to be glowing red; it is scarcely legitimate to derive it from חמר, Arab. h[mr, to be made red, and must rather be referred to Arab. chmr, to ferment, rise into froth; for even in Psa 55:9 חמר does not mean to be red, but to rise into froth. מעים, "bowels," are the nobler portions of the internal organs of the body, the seat of the affections; cf. Delitzsch’s Biblical Psychology (Clark’s translation), p. 314ff. "My heart has turned within me" is an expression used in Hos 11:8 to designate the feeling of compassion; but here it indicates the most severe internal pain, which becomes thus agonizing through the consciousness of its being deserved on account of resistance to God. מרו for מרה, like בּכו ekil, Jer 22:10; Jer 30:19, etc. Both forms occur together in other verbs also; cf. Olshausen, Gram. §245, h [Ewald, §238, e; Gesen., §75, Rem. 2]. But the judgment also is fearful; for "without (מחוּץ, foris, i.e., in the streets and the open country) the sword renders childless," through the slaughter of the troops; "within (בּבּית, in the houses) כּמּות, like death." It is difficult to account for the use of כּ; for neither the כ of comparison nor the so-called כveritatis affords a suitable meaning; and the transposition of the words into sicut mors intus (Rosenmüller, after Löwe and Wolfsohn) is an arbitrary change. Death, mentioned in connection with the sword, does not mean death in general, but special forms of death through maladies and plagues, as in Jer 15:2; Jer 18:21, not merely the fever of hunger, Jer 14:18; on the other hand, cf. Eze 7:15, "the sword without, pestilence and hunger within." But the difficulty connected with כּמּות is not thereby removed. The verb שׁכּל belongs to both clauses; but "the sword" cannot also be the subject of the second clause, of which the nominative must be כּמּות, "all that is like death," i.e., everything besides the sword that kills, all other causes of death, - pestilences, famine, etc. כּ is used as in כּמראה, Dan 10:18. That this is the meaning is shown by a comparison of the present passage with Deu 32:25, which must have been before the writer’s mind, so that he took the words of the first clause, viz., "without, the sword bereaves," almost as they stood, but changed וּמחדרים into בּבּית כּמּות, - thus preferring "what is like death," instead of "terror," to describe the cause of destruction. Calvin long ago hit the sense in his paraphrase multae mortes, and the accompanying explanation: utitur nota similitudinis, quasi diceret: nihil domi occurrere nisi mortale (more correctly mortiferum). Much light is thrown on the expression by the parallel adduced by Kalkschmidt from Aeneid, ii. 368, 369: crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago.

From speaking of friends, a transition is made in Lam 1:21 to enemies. Regarding the explanation of Rosenmüller, audiverunt quidem amici mei, a me implorati Lam 1:19, quod gemens ego...imo sunt omnes hostes mei, Thenius observes that it introduces too much. This remark is still more applicable to his own interpretation: "People (certainly) hear how I sigh, (yet) I have no comforter." The antithesis introduced by the insertion of "yet" destroys the simplicity of arrangement among the clauses, although C. B. Michaelis and Gerlach also explain the passage in the same manner. The subject of the words, "they have heard," in the first clause, is not the friends who are said in Lam 1:19 to have been called upon for help, nor those designated in the second clause of Lam 1:21 as "all mine enemies," but persons unnamed, who are only characterized in the second clause as enemies, because they rejoice over the calamity which they have heard of as having befallen Jerusalem. The first clause forms the medium of transition from the faithless friends (Lam 1:19) to the open enemies (Lam 1:21); hence the subject is left undefined, so that one may think of friends and enemies. The foes rejoice that God has brought the evil on her. The words 'הבאת וגו, which follow, cannot also be dependent on כּי ("that Thou hast brought the day which Thou hast announced"), inasmuch as the last clause, "and they shall be like me," does not harmonize with them. Indeed, Nägelsbach and Gerlach, who assume that this is the connection of the clause "Thou hast brought," etc., take 'ויהיוּ כ adversatively: "but they shall be like me." If, however, "they shall be," etc., were intended to form an antithesis to "all mine enemies have heard," etc., the former clause would be introduced by והם. The mere change of tense is insufficient to prove the point. It must further be borne in mind, that in such a case there would be introduced by the words "and they shall be," etc., a new series of ideas, the second great division of the prayer; but this is opposed by the arrangement of the clauses. The second portion of the prayer cannot be attached to the end of the verse. The new series of thoughts begins rather with "Thou hast brought," which the Syriac has rendered by the imperative, venire fac. Similarly Luther translates: "then (therefore) let the day come." C. B. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Pareau, etc., also take the words optatively, referring to the Arabic idiom, according to which a wish is expressed in a vivid manner by the perfect. This optative use of the perfect certainly cannot be shown to exist in the Hebrew; but perhaps it may be employed to mark what is viewed as certain to follow, in which case the Germans use the present. The use of the perfect shows that the occurrence expected is regarded as so certain to happen, that it is represented as if it had already taken place. The perfects in Lam 3:56-61 are taken in this sense by nearly all expositors. Similarly we take the clause now before us to mean, "Thou bringest on the day which Thou hast proclaimed (announced)," i.e., the day of judgment on the nations, Jer 25, "so that they become like me," i.e., so that the foes who rejoice over my misfortune suffer the same fate as myself. "The day [which] Thou hast proclaimed" has been to specifically rendered in the Vulgate, adduxisti diem consolationis, probably with a reference of the proclamation to Isa 40:2. - After this expression of certainty regarding the coming of a day of punishment for her enemies, there follows, Lam 1:22, the request that all the evil they have done to Jerusalem may come before the face of God, in order that He may punish it (cf. Psa 109:15 with Lam 1:14), - do to them as He has done to Jerusalem, because of her transgressions. The clause which assigns the reason ("for many are my sighs," etc.) does not refer to that which immediately precedes; for neither the request that retribution should be taken, nor the confession of guilt ("for all my transgressions"), can be accounted fore by pointing to the deep misery of Jerusalem, inasmuch as her sighing and sickness are not brought on her by her enemies, but are the result of the sufferings ordained by God regarding her. The words contain the ground of the request that God would look on the misery (Lam 1:20), and show to the wretched one the compassion which men refuse her. לבּי is exactly the same expression as that in Jer 8:18; cf. also Isa 1:5. The reason thus given for making the entreaty forms an abrupt termination, and with these words the sound of lamentation dies away. Lamentation over the Judgment of Destruction That Has Come on Zion and the Desolation of Judah 1 Alas! how the Lord envelopes the daughter of Zion in His wrath!

He hath cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth;

Nor hath He remembered His footstool in the day of His wrath. 2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, He hath not spared:

He hath broken down, in His anger, the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;

He hath smitten [them] down to the earth.

He hath profaned the kingdom and its princes. 3 He hath cut off, in the burning of wrath, every horn of Israel;

He hath drawn back His right hand from before the enemy,

And hath burned among Jacob like a flaming fire, [which] devours round about. 4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy, standing [with] His right hand like an adversary,

And He slew all the desires of the eye;

On the tent of the daughter of Zion hath He poured out His fury like fire. 5 The Lord hath become like an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel.

He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds,

And hath increased on the daughter of Judah groaning and moaning. 6 And He hath violently treated His own enclosure, like a garden; He hat destroyed His own place of meeting:

Jahveh hath caused to be forgotten in Zion the festival and the Sabbath,

And in the fierceness of His wrath He hath rejected king and priest. 7 The Lord hath spruned His own altar, He hath abhorred His own sanctuary;

He hath delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;

They have made a noise in the house of Jahvey, as [on] the day of a festival. 8 Jahveh hath purposed to destroy the walls of the daughter of Zion:

He hath stretched out a line, He hath not drawn back His hand from demolishing;

And He hath made the rampart and the [city] wall to mourn; they sorrow together. 9 Her gates have sunk into the earth; He hath destroyed and broken her bars:

Her king and her princces are among the nations; there is no law.

Her prophets also find no vision from Jahveh. 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they silent;

They have cast up dust upon their head, they have clothed themselves with sackcloth garments:

The virgins of Jerusalem have brought down their head to the earth. 11 Mine eyes waste away with tears, My bowels glow,

My liver is poured out on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people;

Because the young child and the suckling pine away in the streets of the city. 12 They said to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?

When they were fainting like one wounded in the streets of the city,

When their soul was poured out into the bosom of their mothers. 13 What slall I testify against thee? what shall I compare to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?

What shall I liken to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?

For thy destruction is great, like the sea; who can heal thee? 14 Thy prophets have seen for thee vanity and absurdity,

And have not revealed thine iniquity, to turn thy captivity;

But they have seen for thee burdens of vanity, and expulsion. 15 All that pass by the way clap [their] hands against thee;

They hiss and shake their head against the daughter of Jerusalem [saying, "Is] this the city that they call "The perfection of beauty, a joy of the whole earth?'" 16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:

They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, "We have swallowed [her];

Assuredly this is the day that we have expected; we have found [it], we have seen [it]." 17 Jahveh hath done what He hath purposed:

He hath executed His word which He commanded from the days of yore: He hath broken down, and hath not spared:

And He hath made the enemy rejoice over thee; He hath raised up the horn of thine adversaries. 18 Their heart crieth out unto the Lord.

O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream by day and by night:

Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease. 19 Arise, wail in the night; at the beginning of the watches,

Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord:

Lift up thine hands to Him for the soul of thy young children,

That faint for hunger at the head of every street. 20 See, O Jahveh, and consider to whom Thou hast acted thus!

Shall women eat their [body's] fruit, the children of their care?

Or shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 The boy and the old man lie without, on the ground;

My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword:

Thou hast slain in the day of Thy wrath, Thou hast slaughtered, Thou hast not spared. 22 Thou summonest, as on a feast-day, my terrors round about;

And in the day of wrath of Jahveh there was no fugitive or survivor

Whom I would have nursed and brought up; mine enemy destroyed them.

This second poem contains a new and more bitter lamentation regarding the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah; and it is distinguished from the first, partly by the bitterness of the complaint, but chiefly by the fact that while, in the first, the oppressed, helpless, and comfortless condition of Jerusalem is the main feature, - here, on the other hand, it is the judgment which the Lord, in His wrath, has decreed against Jerusalem and Judah, that forms the leading thought in the complaint, as is shown by the prominence repeatedly given to the wrath, rage, burning wrath, etc. (Lam 2:1.). The description of this judgment occupies the first part of the poem (Lam 2:1-10); then follows, in the second part (Lam 2:11-19), the lamentation over the impotency of human consolation, and over the scoffing of enemies at the misfortunes of Jerusalem (Lam 2:11-16). It was the Lord who sent this judgment; and it is He alone who can give comfort and help in this distress. To Him must the daughter of Zion betake herself with her complaint (Lam 2:17-19); and this she actually does in the concluding portion (Lam 2:20-22).