‏ Lamentations 5:8

Lam 5:8

Further description of the miserable condition under which the congregation languishes. Lam 5:8. "Servants rule over us," etc. עבדים are not the Chaldean soldiers, who are in 2Ki 24:10 designated the servants of Nebuchadnezzar (Pareau, Rosenmüller, Maurer); still less the Chaldeans, in so far as they, till shortly before, had been the subjects of the Assyrians (Kalkschmidt); nor the Chaldean satraps, as servants of the king of Babylon (Thenius, Ewald); nor even "slaves who had been employed as overseers and taskmasters of the captives while on the march" (Nägelsbach); but the Chaldeans. These are called servants, partly because of the despotic rule under which they were placed, partly in the sense already indicated by C. B. Michaelis, as being those qui nobis potius, si pii fuissemus, servire debuissent, in accordance with the analogous designation of Jerusalem as a princess among the countries of the world, Lam 1:1.
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