Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Lamentations 2:10-12
The Sad State Of The People Of Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:10).
The prophet now describes in retrospect the sad state of the people of Jerusalem during and after the terrible siege. The elders were in mourning, the virgins hung their heads to the ground, the young children and babes collapsed with hunger crying out, ‘where is our food?' Compare also Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 4:4. (Later we will learn that some mothers were even eating their own children - Lamentations 2:20; Lamentations 4:10). It moved the prophet to anguish.
(Yod) The elders of the daughter of Zion,
Sit on the ground, they keep silence,
They have cast up dust on their heads,
They have girded themselves with sackcloth,
The virgins of Jerusalem,
Hang down their heads to the ground.
The elders were the leaders and the old men, those who were the most respected by society, and to whom the people looked for guidance. But now they had nothing to say or offer. They sat in silence, covered their heads with ashes and put on sackcloth (both signs of deep mourning).
The virgins are mentioned as being the most joyous of people, with their timbrels and dances, full of expectancy for the future. But now all that they could do was hang their heads to the ground. This may have been because they had been raped by the invaders, or simply due to the fact that they now had no expectations.
Alternately we may see the elders at the top and the virgins at the bottom as inclusive of all the people (elders, men, women, young men, virgins).
(Kaph) My eyes fail with tears,
My heart is troubled,
My liver is poured on the earth,
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
Because the young children and the babes,
Swoon in the streets of the city.
What the prophet saw moved him to anguish. His eyes failed with tears, his heart (mind) was troubled, his liver (probably seen as the centre of pain or of emotion) was poured forth on the earth. And why? Because he was witnessing the destruction of ‘the daughter of my people', in other words either Jerusalem (Jeremiah 14:17), or the people of Jerusalem. And because he was seeing young children and babes fainting with hunger in the streets of the city.
The phrase ‘daughter of my people' is Isaianic (Isaiah 22:4), and regularly repeated by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:11; Jeremiah 6:14 and often). Its meaning appears to vary between indicating the people as a whole and indicating Jerusalem.
(Lamed) They say to their mothers,
Where is grain and wine?
When they swoon as the wounded,
In the streets of the city,
When their soul is poured out,
Into their mothers' bosom.
The prophet draws a sad picture of the children crying out to their mothers for food, puzzled as why she cannot feed them as they faint from hunger in the streets and cling tightly to their mothers' breasts. The picture is a piteous one, the fruit of man's inhumanity.