LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 4 Zion bewaileth her misery, confesseth her sins, LAMENTATIONS 4:1. Miseries of the chief ones; women who killed and dressed their own children, LAMENTATIONS 4:7. The sin of the false prophets and priests; their vain hope, LAMENTATIONS 4:13. Their king taken prisoner, LAMENTATIO... [ Continue Reading ]
Either the nobles and great men, or the priests, or the good men amongst the Jews, that for their intrinsic worth and value may be compared to gold, are looked upon no better than earthen vessels, the workmanship of an ordinary potter. God carrying Jeremiah down to the potter's house, JEREMIAH 18:2,... [ Continue Reading ]
The learned author of our English Annotations well observeth, that whatever creature is here intended by the word translated sea-monsters, yet our translation is not proper, the text speaking of creatures of God's making, monsters properly signifying such as have something beyond their natural bulk... [ Continue Reading ]
As the fatness of the mother's milk makes it instead of bread and flesh to the sucking child, so the moisture of it makes it to be as drink to allay its heat; the children wanting this moisture, their mouths were hot and dry. It was a time of famine; the little children, understanding not-the case o... [ Continue Reading ]
This judgment reached not only to the common people, but to persons of the highest rank and order, whose misery was now so much the greater, because so contrary to their former splendid state and way of living. They were wont to fare deliciously; now they wanted bread to eat, and were desolate in th... [ Continue Reading ]
The word translated PUNISHMENT signifies also _iniquity_, as was said in the notes on LAMENTATIONS 3:39. The sins of the Jews are compared to the sins of Sodom, ISAIAH 3:9 EZEKIEL 16:46,48,49; hence their rulers are called _rulers of Sodom_, ISAIAH 1:10; either their sins were specifically the same... [ Continue Reading ]
By NAZARITES in this place the most and best interpreters do not understand persons who were of the religious order of Nazarites, the laws of which order are to be read NUM 6, and of whom we read AMOS 2:11,12, for here is a beauty described (under several metaphors) which could never agree to them;... [ Continue Reading ]
They that in the prosperity of the city were fair, plump, and ruddy, look now black for want of fit nourishment, and through sorrow and grief; insomuch that those who before knew them by their countenances, garbs, and habits, did not now know them. And by reason of the famine (for he speaketh with r... [ Continue Reading ]
During the siege many were killed by the enemies sword, many more perished by famine; the prophet saith the condition of those who perished by the sword was much better than the condition of those who perished by famine, because they had a quicker death, and were sooner despatched and put out of the... [ Continue Reading ]
This was according to what God had threatened in case of disobedience, DEUTERONOMY 28:57, and a thing which hath often happened in sieges, 2 KINGS 6:29. Such things did happen in the last destruction of Jerusalem, as we read in Josephus; and though we read of no such thing happening in the siege of... [ Continue Reading ]
An unusual fire, which burns up not only the roof and superstructure, but the foundations, leaving no bottom for hopes of being restored. See DEUTERONOMY 32:22.... [ Continue Reading ]
Jerusalem was so naturally and artificially fortified, and so favoured by God, and taken notice of as a place which the Lord cared for, and watched over, that it could not have entered into the thoughts of any of those that were enemies to it, that they should ever have been able to make themselves... [ Continue Reading ]
Not for their sins alone who were the _false prophets_ and Baal's _priests_, but for their sins in an eminent degree; they were the ringleaders, either encouraging the people to the wickednesses they committed, or not restraining them, and denouncing the wrath of God against them. So though they wer... [ Continue Reading ]
A variety of interpreters hath made this text much more difficult than it is. Certainly nothing can appear more reasonable than to interpret the pronoun in the front of the verse relatively, and to fetch the antecedent from the former verse. They, that is, the prophets and the priests, wandered up a... [ Continue Reading ]
The various application of the pronoun _they_ by interpreters makes them aa much divided in the sense of this as of the former verse. Either the Jews that made conscience of keeping to the law against _touching dead bodies_ cried to the other Jews to leave the city as themselves did, the city being... [ Continue Reading ]
These words seem to be the language of their enemies triumphing over them, as discerning that their God was provoked against them, and would have no more regard or respect unto them; and that they had misused his prophets, which agreeth with 2 CHRONICLES 36:16. But others rather think these latter w... [ Continue Reading ]
That is, in expectation of the Egyptians, whom they waited for to raise the siege; it was a long time before they came, and When they did come, they could do them no service at all, JEREMIAH 37:5,7,8.... [ Continue Reading ]
The Chaldeans employed in the siege are so close upon us, that we cannot stir a foot about our businesses, nor look out at our doors, nor walk safely in the streets; we are ruined, there is an end of our civil state; our period is come, and the time of our prosperity is elapsed.... [ Continue Reading ]
Our enemies who pursued us to destroy us were very swift in their pursuit of us, (_ As swift as an eagle_, was a proverbial expression,) we could no where be safe: if we sought refuge in the mountains, they followed us thither; if we fled from them into the wilderness, they laid wait for us there.... [ Continue Reading ]
That he calls some prince here _the breath of their nostrils_, that is, their life, GENESIS 2:7, is out of doubt; and though some of the Jews would have it understood of Josiah, yet whoso considereth that he was not taken, but slain, and that not by the Chaldeans, but by the Egyptians twenty-three y... [ Continue Reading ]
The Edomites were descended from Esau the elder brother of Jacob, and dwelled in a part of Arabia that obtained the name of Uz, probably from Uz the son of Dishan, who descended from Seir, GENESIS 36:20,28: they, out of their old hatred to the Jews, rejoiced at their ruin, as we learn from the proph... [ Continue Reading ]
OLBHeb; O Judea, thy punishment is past, but the punishment of Edom is yet to come. The Jews were to abide many years in captivity, but they were now suffering their last punishment from the Chaldeans, they were only for some years to continue in that state of captives. HE WILL NO MORE CARRY THEE IN... [ Continue Reading ]