Lamentations 4:1-22
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquitya of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blackerb than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The angerc of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
Lamentations 4:1. How is the gold, זהב zahab, so called because of its superior lustre to other metals, now become dim. Gold does not oxidize, and scarcely receives a tarnish; yet the rulers and priests have degenerated into base mixtures; and so much so, as to be vile as the potter's vessels.
Lamentations 4:3. Even the sea-monsters, תנין tinnin, draw out the breast. Our elder critics, less acquainted with natural history, read “dragons,” serpents of the larger species. But as whales are assuredly of the mammalia class, and give suck to their young, our version appears to be correct. The balœna, or whale, is the largest species of living beings which sport in the seas. One was caught in Greenland ninety feet in length; one in the south seas, where they are less disturbed, a hundred and six feet. Even the careless ostriches will cover up their eggs in the sands, and leave them to be hatched in the sun; but now, during the horrors of famine, even mothers become unnatural.
Lamentations 4:7. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk, more ruddy than rubies, as described in Leviticus 6:1. And if men looked so well who drank no wine, what need have we of tobacco and gin? These debilitate the constitution, and destroy our national character: ruin in every form attends their train.
Lamentations 4:8. Their visage is blacker than a coal. When the bile can form no chemical combination with the aliments for want of food, the absorbent vessels convey it to the blood, which turns the aspect to a sable hue; so that a man can scarcely know his brother.
Lamentations 4:12. The kings of the earth, deeming Jerusalem an impregnable city, could not believe that the Chaldeans could have forced her gates. Of what use are walls to a great city? If fifty thousand men cannot defend it, walls, by the calamities of the siege, do but augment the vengeance of the assailants.
Lamentations 4:13. For the sins of her prophets, ever the first to persecute the true prophets, and to shed the blood of the just, the city was delivered to the enemy. Read their deeds, as recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20; Jeremiah 5:11; Matthew 23:35.
Lamentations 4:18. They, the Chaldean cavalry, hunt our steps on the mountains. They are swifter than eagles, leaving no hopes of escape, while they search the whole land for spoils and for food. They spare neither virgin, nor hoary age, nor the sucking child.
Lamentations 4:21. Rejoice and be glad, oh daughter of Edom. These are words of consummate irony; for the sword in three or four years would be at her gates. Jeremiah 47:7. It is not wise to rejoice at a neighbour's calamity; for we know not how soon it may be our own case.
REFLECTIONS.
How dreadful are the horrors of famine. This is the final argument with an impregnable fortress to surrender. The soldier loses all his courage when he comes to fight with death. Why then should sinners be at war with omnipotence? The mountains are no defence, neither can the caverns afford retreat.
In the fall of Jerusalem, we see the instability of all worldly glory. David's house loses the crown; the fine gold becomes base by deteriorations; the holy temple, once the glory and boast of the whole earth, now in flames.
“He builds too low, who builds beneath the skies.” YOUNG.
Let us then build on Christ the rock of ages, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
Jeremiah boldly names the cause of Zion's fall. It was the sins of her false prophets, and prophets mostly of the sacerdotal order. They misused and killed the prophets of the Lord, 2 Chronicles 36:16; and polluted the sanctuary, which pollutions could not be purged but by the blood of the culprits. Thus the aged oak begins to decay first at the heart. It is a bitter complaint of Peter Jurieu, that the persecution of the French protestants was undertaken at the particular solicitations of the clergy; and the visitations on that order resembled those which befel the house of Aaron. How wonderful are thy judgments, oh Lord!