Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
Parallel Translations
-
Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
-
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
-
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore she is become as one unclean; all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; she herself also sigheth, and turneth backward.
Cross-references (28)
Passages linked to Lamentations 1:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 59:2-13 But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness. No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and give birth to iniquity. They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. Their webs won’t become garments. They won’t cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their paths. They don’t know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace. Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men. We all roar like bears and moan bitterly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
- Lamentations 1:20-22 “Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death. “They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me. “Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
- Jeremiah 13:22 If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.
- Jeremiah 13:26 Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will appear.
- Lamentations 1:4-5 The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.
- Lamentations 1:11 All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become despised.”
- 1 Samuel 2:30 “Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father should walk before me forever.’ But now Yahweh says, ‘Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me will be cursed.
- 1 Kings 8:46-47 If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;’
- 1 Kings 9:9 and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them.’ ”
- Isaiah 47:3 Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”
- Jeremiah 4:31 For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”
- Jeremiah 6:28 They are all grievous rebels, going around to slander. They are bronze and iron. All of them deal corruptly.
- Jeremiah 15:4 I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
- Jeremiah 24:9 I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.
- Jeremiah 34:17 Therefore Yahweh says: “You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you a liberty,” says Yahweh, “to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. I will make you be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.
- Lamentations 2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
- Lamentations 4:15-16 “Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They can’t live here any more.” Yahweh’s anger has scattered them. He will not pay attention to them any more. They didn’t respect the persons of the priests. They didn’t favor the elders.
- Lamentations 4:21 Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked.
- Lamentations 5:12-16 Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored. The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music. The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!
- Ezekiel 14:13-21 “Son of man, when a land sins against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand on it, and break the staff of its bread, and send famine on it, and cut off from it man and animal; though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness,” says the Lord Yahweh. “If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it is made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of the animals; though these three men were in it, as I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They only would be delivered, but the land would be desolate. “Or if I bring a sword on that land, and say, ‘Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off from it man and animal;’ though these three men were in it, as I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only would be delivered themselves. “Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal; though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “they would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness.” For the Lord Yahweh says: “How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, the famine, the evil animals, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and animal!
- Ezekiel 16:37-39 therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated. I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.
- Ezekiel 22:2-15 “You, son of man, will you judge? Will you judge the bloody city? Then cause her to know all her abominations. You shall say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “A city that sheds blood within herself, that her time may come, and that makes idols against herself to defile her! You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come even to your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. Those who are near, and those who are far from you, will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult. “ ‘ “Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood. In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow. You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths. Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you. In you have they uncovered their fathers’ nakedness. In you have they humbled her who was unclean in her impurity. One has committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law. Another in you has humbled his sister, his father’s daughter. In you have they taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,” says the Lord Yahweh. “ ‘ “Behold, therefore I have struck my hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at your blood which has been within you. Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I will deal with you? I, Yahweh, have spoken it, and will do it. I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will consume your filthiness out of you.
- Ezekiel 23:29 They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labor, and will leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 23:46 “For the Lord Yahweh says: ‘I will bring up a mob against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed.
- Hosea 2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- Hosea 2:10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.
- Revelation 3:18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
- 1 Kings 9:7 then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what…
Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what he had briefly referred to, even that all the evil which the Jews suffered proceeded from God’s vengeance, and that they were worthy of such a punishment, because they had not lightly offended, but had heaped up for themselves a dreadful judgment, since they had in all manner of ways abandoned themselves to impiety. This is the substance of what is said. We hence learn that the Prophet did not compose this song to lament the calamity of his own country as heathens were wont to do. An example of a heathen lamentation we have in Virgil: —
“Come is the great day and the unavoidable time Of Dardania: we Trojans have been; Ilium has been, And the great glory of the Teuerians: cruel Jupiter has to Argos Transferred all things: the Danai rule in the burnt city.”
Read full note →
He also repeats the same sentiment in other words: —
“O country! O Ilium, the house of the gods! and the famous for war, The camp of the Dardanidans! cruel Jupiter has to Argos Transferred all things.”
He thus mourns the destruction of Troy; but he complains of the cruelty of God, and calls Him cruel Jupiter, because he was himself enraged, and yet the speaker was Pantheus the priest of Apollo. We hence see how the unbelieving, when they lament their own calamities, vomit forth blasphemies against. God, for they are exasperated by sorrow. Very different is the complaint of the Prophet from that of the ungodly; for when he deplores the miseries of his people, he at the same time adds that God is a righteous avenger. He does not then accuse God of cruelty or of too much rigor, but reminds the people to humble themselves before God and to confess that they justly deserved all their evils.
The unbelieving do indeed sometimes mingle some words, by which they seem to give glory to God; but they are evanescent, for they soon return to their perverseness. They are sometimes moderate, “If thou art turned by any entreaties.” In that case they expostulate with God:, as though he were deaf to the prayers of his servants. At length they break out into open blasphemies, —
“After it seemed good to the gods to subvert the affairs of Asia And the undeserved nation of Priam.” —
They regarded the nation which had been cut off unworthy of such a punishment; they called it an undeserved nation. Now, then, we perceive what is the difference between the unbelieving and the children of God. For it is common to all to mourn in adversities; but the end of the mourning of the unbelieving is perverseness, which at length breaks out into rage, when they feel their evils, and they do not in the meantime humble themselves before God. But the faithful do not harden themselves in their mourning, but reflect on themselves and examine their own life, and of their own accord prostrate themselves before God, and willingly submit to the sentence of condemnation, and confess that God is just.
We hence now see how the calamity of the Church ought to be lamented by us, even that we are to return to this principle, that God is a just avenger, and does not punish common offenses only, but the greatest sins, and that when he reduces us to extremities, lie does so on account of the greatness of our sins, as also Daniel confessed. For it was not in few words that he declared that the people were worthy of exile and of the punishment which they suffered; but he accumulated words,
We have sinned, we have acted impiously, we have done wickedly, we have been transgressors.” (Daniel 9:5.)
Nor was the Prophet satisfied without this enumeration, for he saw how great the impiety of the people had been, and how mad had been their obstinacy, not for a few years, but for that long time, during which they had been warned by the prophets, and yet they repented not, but always became worse and worse. Such, then, is the mode of speaking adopted here.
He says that she was made a commotion, that is, that she was removed from her country. There seems to be implied a contrast between the rest which had been promised to the Jews, and a wandering and vagrant exile; for, as we have seen, the Jews had not only been banished, but they had nowhere a quiet dwelling; it was even a commotion. This may at the same time be referred to the curse of the law, because they were to be for a commotion — for even the unbelieving shook their heads at them. But the word, נידה, nide, ought properly to be applied to their exile, when the Jews became unfixed and vagrant. It is added, that she was despised and treated reproachfully by all who before esteemed and honored her. This also did not a little increase the grievousness of her calamity; she had been repudiated by her friends, by whom she had before been valued and honored. The reason is mentioned, because they saw her nakedness. But the word properly means turpitude or ignominy. It is at length added, that she even groaned and turned backward; that is, that she was so oppressed with grief, that there was no hope of a remedy; for to turn backward means the same as to be deprived of all hope of restoration. It now follows, —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Or, driven away.
Or, driven away.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Lam 1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is…
Lam 1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Ver. 8. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned.] Perpetuo, assidue, et graviter peccavit. Heb., Hath sinned sin, hath sinned sinningly, doing wickedly as she could, {Jer 3:4} and having many transgressions wrapped up in her sins and their circumstances. {Lev 16:21} And this is here acknowledged as the true cause of her calamity. Profane persons lay all the blame in this case upon God, as he in the poet -
Read full note →
“ O patria, O divum domus Ilium, et inclyta bello
Maenia Dardanidum: ferus omnia Iupiter Argos
Transtulit …
Postquam res Asiae Priamique evertere gentem
Immeritam visum superis, ”& c. - Virg., Aeneid., ii.
Therefore she is removed.] Heb., Therefore is she unto removing or wandering, as Cain was {a} when he went to live in the land of Nod, or as a menstruous woman is separated from the society of others. Nidah for Niddah.
All that honoured her.] When her ways pleased the Lord.
Because they have seen her nakedness.] Her infamous wickednesses, for which she hath done penance, as it were, and is therefore despised. Or else it is a term taken from a naked captive woman.
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward,] sc., To hide her nakedness from public view. Or, going into captivity, she looked her last look toward her dear country, and fetched a sigh.
{a} Ad modum Cain fratricidae. - Piguier.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain She is carried out of her own land into…
She is carried out of her own land into an enemy’s country, and made a hissing and scorn to those who before reverenced her, (in all this God is righteous, for all orders of men have grievously sinned,) because they have seen the Lord stripping her of all her blessings, and exposing her to the scorn and reproach of all men, as strumpets are exposed.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Jerusalem hath grievously sinned,.... Or, "hath sinned a sin"…
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned,.... Or, "hath sinned a sin" (r); a great sin, as the Targum; the sin of idolatry, according to some; or of covenant breaking, as others; though perhaps no particular sin is meant, but many grievous sins; since she was guilty of a multitude of them, as in Lam 1:5;
therefore she is removed; out of her own land, and carried captive into another: or, is "for commotion" (s); for scorn and derision; the head being moved and shook at her by way of contempt: or rather, "for separation" (t); she being like a menstruous woman, defiled and separate from society:
Read full note →
all that honoured her despise her; they that courted her friendship and alliance in the time of her prosperity, as the Egyptians, now neglected her, and treated her with the utmost contempt, being in adversity:
because they have seen her nakedness; being stripped of all her good things she before enjoyed; and both her weakness and her wickedness being exposed to public view. The allusion is either to harlots, or rather to modest women, when taken captive, whose nakedness is uncovered by the brutish and inhuman soldiers:
yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward; being covered with shame, because of the ill usage of her, as modest women will, being so used.
(r) "peccatum peccavit", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus. (s) "in commotionem", Montanus, Vatablus, Calvin. (t) "Ut separata", Grotius; "tanquam ex immunditia separata est", Junius & Tremellius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lam 1:8-9. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned — Hebrew, חשׂא…
Lam 1:8-9. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned — Hebrew, חשׂא חשׂאה, in sinning hath sinned, or hath sinned sin: that is, sinned wilfully and deliberately; hath sinned that sin which of all others is the abominable thing which the Lord hates, the sin of idolatry. The sins of Jerusalem, which makes such a profession of worshipping and serving the true God, and therefore of obeying his will, and enjoys such privileges, are of all others the most grievous sins. Therefore she is removed — The greatest part of her inhabitants are either carried away captive to Babylon, or are fled for refuge and safety to some of the neighbouring nations. Blaney translates this clause, Therefore hath she been as one set apart for unclean, instead of לנידה, a word that occurs nowhere else, reading לנדה, after nineteen MSS., which signifies a woman in her state of separation. All that honoured her, despise her — She hath made herself vile, and therefore is justly vilified. Because they have seen her nakedness — Have seen her deprived of all her strength and glory. As she had defiled herself with idolatry, (called spiritual adultery in Scripture,) so God has ordered her to be exposed to shame like a common harlot. Yea, she sigheth and turneth backward — As ashamed to be seen in such a despicable condition, destitute of all those things which constituted her former glory. Her filthiness is in her skirts — She carries the marks of her sins in the greatness of her punishments. She remembereth not her last end — Reflects not on what is still further coming upon her. “The plain meaning of this,” says Blaney, “taken out of metaphor, seems to be, that although evident marks of her pollution appeared about her, and the land was defiled by her sinfulness, even to its utmost borders, she had no thought or consideration of what must be the consequence of all this at the last.” Therefore she came down wonderfully — She was brought low, and humbled in an extraordinary manner having sinned grievously, Lam 1:8, she was degraded and punished wonderfully. Observe, reader, grievous sins bring wondrous ruin; there are some workers of iniquity for whom is prepared a strange and uncommon punishment.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Grievously sinned - literally, “Jerusalem hath sinned a sin,”…
Grievously sinned - literally, “Jerusalem hath sinned a sin,” giving the idea of a persistent continuance in wickedness.
Removed - Or, become an abomination. Sin has made Jerusalem an object of horror, and therefore she is cast away.
Read full note →
Yea, she sigheth ... - Jerusalem groans over the infamy of her deeds thus brought to open shame, and turns her back upon the spectators in order to hide herself.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Unstable. Hebrew also, "removed," (Haydock) like a woman unclean.…
Unstable. Hebrew also, "removed," (Haydock) like a woman unclean. (Calmet) --- Such were excluded from places of prayer, and were not allowed to touch a sacred book, or to pronounce God’s name. Their husbands could not look at their face, nor give them any thing, but laid it down for them to take. (Buxtorf, Syn. 31.) --- No condition could be more distressing. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain (Kg1 8:46).
(Kg1 8:46).
is removed--as a woman separated from the congregation of God for legal impurity, which is a type of moral impurity. So Lam 1:17; Lev 12:2; Lev 15:19, &c.
Read full note →
her nakedness--They have treated her as contumeliously as courtesans from whom their clothes are stripped.
turneth backward--as modest women do from shame, that is, she is cast down from all hope of restoration [CALVIN].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 8. Is removed — More correctly, is become an…
8. Is removed — More correctly, is become an abomination; and so it expresses the key-thought of this verse and the following.
She sigheth, and turneth backward — As a modest woman would do from shame.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 8. is become (mg. is removed) as an unclean…
8. is become (mg. is removed) as an unclean thing] Targ. has become a wanderer, but the text is doubtless right.
8, 9. These vv. in figurative language describe the Jewish people, as having brought upon itself through sin and consequent national humiliation the contempt of all its neighbours, while it is painfully conscious of its own ignominy (cp. Lam_4:21). The first two lines of Lam_1:9 are metrically irregular. Budde’s emendation (which, however, Löhr considers too drastic) is to take from Lam_1:8 the clause “she is … thing” (omitting “therefore”) and place it after “skirts,” thus making “She remembered not … wonderfully” to form the second portion of the tripartite arrangement, and omitting accordingly “she hath no comforter” (which would thus become hypermetrical) as an insertion suggested by Lam_1:2; Lam_1:17, or 21. Observe the sudden change of person in the last line of Lam_1:9.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (8) Therefore she is removed.—The verb is used technically…
(8) Therefore she is removed.—The verb is used technically for the separation of a woman under ceremonial defilement; and the daughter of Zion in her sin and shame is compared (as in Lam_1:17) to such a woman. The figure is continued with a startling boldness. Like a woman exposed to the gaze of scorners, Jerusalem would fain turn her back upon those who exult in the twofold nakedness of her sin and of its punishment.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Therefore she is removed; rather, she is become an…
Therefore she is removed; rather, she is become an abomination. (literally, an impurity; comp. Lev_15:19) The poet leaves out the preliminary clause, "therefore she is grievously punished." It was the humiliation of Jerusalem, rather than her sin, which brought upon her the contempt of her neighbours. The destruction of a city is often compared to the ill treatment of a defenceless woman. (Isa_47:3 Nah_3:5)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed.
Lam_1:8-11
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed.
Read full note →
The captivity of Judah
The emphatic word is therefore. It rings with sad and solemn cadence through the most mournful of all the books of the Bible. It is the epitaph of the nation to which once the conquest of the world was possible, but whose persistent resistance to the will of God secured at last its complete destruction The processes by which it ruined itself are those by which individuals are destroyed. This therefore is the monumental inscription over a dead nation, which may serve as a warning and guide to every living soul.
I. The sins which brought about the downfall of Judah.
1. Unbelief. They refused to see God, and they gradually lost the power to see Him. When they found that their kings could not be trusted, could not take care of them° they trusted, not to God, but to other nations. One day they were vassals of the king of Egypt; the next, of the king of Babylon Nothing but trust in God can make men free. As soon as we begin to doubt his word, and trust in human opinions, we expose ourselves to become the prey of untrustworthy powers. No confidence in our own learning or judgment, no trust in the boastful words of others, can ever take the place of confidence in the simple Word of God, and leave us sound and safe.
2. Pride. They could not accept Gods way. They could not wait for other nations to be uplifted and join them. They chose to join other nations. Doubtless they said it would more quickly bring the world to God; that to be singular would only repel men, and make God repulsive to them. They preferred their way to the way of God, ostensibly because They thought their way was wiser, really because they could not bear to lose esteem in the eyes of tree world Gods way is the same now. He still calls disciples a peculiar people. He still says, Come ye out from among them and be ye separate. He still finds only occasionally a hearty response. But to these who do respond with willing love, what wonderful rewards He gives!
3. Sensuality. Outward contamination soon resulted in inward corruption. Vice belongs with separation from God, and association with the world. In time it will as surely follow as it is sure that man is made subject to temptation.
4. Idolatry. When men or nations become polluted, they seek to make religion justify their wickedness. Often the most self-indulgent are those most devoted to their ideas of religion. They make their gods responsible for their sins, and therefore treat them with greatest care.
II. The consequences of Judahs sins.
1. Blindness. They could not see the ruin they were approaching. When we cease to lay bare our sins and call them by their real names, we cease to feel them. We enter into moral darkness. The light of the world shines as before, but there is nothing in us which answers to that light. All knowledge of what we ought to do rests on some knowledge of what God is and does. We speak of seeing God, and though He is not visible to the bodily eye, there is no other description which expresses our perception of His character and presence surrounding us in all our ways. Men have eyes which behold Him; eyes which He Himself has opened to that light which is not the light of the sun, but which is the light of the celestial city. But when men turn away from that light, His character becomes to them distorted and unreal.
2. Untrustworthiness. When they became false to God they became false to all trusts. They substituted forms for righteousness, and increased them in proportion as they lost the spirit of truth.
3. Misery. The consequences of sin were seen too late. They were not foreseen.
Lessons--
1. The captivity of Judah was the fault of her religious men. Beware of seeking to justify what your conscience condemns by appeals to God in prayer, or by observing forms of worship.
2. Outward reformation but slightly arrests the progress of destruction. We cannot hope for much from the reform which aims only at self-protection. It is not deep, honest, hearty, unless we choose to renounce sins because we hate sin, and follow God because we love His ways.
3. Sin destroys the choicest qualities of human character.
4. The one thing necessary is to keep the eye on God. (A. E. Dunning.)
Sins dire consequence
Sin produceth all temporal evil. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore she is removed. It is the Trojan horse; it hath sword and famine and pestilence within it. (T. Watson.)
Sin the cause of affliction
1. Their sins the cause of their afflictions being again mentioned unto them, teacheth this doctrine: that it is necessary whensoever we are afflicted, to recount often our sins to have procured the same to fall upon us.
(1) We are naturally unwilling to blame ourselves for anything, and ready to impute the cause of any evil to others.
(2) If we rightly charge ourselves and our sins, we shall be the better prepared thereby to true repentance and right humiliation.
2. It is peculiar to the godly to impute the cause of all their miseries unto their own sins. The wicked either lay the cause upon other things, or extenuate their fault, blaming God for rigour; or else break out into raging impatience or blasphemy.
3. It is our sin that depriveth us of any good thing we have heretofore enjoyed.
4. When we truly fear and serve the Lord, He honoureth us in the sight of men (1Sa_2:30).
(1) That it may appear that godliness is not without her reward even in this life.
(2) To give a taste unto the godly here, of that honour which they shall hereafter enjoy without measure or end.
5. It is our sin that maketh us odious and contemptible amongst men.
6. The estimation that the godly have among worldlings is only whilst they are in outward prosperity.
7. The wicked, that have no knowledge or consciousness of their own faults, can see the offences of the godly, and upbraid them with them.
8. There is nothing that maketh men so filthily naked as sin.
9. The godly do take to heart with earnest affection the crosses that the Lord layeth upon them.
10. The godly are sometimes brought into so hard estate as that they are in mens judgment utterly deprived of all the signs of Gods favour. (J. Udall.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain THE doctrinaire rigour of Judaism in its uncompromising association…
SIN AND SUFFERING
Lam_1:8-11
Read full note →
THE doctrinaire rigour of Judaism in its uncompromising association of moral and physical evils has led to an unreasonable disregard for the solid truth which lies behind this mistake. It can scarcely be said that men are now perplexed by the problem that inspired the Book of Job. The fall of the tower of Siloam or the blindness of a man from his birth would not start among us the vexatious questions which were raised in the days of our Lord. We have not accepted the Jewish theory that the punishment of sin always overtakes the sinner in this life, much less have we assented to the by no means necessary corollary that all calamities are the direct penalties of the misconduct of the sufferers, and therefore sure signs of guilt. The modern tendency is in the opposite direction; it goes to ignore the existence of any connection whatever between the course of the universe and human conduct. No interference with the uniformity of the laws of nature for retributive or disciplinary purposes can be admitted. The machinery runs on in its grooves never deflected by any regard for our good or bad deserts. If we dash ourselves against its wheels they will tear us to pieces, grind us to powder; and we may reasonably consider this treatment to be the natural punishment of our folly. But here we are not beyond physical causation, and the drift of thought is towards holding the belief in anything more to be a simple survival from primitive anthropomorphic ideas of nature, a pure superstition. Is it a pure superstition? It is time we turned to another side of the question.
Every strong conviction that has obtained wide recognition, however erroneous and mischievous it may be, can be traced back to the abuse of some solid truth. It is not the case that the universe is constructed without any regard for moral laws. Even the natural punishment of the violation of natural laws contains a certain ethical element. Other considerations apart, clearly it is wrong to injure ones health or endanger ones life by rushing headlong against the constituted order of the universe; therefore the consequences of such conduct may be taken as signs of its condemnation. In the case of the sufferings of the Jews lamented by our poet the calamities were not primarily of a physical origin; they grew out of human acts-the accompaniments of the Chaldaean invasion. When we come to the evolution of history we are introduced to a whole world of moral forces that are not at work in the material universe.
Nebuchadnezzar did not know that he was the instrument of a Higher Power for the chastisement of Israel; but the corruptions of the Jews, so ruthlessly exposed by their prophets, had undermined the national vigour which is the chief safeguard of a state, as surely as at a later time the corruptions of Rome opened her gates to devastating hosts of Goths and Huns. May we not go further, and, passing beyond the region of common observation, discover richer indications of the ethical meanings of events in the application to them of a real faith in God? It was his profound theism that lay at the base of the Jews conception of temporal retribution, crude, hard, and narrow as this was. If we believe that God is supreme over nature and history as well as over individual lives, we must conclude that He will use every province of His vast dominion so as to further His righteous purposes. If the same Spirit reigns throughout there must be a certain harmony between all parts of His government. The mistake of the Jew was his claim to interpret the details of this Divine administration with a sole regard for the minute fraction of the universe that came under his own eyes, with blank indifference to the vast realm of facts and principles of which he could know nothing. His idea of Providence was too shortsighted, too parochial, in every respect too small; yet it was true in so far as it registered the conviction that there must be an ethical character in the government of the world by a righteous God, that the divinely ordered course of events cannot be out of all relation to conduct.
It does not fall in with the plan of the Lamentations for this subject to be treated so fully in these poems as it is in the stirring exhortations of the great prophets. Yet it comes to the surface repeatedly. In the fifth verse of the first elegy the poet attributes the affliction of Zion to "the multitude of her transgressions"; and he introduces the eighth verse with the clear declaration-
"Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she has become an unclean thing."
The powerful Hebrew idiom according to which the cognate substantive follows the verb is here employed. Rendered literally, the opening phrase is, "sinned sin." The experience of the chastisement leads to a keen perception of the guilt that precedes it. This is more than a consequence of the application of the accepted doctrine of the connection of sin with suffering to a particular case. No intellectual theory is strong enough by itself to awaken a slumbering conscience. The logic may be faultless; and yet even though the point of the syllogism is not evaded it will be coolly ignored. Trouble arouses a torpid conscience in a much more direct and effectual way. In the first place, it shatters the pride which is the chief hindrance to the confession of sin. Then it compels reflection; it calls a halt, and makes us look back over the path we may have been following too heedlessly. Sometimes it seems to exercise a distinctly illuminating influence. It is as though scales had fallen from the sufferers eyes; he sees all things in a new light, and some ugly facts which had been lying at his side for years disregarded suddenly glare upon him as horrible discoveries. Thus the "Prodigal Son" perceives that he has sinned both against Heaven and against his father when he is in the lowest depths of misery, not so much because he recognises a penal character in his troubles, but more on account of the fact that he has come to himself. This subjective, psychological connection between suffering and sin is independent of any dogma of retribution; for the ends of practical discipline it is the most important connection. We may waive all discussion of the ancient Jewish problem, and still be thankful to recognise the Elijah-like ministry of adversity. The immediate effect of this vision of sin is that a new colour is given to the picture of the desolation of Jerusalem. The image of a miserable woman is preserved, but the dignity of the earlier scene is missing here. Pathos and poetry gather round the picture of the forlorn widow weeping for the loss of her children. Neglected and humbled as she is in worldly estate, the tragic vastness of her sorrow has exalted her to an altitude of moral sublimity. Such suffering breaks through those barriers of conventional experience which make many lives look mean and trivial. It is so awful that we cannot but regard it with reverence. But all this is altered in the aspect of Jerusalem which follows the confession of her great sin. In the freedom of ancient language the poet ventures on an illustration that would be regarded as too gross for modern literature. The limits of our art exclude subjects which excite a sensation of disgust; but this is just the sensation the author of the elegy deliberately aims at producing. He paints a picture which is simply intended to sicken his readers. The utter humiliation of Jerusalem is exhibited in the unavoidable exposure of a condition which natural modesty would conceal at any cost. Another contrast between the reserve of our modern style and the rude bluntness of antiquity is here apparent. It is not only that we have grown more refined in language-a very superficial change which might be no better than the whitewashing of sepulchres; over and above this civilising of mere manners, the effect of Teutonic habits, strengthened by Christian sentiments, has been to develop a respect for woman undreamed of in the old Eastern world. It may be added that the scientific temper of recent times has taught us that there is nothing really dishonouring in purely natural processes. The ancient world could not distinguish between delicacy and shame. We should regard a poor suffering woman whose modesty had been grievously wounded with simple commiseration; the ancient Jews treated such a person with disgust as an unclean creature, quite unable to see that their conduct was simply brutal.
The new aspect of the misery of Jerusalem is thus set forth as one of degradation and ignominy. The vision of sin is immediately followed by a scene of shame. Commentators have been divided over the question whether this picture of the humiliated woman is intended to apply to the sin of the city or only to her misfortunes. In favour of the former view, it may be remarked that uncleanness is distinctly associated with moral corruption: the connection is the more appropriate here inasmuch as a confession of sin immediately precedes. On the other hand, the attendant circumstances point to the second interpretation. It is the humiliation of the condition of the sufferer, rather than that condition itself, which is dwelt upon. Jerusalem is despised, "she sigheth," "is come down wonderfully," "hath no comforter," and is generally afflicted and oppressed by her enemies. But while we are led to regard the pitiable picture as a representation of the woful plight into which the proud city has fallen, we cannot conclude it to be an accident that this particular phase of her misery succeeds the mention of her great guilt. After all, it is only the underlying guilt that can justify a verdict which carries disgrace as well as suffering for its penalty. Even when the judgments of men are too confused to recognise this truth with regard to other people, it should be apparent to the conscience of the humiliated person himself. The humiliation which follows nothing worse than a fall into external misfortunes is but a superficial trouble, and the consciousness of innocence can enable one to submit to it without any sense of inward shame. The sting of contempt lies in the miserable consciousness that it is deserved.
Thus we see the punishment of sin consisting in exposure. The exposure which simply hurts natural modesty is acutely painful to a refined, sensitive spirit; and yet the very dignity which it outrages is a shield against the point of the insult. But where the exposure follows sin this shield is absent. In that case the degradation of it is without any mitigation. Nothing more may be necessary to constitute a very severe punishment. When the secrets of all hearts are revealed the very revelation will be a penal process. To lay bare the quivering nerves of memory to the searching sunlight must be to torture the guilty soul with inconceivable horrors. Nevertheless it is a matter for profound thankfulness that there is no question of a surprising revelation of the sinners guilt being made to God at some future time, some shocking discovery which might turn His lovingkindness into wrath or contempt. We cannot have a firmer ground of joy and hope than the fact that God knows everything about us, and yet loves us at our worst, patiently waiting for repentance with His offer of unlimited forgiveness. Exposure before God is like a surgical examination; the hope of a cure, if it does not dispel the sense of humiliation and that is impossible in the case of guilt, the disgrace of which to a healthy conscience is more intense before the holiness of God than before the eyes of fellow-sinners still encourages confidence.
The recognition of a moral lapse at the root of the shame of Jerusalem, though not perhaps in the shame itself, is confirmed by a phrase which reflects on the culpable heedlessness of the Jews. The elegy deplores how the city has "come down wonderfully" on account of the fact that "she remembered not her latter end." It is quite confusing and incorrect to render this expression in the present tense as it stands in the Authorised English Version. The poet cannot mean that the Jews in exile and captivity have already forgotten the recent horrors of the siege of Jerusalem. This would be flatly contrary to the motive of the elegy, which is to give tongue to the sufferings of the Jews flowing out of that disaster. It would be impossible to say that the calamity that inspired the elegy was no longer even remembered by its victims. What an anti-climax this would be! Clearly the poet is bewailing the culpable folly of the people in not giving a thought to the certain consequences of such a course as they were following; a course that had been denounced by the faithful prophets of Jehovah, who, alas! had been but voices crying in the wilderness, unnoted, or even scouted and suppressed, like the stormy petrels hated by sailors as birds of ill-omen. In her ease and prosperity, her self-indulgence and sin, the doomed city had failed to recollect what must be the end of such things. The idea of remembrance is peculiarly apt and forcible in this connection, although it has a relation to the future, because the Jews had been through experiences which should have served as warnings if they had duly reflected on them. This was not a matter for wild guesses or vague apprehensions. Not only were there the distinct utterances of Jeremiah and his predecessors to rouse the thoughtless; events had been speaking louder than words. Jerusalem was already a city with a history, and that history had even by this time accumulated some tragic lessons. These were subjects for memory. Thus memory can become prophecy, because the laws which are revealed in the past will govern the future. We are none of us so wholly inexperienced but that in the knowledge of what we have already been through we may gain wisdom to anticipate the consequences of our present actions. The heedless person is one who forgets, or at all events one who will not attend to his own memories. Such recklessness is its own condemnation; it cannot plead the excuse of ignorance.
But now it may be objected that this reference to the mere thought of consequences suggests considerations that are too low to furnish the reasons for the ruin of Jerusalem. Would the city have been spared if only her inhabitants had been a little more foreseeing? It should be observed that though mere prudence is never a very lofty virtue, imprudence is sometimes a very serious fault. It cannot be right to be simply reckless, to ignore all lessons of the past and fling oneself blindly into the future. The hero who is sure that he is inspired by a lofty motive may walk straight into the very jaws of death, and be all the stronger for his noble indifference to his fate; but he who is no hero, he who is not influenced by any great or unselfish ideas, has no excuse for neglecting the warnings of common prudence. All wise actions must be more or less guided with a view to their issues in the future, although in the case of the best of them the aims will be pure and unselfish. It is our prerogative, to "look before and after"; and just in proportion as we take long views do our deeds acquire gravity and depth. Our Lord characterised the two ways by their ends. While the example of the careless Jews is followed on all sides-and who of us can deny that he has ever fallen into the negligence?-is it not a little superfluous to discuss abstract, unpractical problems about a remote altruism?
Intermingled with his painful picture of the humiliation and shame of the fallen city, the poet supplies indications of the effect of all this on the suffering citizens. Despised by all who had formerly honoured her, Jerusalem sighs and longs to retire into obscurity, away from the rude gaze of her oppressors.
In particular, two further signs of her distress are here given.
The first is spoliation. Her enemies have laid hands on "all her pleasant things." It may strike us that, after the miseries just narrated, this is but a minor trouble. Jobs calamities began with the loss of his property, and rose from this by degrees to the climax of agony. If his first trouble had been the sudden death of all his children, stunned by that awful blow, he would have cared little about the fate of his flocks and herds. It is not according to the method of the Lamentations, however, to move on to any climax. The thoughts are set forth as they well up in the mind of the poet, now passionate and intense, then again of a milder cast, yet altogether combining to colour one picture of intolerable woe. But there is an aspect of this idea of the robbery of the "pleasant things" which heightens the sense of misery. It is another instance of the force of contrast so often manifested in these elegies. Jerusalem had been a home of wealth and luxury in the merry old days. But hoarded money, precious jewellery, family heirlooms, products of art and skill, accumulated during generations of prosperity and treated as necessaries of life-all had been swept away in the sack of the city, and scattered among strangers who could not prize them as they had been prized by their owners: and now these victims of spoliation, stripped of everything, were in want of daily bread. Even what little could be saved from the wreck they had to give up in exchange for common food, bought dearly in the market of necessity.
The second sign of the great distress here noted is desecration. Gentiles invade the sacred precincts of the temple. Considering that the sanctuary had been already much more effectually desecrated by the blood-stained hands and lustful hearts of impious worshippers, such as those "rulers of Sodom" denounced by Isaiah for "trampling" the courts of Jehovah with their "vain oblations," {Isa_1:10-17} we do not find it easy to sympathise with this horror of a supposed defilement from the mere presence of heathen persons. Yet it would be unjust to accuse the shocked Israelites of hypocrisy. They ought to have been more conscious of the one real corruption of sin; but we cannot add that therefore their notions of external uncleanness were altogether foolish and wrong. To judge the Jews of the age of the Captivity by a standard of spirituality which few Christians have yet attained to would be a cruel anachronism. The Syrian invasion of the temple in the time of the Maccabees was called by a very late prophet an "abomination of desolation," {Dan_11:31} and a similar insult to be offered to the sacred place by the Romans is described by our Lord in the same terms. {Mar_13:14} All of us must be conscious at times of the sacredness of associations. To botanise on his mothers grave may be a proof of a mans freedom from superstition, but it cannot be taken as an indication of the fineness of his feelings. The Israelite exclusiveness which shunned the intrusion of foreigners simply because they were foreigners was combined both with a patriotic anxiety to preserve the integrity of the nation, and in some cases with a religious dread of idolatry. It is true the nominal contamination of the mere presence of Gentiles was generally more dreaded than the real contagion of their corrupt examples. Still the very idea of desecration, even when it is superficial, together with a sense of pain at its presence, is higher than the materialism which despises it not because this materialism has the grace to sanctify everything, but for the opposite reason, because it counts nothing holy, because to it all things are common and unclean.
Before we pass from this portion of the elegy there is one curious characteristic of it which calls for notice. The poet suddenly drops the construction in the third person and writes in the first person. This he does twice-at the end of the ninth verse, and again at the end of the eleventh. He might be speaking in his own person, but the language points to the personified city. Yet in each case the outburst is quite abrupt, sprung upon us without any introductory formula. Possibly the explanation of this anomaly must be sought in the liturgical use for which the poem was designed. If it was to be sung antiphonally we may conjecture that at these places a second chorus would break in. The result would be a startling dramatic effect-as though the city had sat listening to the lament over her woes until the piteous tale bad compelled her to break her silence and cry aloud, in each case the cry is directed to heaven. It is an appeal to God; and it simply prays for His attention-"Behold, O Lord," "See, O Lord, and behold." In the first case the Divine attention is called to the insolence of the enemy, in the second to the degradation of Jerusalem. Still it is only an appeal for notice. Will God but look upon all this misery? That is sufficient.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain (ח) Lam_1:8. Jerusalem has sinned a sin, has broken…
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(ח) Lam_1:8. Jerusalem has sinned a sin, has broken the law of her God with determinate will, and bears the natural penalty; therefore she is become as an unclean one; not as one who has been removed (Authorised Version) as a captive from her native place, but as one set aside because of impurity. All who honoured her despise her, for they see her nakedness; her evil is laid bare; the very peoples who had respected her, and who had far less knowledge of what was right and true than she, are now alive to the real character of her procedure, and count it shamefully bad. Even Nebuzar-adan, captain of the Babylonian guard, could say, after her overthrow, Because ye have sinned against Jehovah and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come upon you (Jer_40:3). There was still a sensitiveness of conscience in the ideal Jerusalem; Yea, she sighs and turns backward, moaning, as if conscious of spectators and mortified by her open shame, she is fain to screen herself, “as those in such case would do that have any shamefacedness or spark of ingenuity at all in them.”
Read full note →
(ט) Lam_1:9. Her evil is very obvious, her defilement is in her skirts, not below, but manifest on her long flowing robe; she remembers not her latter end; as she continued sinning, she paid no regard to the issue of it all, and, in consequence of this want of forethought, she is come down wonderfully, down to the lowest depth of misery, an astonishment to herself, and to all around her; there is no comforter for her. Her conviction of sin, and shame, and sorrow impels her to go to her God, and she cries, See, O Jehovah, my affliction, for the enemy doth magnify himself, the appeal is supported on two bases:
(1) Her humiliation; and,
(2) The arrogant pretensions of her foes; surely with some vague hope like that of the Psalm-writer, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of thine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me (Psa_138:7).
(י) Lam_1:10. His hand the adversary stretches out upon all her pleasant things, treasures of all sorts, thus described by Isaiah (Isa_64:11-12), Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion is become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste. The plundering of the Temple was the most aggravating of all, for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly; heathens, who were not admissible even into the congregation of the Lord—into religious communion with Israel—had trod the courts which were most holy to Jewish worshippers, and where only priests could legitimately go, and they had pillaged the pleasant vessels of the house of Jehovah, therewith to adorn the shrines of their idol deities.
(כ) Lam_1:11. In Lam_1:4 the priests sigh; in Lam_1:8 Jerusalem sighs, and here one and all, because in addition to the religious collapse, a terrible bodily hunger is universally felt, so all her people are sighing, are seeking bread. This use of participles signifies that both the past and present condition of the people is regarded by the writer. He saw that the scanty meals to which they were reduced when beleaguered by the Chaldean army had not ended after the Temple had been desecrated and despoiled; they had parted and were parting with ornaments, jewellery, every one of their valuables, merely to keep body and soul together; they give their pleasant things for food; after a close siege of eighteen months, preceded by the overrunning of the country, food-supplies must have been all but exhausted; to restore their soul, to bring back life, to those who are drawn unto death (1Ki_17:21), and spiritually to restore the soul (Psa_19:8). There is bread of which if any man eat he shall live for ever, given by Him who gave His flesh for the life of the world. Was there any undefinable longing for such bread in the following appeal, similar to that of Lam_1:9, but somewhat intensified? See, O Jehovah, and behold, for I am become despised! Would He take away her reproach? Thus a transition is made to the lamentation and supplication of Jerusalem herself in the following half of this elegy.
HOMILETICS
THE TERRIBLE HAVOC OF SIN
(Lam_1:8-11)
I. In its revolting defilement. “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore she is removed. Her filthiness is in her skirts” (Lam_1:8-9). The expression “grievously sinned” gives the idea of persistent continuance in wickedness. This condition is not reached all at once. It began in trifling with the first enticements to evil. The entrance to the pathway of sin is gaily decked with flowers, but they are flowers that wither as soon as they are plucked. It is over-hung with tempting fruits, but they are fruits that turn to bitter ashes between the teeth. It is sprinkled with subtle and delicious perfumes, but they are perfumes that distil the poison of the deadliest drug. The air around palpitates with strains of bewitching music, but it is music that lures its charmed victim down the dizzy slopes of irreparable ruin. The allurement may be presented in the shape of a book, a picture, or a whispered word, that suggests more of evil than it actually expresses, and the soul is blotted with a moral stain that rivers of tears cannot wash away. Every act of sin increases the defilement, and it becomes the more exposed.
II. In sinking the soul to a state of abject degradation. “Therefore she came down wonderfully; she had no comforter” (Lam_1:9). You have seen the little snowflakes flutter about the railway track like lovely bits of down shook from angelic wings, and you have seen with what ease the proud locomotive scatters the fleecy morsels in the early stages of the storm; but the falling atoms increase with such rapidity and accumulative force, that the panting engine is at length completely mastered, and, utterly exhausted, lies buried fathoms deep beneath the crystal drift. So in the early stages of transgression, the soul deems itself capable of throwing off every little temptation that beguiles, and, when it is too late, discovers itself so completely bound in their toils that all efforts to escape are ineffectual.
1. Sin dishonours the soul in the estimation of others. “All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness” (Lam_1:8). The first step downwards is to sink in the estimation of others. Their commendation sustained us and helped us to keep up to a certain standard of conduct. Others may see the tendency of our sins before we see it ourselves. When others show their disapproval and despise us for our folly, it is time to pause and reflect.
2. Sin dishonours the soul in its own estimation. “Yea, she sigheth and turneth backward” (Lam_1:8). It is a lower depth when a man sinks in his own estimation, when he cannot courageously confront others, or even face up his better self. Sin saps the strength of our manhood. To be conscious of sin and ashamed of it are the first hopeful signs of repentance; but if the repentance is not prompt and genuine, the soul is in danger of becoming more thoroughly demoralised. Such a critical moment comes in most men’s lives (Psa_73:2).
III. In rendering the soul reckless as to consequences. “She remembereth not her last end”—had not thought of the sure end of her sins (Lam_1:9). The down grade is steep, and every step increases the momentum of the terrible descent. One sin leads to another, and that to another in darker and deeper gradations, until the light of hope is quenched, and the helpless victim gropes about aimlessly in the ever-deepening gloom of despair. The soul is now and then haunted with the shadow of a coming reckoning day; but it seems a great way off, and may never come. The reckoning day does come.
IV. In its desecration of sacred things (Lam_1:10). Even the Jew was prohibited from entering the innermost sanctuary, and now the prophet laments that the heathen conquerors force their way into the holy place and plunder Jehovah’s Temple, that they may adorn with its sacred vessels the shrines of their false deities. It was desecration to enter the sanctuary, and high sacrilege to rob it of its “pleasant things.” Sin knows no respect of persons or places. It obtrudes with shameless effrontery into the holiest place, and is callous as to the havoc it works.
V. In reducing a people to distress and want. “All her people sigh; they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul” (Lam_1:11). Famine follows in the train of war. A siege lasting a year and a half exhausted the surrounding country, and the Chaldean army would have difficulty in supplying its own commissariat. In the hope that the present scarcity will pass away, the people dispose of the wealth and precious jewels that remain to them for the merest trifles of food. Sin is the prolific cause of war, famine, and the acutest forms of personal and national suffering. Money is valueless when it can purchase nothing in exchange—it cannot prolong the life of the starving. The best things are capable of the worst abuse. The very abuse may test the value.
VI. Compels the soul to appeal to the Divine compassion. “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy hath magnified himself” (Lam_1:9). “See, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile.” I am despised (Lam_1:11). It is not our vileness that can form a ground of appeal to the Divine consideration, but the abject misery into which our vileness has brought us. God does not pity our sins, but He does pity the distress they occasion, though that distress is the direct result of our obstinate violation of His laws and disregard of His repeated warnings. Suffering is a severe teacher. It is a mercy when the eyes of the sinner are at length opened, and, seeing that his sins are the cause of his trouble, he cries to God for help. Long and patiently does God wait for such a cry; and then with what gracious speed does He hasten to our rescue!
LESSONS.—
1. Sin demoralises wherever it reigns.
2. Is the occasion of unspeakable suffering.
3. Can be cured only by Divine remedies.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam_1:8. “She sigheth and turneth backward.” Conscious sin:
1. A painful humiliation.
2. The first step in genuine repentance.
3. Should induce the soul to seek immediate deliverance.
Lam_1:9. “She remembereth not her last end.” The course of sin:
1. Delusive in its beginning.
2. Hardens the transgressor into reckless indifference.
3. Is certain to endin ruin.
—Sin an implacable foe. I. Drags down the soul to comfortless depths. “Wherefore she came down wonderfully; she had no comforter.” II. Exults over the misery of its victims. “The enemy hath magnified himself.” See how proudly the foe deals with me (Geikie). III. Convinces the soul that its only resource is in the Divine pity. “O Lord, behold my affliction.”
Lam_1:10. Heathenism a moral obliquity. I. Sees no sin in theft. “The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things.” II. Has no scruples in desecrating the holiest place. “The heathen entered into her sanctuary.” III. Disregards the Divine laws. “Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy congregation.”
Lam_1:11. The extremities of famine. I. A sorrowful craving for food. “All her people sigh; they seek bread.” II. Desperate efforts made to retain life. “To relieve the soul”—to keep them alive. III. The dearest treasures readily sacrificed. “They have given their pleasant things for meat.”
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Sin the danger of great cities. The spiritual destitution of London is something appalling. There are 10,000 prostitutes—a procession a mile long, walking double file—all somebody’s daughters. There are 20,000 thieves—two miles more of that dread procession, and there are 100,000 uncared for children, making the procession ten miles in length. These are what John Bright called the residuum, and Dr. Chalmers the lapsed classes. In their abodes every breath is poison; they are so crowded together that morality is impossible. Such a glimpse of spiritual destitution ought to arouse the heart, not only of every Christian, but of every patriot.
Sin stupifies. Oh, how difficult it is to awake some men to a sense of danger or duty. Happening to be lounging in the market-place of a little seaport town in France, I saw with some surprise several men in a café inhaling the fumes of opium through a tobacco-pipe. By-and-by the wife of one of these men called for her husband to return home in their little market-cart. But he, being in a poisoned slumber, was unconscious of her existence, and oblivious of things about him. She lifted him up and shook him, but he would not awake till the honied-trance stupor was ended. So some of us are steeped in the opium-lethargy of sin, and will not awake. It is not that we cannot; we will not.
Sin a disease. A minister once met a man in the street who was afflicted with heart-disease, and said he could not sleep, and that the doctor could do nothing for him. “Ah!” said the minister, “the worst form of heart-disease is sin. Yet people go about with the disease; they do not know it, and they sleep quite soundly. Now, it is my business to tell them how matters stand, and to try to disturb their sleep, for I can tell them of a physician who can cure them. Have you been to Christ with your sins?” The man was silent, but went away deeply impressed.
Sin and individuality. I remember as though it were yesterday the moment when the idea of individual identity dawned upon my boyish mind. The thought appalled me, for I had been looking at a wretched little beggar-boy with a crutch, a dirty face, and miserable rags for garments, and it had just occurred to me that he was not to himself merely an unpleasant object, to be sent away out of sight with some dole of pennies or broken fragments of food, but just the I that I was to myself, as precious, as important; and I grew cold from head to foot, and felt as though I must do something to alter it all. After all these years the horror abides with me yet. I do not know whether others feel it as keenly, but it is to me worse than any ghost could be to remember the wretched people of the world—the prisoners in their cells, convicts in their chains, men doomed to die upon the gallows at dawn, women who sell their souls for bread or jewels, beggars gnawing their crusts by the roadsides, sufferers whose every breath is agony, wives whose hearts are broken by the cruelty of the husbands who were once their lovers, men who are plotting murder and men who are committing it, lepers in the cities of lepers holding out their mouldering hands for alms as strangers flee by their gates. To remember these, and many, many more, wicked or accursed, crushed beneath loads of crime and sorrow too heavy to be borne, and to know when we clasp our hands or drop a tear, and say with a shudder, as we sometimes do, “And it might have been I: that it actually is I to some one!” It is a terrible thought, and yet we should not set it aside. Surely nothing could prompt us so strongly to do all we can for those who sin or suffer.
Sin a double defect. The verb used oftenest in the New Testament, sin, means literally to miss the mark. The corresponding nouns have, of course, similar meanings. The idea conveyed is deviation from a standard at which men ought to aim, and which they ought to reach. They may miss it by going beyond, as well as by falling short. The moral idea is the same as that of omission and transgression.—The Scottish Pulpit.
The course of sin.
“We are not worst at once. The course of evil
Begins so slowly and from such slight source,
An infant’s hand might stem its breach with clay;
But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy shall strive in vain
To turn the headlong current.”
Sin a foe, but not invincible. It is said that the late Lord Ampthill, when on diplomatic service in Rome, possessed a boa-constrictor, and interested himself in watching its habits. One day the monster escaped from the box where he supposed it was asleep, quietly wound itself around his body, and began gradually to tighten its folds. His position became extremely perilous; but the consummate coolness and self-possession which had enabled him to win many a diplomatic triumph befriended him in this dangerous emergency. He remembered there was a bone in the throat of the serpent which, if he could find and break, he would save himself. He was aware that either he or the snake must perish. Not a moment must be lost in hesitation. He deliberately seized the head of the serpent, thrust his hand down its throat, and smashed the vital bone. The coils were relaxed, the victim fell dead at his feet, and he was free! So in all wickedness there is weakness, and it is a grand thing to discern the vulnerable spot, and be ready with the exact truth, fact, or promise which deals death to the foe. This insight and power are given to all who prayerfully study God’s Word.
Heathen worship a performance. Marcus Varro, the great Roman antiquarian, wrote forty-one books on the Pagan cultus. He speaks of three orders of gods—the certain gods, the uncertain gods, and the chief and select gods. Referring to the worship offered to these various deities, he arranges his material under four divisions—who perform, where they perform, when they perform, what they perform. How true it is that, apart from genuine spiritual religion, all worship, and especially heathen worship, is but a scenic, pantomimic performance!
Light for heathen darkness. The simile “dark as a coal-pit” will soon lose its meaning and become obsolete. A colliery company has abolished the miner’s lamp and lit up one of their pits with electric lamps, placed at intervals of fifteen yards apart. Indeed, the depths of earth and sea arc now to be illuminated. One of the difficulties of the deep-sea diver has been the comparative darkness in which he has had to go about his work at the bottom of the ocean. Now a French engineer has constructed a lamp, supplied with petroleum, which burns as well under water as in the open air. By an ingenious contrivance it can be lighted at the bottom of the sea, and with the aid of its friendly light the diver is enabled to discover his greatest treasures. So the earnest missionary penetrates the dark depths of heathenism, holding the lamp of Divine truth, flaming with the burning love of the world’s Redeemer, and picks up the most degraded victims of idolatry, who, penetrated and refined by the same Divine light that first found them out, shall shine with the lustre of the finest jewels.—The Scottish Pulpit.
The horrors of famine. The besieged city of Leyden was at its last gasp. Bread, malt-cake, horse-flesh, had entirely disappeared; dogs, cats, rats, and other vermin were esteemed luxuries. A small number of cows, kept as long as possible for their milk, still remained; but a few were killed from day to day, and distributed in minute proportions, hardly sufficient to support life among the famishing population. Starving wretches swarmed daily around the shambles where these cattle were slaughtered, contending for any morsel which might fall, and eagerly lapping the blood as it ran along the pavement, while the hides, chopped and boiled, were greedily devoured. Women and children all day long were seen searching gutters and dunghills for morsels of food which they disputed fiercely with the famishing dogs. The green leaves were stripped from the trees, every living herb was converted into human food, but these expedients could not avert starvation. The daily mortality was frightful—infants starved to death on the maternal breasts which famine had parched and withered, mothers dropped dead in the streets with their dead children in their arms. A disorder called the plague, naturally engendered of hardship and famine, now came, as if in kindness, to abridge the agony of the people. The pestilence stalked at noonday through the city, and the doomed inhabitants fell like grass beneath its scythe. From six to eight thousand human beings sank before this scourge alone; yet the people resolutely held out, women and men mutually encouraging each other to resist the entrance of their foreign foe—an evil more horrible than pest or famine.—Motley’s “Dutch Republic.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
The city of Jerusalem is spoken of as if it were a woman. In Lamentations, Zion and Jerusalem are names used to refer to the same city. (See: Personification)
Read full note →
Jerusalem sinned greatly, therefore, she has become scorned as something that is filthy
This speaks of Jerusalem being scorned in the same way that a woman is scorned when she is unclean. According to the Law of Moses, a woman was considered unclean during her monthly bleeding. AT: "Jerusalem's sins have made her filthy and unclean, and therefore she was unacceptable before God" (See: Simile)
Jerusalem sinned greatly
This describes Jerusalem as a woman who sinned, while it also stands for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. AT: "The people of Jerusalem sinned greatly" (See: Personification and Metonymy)
has become scorned
This can be stated in active form. AT: "has become an object of scorn" (See: Active or Passive)
her nakedness
"her naked." Jerusalem is described as a woman whose private parts have been exposed to everyone to shame her. (See: Personification)
She has become unclean beneath her skirts
According to the Law of Moses, a woman was considered unclean during her monthly bleeding. This speaks of Jerusalem being unclean, as if it were a menstruating woman. AT: "Jerusalem has become unclean, as when a woman is unclean beneath her skirts" (See: Metaphor)
unclean
A person who God considers to be spiritually unacceptable or defiled is spoken of as if the person were physically unclean. (See: Metaphor)
Her fall was terrible
The phrase "her fall" is an idiom. AT: "Her downfall was astonishing" or "Those who saw her destruction were surprised" (See: Idiom)
Look at my affliction, Yahweh
Possible meanings are that 1) the author of Lamentations now talks directly to Yahweh or 2) Jerusalem is described as talking to Yahweh like a person. (See: Personification)
Look at
"Pay attention to"
the enemy has become too great
This means that they enemy army has become too large and powerful and has defeated Jerusalem. AT: "the enemy army has defeated me" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Jerusalem
sin
honor
clean
comfort
afflicted
Yahweh
adversary
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:8-9 Jerusalem was stripped of everything of physical and…
1:8-9 Jerusalem was stripped of everything of physical and spiritual value that the people cherished.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.