My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
They ask their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you?
Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to reverse your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.
All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”
All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.”
Yahweh has done that which he planned. He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest.
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.
“Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.
“You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv11–22 The Prophet himself now speaks, and says that his…
The Prophet himself now speaks, and says that his eyes were consumed with tears, while weeping on account of the calamities of the people: even in the deepest grief tears at length dry up; but when there is no end of weeping, the sorrow, which as it were never ripens, must necessarily be very bitter. Jeremiah then expresses now the vehemence of his grief when he says that his eyes failed through shedding tears. He said in Jeremiah 9, “Who will give me eyes for fountains?” that is, who will make my eyes to turn into fountains, that they may continually flow? and this he said, because he saw how dreadful a vengeance of God impended over the obstinate. But now, when he sees accomplished what he had dreaded, he says, that his eyes were consumed with weeping.
To the same purpose is what he adds, that his bowels were disturbed. It is the same verb as we have seen before, חמרמרו, chemermeru; which some render “bound,” as we also said then. I know not why one expositor has changed what he had elsewhere said rightly; he puts here, “swollen have my bowels.” But I see no reason why the verb should be taken here in a different sense, for it immediately follows, my liver is poured forth on the ground. He may, indeed, have included other parts of the intestines by stating a part for the whole. The word here properly means the liver, as when Solomon says,
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“He hath pierced my liver.” (Proverbs 7:23.)
But Jeremiah, in short, shews that all his faculties were so seized with grief, that no part was exempt. He then says that his liver was poured forth, but in the same sense in which he said that his bowels were disturbed. They are indeed hyperbolical expressions; but as to the meaning, Jeremiah simply expresses his feelings; for there is no doubt but that he was incredibly anxious and sorrowful on account of so great a calamity; for he not only lamented the adversity in no ordinary way, but he also considered how wicked was that obstinacy in which the people had hardened themselves for almost fifty years; for he had spent himself in vain, not for a short time, but for nearly fifty years he never ceased to speak to them. He then, no doubt, thought within himself what the people had deserved, so that he had no common dread of God’s vengeance. This, then, was the reason why he said that his bowels were disturbed and his liver poured forth. He, however, mentions the cause of his sorrow, even the breach or destruction of the daughter of his people; and he mentions one thing in particular, because the little one and he who sucked the breasts vanished away in the streets of the city; for so I render the verb עתף, otheph, which properly means to cover; but its secondary meaning is to vanish away, as we shall again presently see. It was, indeed, a miserable sight, when not only men and women were everywhere slain, but when, through famine, little children also fainted. We, indeed, know that infants move our pity, for the tears of a child in hunger penetrate into our inmost souls. When, therefore, little children and those who hung on their mothers’ breasts, cried through the streets of the city, it must have touched the most iron hearts. It was then not without reason that Jeremiah referred to this in particular, that little children and sucklings vanished away, not in a deserted and barren land, but in the very streets of the city. It 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 On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 22 Or, faint.
Or, faint.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–22 Lam 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my…
Lam 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
Ver. 11. Mine eyes do fail with tears.] Those fountains (as the Hebrew word signifieth) are even drawn dry. I have wept till I can weep no more, as David did; or I have wept myself blind, as Faustus the son of Vortigern (once king of England) is said to have done.
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My bowels are troubled.] Heb., Bemudded. See Lam 1:20.
My liver is poured upon the earth.] I have well nigh vomited up my gall. {as Job 16:13}
For the destruction.] Heb., The breach even to shivers, as young trees or ships are broken by tempests.
Because the children and sucklings swoon in the streets.] Miserabile etiam hostibus spectaculum; a rueful sight.
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 On vv11–22 This whole verse is but expressive of the prophet’s…
This whole verse is but expressive of the prophet’s great affliction for the miseries come upon the Jews: he wept himself almost blind, his passion had disturbed his bodily humours, that his bowels were troubled; his gall lying under his liver, upon this disturbance was vomited up: they are all no more than expressions of very great affliction and sorrow.
For the destination of the daughter of my people; for the miseries befallen the Jews: he had mourned for their sins before, and for their plagues too which he had in prospect, Jer 9:1; he now mourns for them as being come upon them: which mourning considered only as for their miseries, spake no more than the prophet’s good nature and love to his country; but considered as the indication of God’s wrath and displeasure, was also a godly sorrow.
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Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city; the children and sucklings fainted and swooned, either for want of water, or bread, or milk in their mothers’ or nurses’ breasts during the famine, occasioned by the long siege of the city. This appears in the next verse.
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 On vv11–22 Mine eyes do fail with tears,.... According to Aben…
Mine eyes do fail with tears,.... According to Aben Ezra, everyone of the elders before mentioned said this; but rather they are the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, who had wept his eyes dry, or rather blind, on account of the calamities of his people; though he himself obtained liberty and enlargement by means thereof:
my bowels are troubled; all his inward parts were distressed:
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my liver is poured upon the earth; his gall bladder, which lay at the bottom of his liver, broke, and he cast it up, and poured it on the earth; see Job 16:13; and all this was
for the destruction of the daughter of my people; or, the "breach" of them (t); their civil and church state being destroyed and broke to shivers; and for the ruin of the several families of them: particularly
because the children and sucklings swoon in the streets of the city; through famine, for want of bread, with those that could eat it; and for want of the milk of their mothers and nurses, who being starved themselves could not give it; and hence the poor infants fainted and swooned away; which was a dismal sight, and heart melting to the prophet.
(t) "propter contritionem", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius; "propter confractionem", Piscator; "propter fractionem", Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22 Mine eyes - This whole verse is but expressive…
Mine eyes - This whole verse is but expressive of the prophets great affliction for the miseries come upon the Jews. He wept himself almost blind. Bowels - His passion had disturbed his bodily humours, that his bowels were troubled. Liver - His gall lying under his liver. All these are expressions of great affliction and sorrow. Swoon - During the famine, occasioned by the long siege.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 Verse 11. Swoon in the streets of the city.]…
Verse 11. Swoon in the streets of the city.] Through the excess of the famine.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 18, 20 Lam 2:14. Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish…
Lam 2:14. Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things — The prophets, to whom thou didst choose to hearken, and whom thou didst believe, rather than those whom God sent to reveal his will, came and told thee idle tales, the fancies of their own minds, deluding thee with hopes of not being carried into captivity, or of a speedy return therefrom. They have not discovered thine iniquity, &c. — They have not given thy people a just sense of their iniquities, in order that, by being humbled and brought to true repentance, they might avert God’s judgments, but they have rather flattered them in their sins, and thereby have hastened on their ruin: see the margin. But have seen for thee false burdens — They have amused thee with false and fallacious prophecies, and that even after, as well as before, they were carried into captivity; (see Jer 29:8, &c.;) and causes of banishment — Hebrew, מדוחים, of casting out, of expulsion, as the word properly signifies: that is, their pretended revelations, promising peace, and giving hopes of impunity to thy people continuing in sin, were so far from profiting thee, that they were in a great measure the causes of thy captivity. Why prophecies are termed משׂאות, burdens, see notes on Isa 13:1, and Jer 23:33.
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 On vv11–22 Troubled - See the margin reference note.
Troubled - See the margin reference note.
Liver - As the heart was regarded by the Jews as the seat of the intellect, so the liver (or bowels) was supposed to be the seat of the emotions. The pouring out of the liver upon the ground meant that feelings had entirely given way under the acuteness of sorrow, and he could no longer restrain them.
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 On vv11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Earth, by an overflowing of the bile, occasioned by…
Earth, by an overflowing of the bile, occasioned by grief, Job xvi. 14. (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 On vv11–22 liver is poured, &c.--that is, as the liver was…
liver is poured, &c.--that is, as the liver was thought to be the seat of the passions, "all my feelings are poured out and prostrated for," &c. The "liver," is here put for the bile ("gall," Job 16:13; "bowels," Psa 22:14) in a bladder on the surface of the liver, copiously discharged when the passions are agitated.
swoon--through faintness from the effects of hunger.
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 On vv11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 THE LAMENTATION, Lam_2:11-16.
THE LAMENTATION, Lam_2:11-16.
11, 12. Liver is poured… earth — This language occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, and the exact force of it is doubtful. “My soul is poured out” occurs in two passages, but this is easier. It would seem that “the liver” is taken as representing the large viscera, usually classed together under the general name of bowels, and regarded as the seat of the emotions. If so, the expression means that he could no longer restrain his feelings; that his grief must have vent in expression.
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Swoon — Rather faint; or, with Keil, pine away. No feature of the common calamity — the utter desolation of the people — is more graphic or more painful than the falling down of the children in the street from hunger, and their pitiful and oft repeated cry, Where is corn and wine? until they finally expire in the arms of their miserable mothers.
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 On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 11. my bowels are troubled] See on ch. Lam_1:20.
11. my bowels are troubled] See on ch. Lam_1:20.
My liver is poured upon the earth] The liver seems to have been looked upon, as were the rest of the vitals, as the seat of the emotions, and hence the expression in the text merely denotes strong and painful excitement. Cp. pouring out the heart, Lam_2:19, Psa_62:8; cp. Job_16:13.
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destruction] mg. breach. See on Jer_4:20; Jer_17:18.
11–17. Lament over Zion’s exposure to the mockery of her enemies.
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 On vv11–22 (11) My liver is poured upon the earth .…
(11) My liver is poured upon the earth . . .—The phrase is not found elsewhere, but admits of an easy explanation. The “liver,” like the “heart” and the “bowels,” is thought of as the centre of all intense emotions, both of joy or sorrow (Pro_7:23). As such it is represented as giving way without restraint (comp. Lam_2:19), under the pressure of the horror caused by the calamities which the next words paint, by the starving children who fainted for hunger in the streets of the city.
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 On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 My bowels are troubled. (see on Lam_1:20) My liver…
My bowels are troubled. (see on Lam_1:20) My liver is poured upon the earth. A violent emotion being supposed to occasion a copious discharge of bile. The daughter of my people. A poetic expression for Zion or Judah.
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 On vv11, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22 Mine eyes do fail with tears.
Lam_2:11-13
Mine eyes do fail with tears.
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The miseries of the Church taken to heart
1. The true ministers of God do take the miseries of the Church to heart in the greatest measure.
2. Our sorrow, humiliation, earnest prayer, and all other means of extraordinary calling upon God, must increase in us, so long as Gods heavy hand is upon us.
3. Hearty sorrow for spiritual miseries distempereth the whole body.
4. The sorrows of the soul will easily consume the body.
5. A lively member is grieved with the hurt of the body, or any member thereof.
6. The ministers of Christ should have a tender affection to the members of the Church, as a man hath to his daughter.
7. There is no outward thing so much cause of sorrow, as the miseries laid upon our children in our sight. (J. Udall.)
Compassion for sinners
It is the missionary with the fountain of pity that reaches the deepest place in the natives heart. When Livingstone was found dead on his knees in the heart of Africa, his head was resting over his open Bible, and his finger was pointing to the last words he ever penned in his diary: Oh, God, when will the open sore of the world be healed? That was the profound pity which commenced the redemptive work in Africa, and which lives in emancipating influence today. (Hartley Aspen.)
They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?--
Great grief
1. It is the greatest grief that can be, to have them whom we would gladly pleasure, seek that at our hands which we cannot help them unto.
2. When God would have us profit by any work of His, He will let us see the true cause of it.
3. The grief that is seen with the eye is the heaviest unto us of all other things that fall upon our friends.
4. When God meaneth to humble us, He will use most effectual means to bring it to pass. (J. Udall.)
What thing shall I take to witness for thee?--
Plain ministries
Ministers must be studious in the Word, to find out everything that may fit the Churchs present condition (Isa_50:4; Mat_13:52).
2. It is the greatest grief that can be, to fall into a trouble that hath not been laid upon others before.
3. That minister loveth us best, that dealeth most plainly with us.
4. The visible state of the Church of God may come to be of a desperate condition, every way vexed more and more. (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 On v18 IT is not easy to analyse the complicated construction…
THE CALL TO PRAYER
Lam_2:18-22
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IT is not easy to analyse the complicated construction of the concluding portion of the second elegy. If the text is not corrupt its transitions are very abrupt. The difficulty is to adjust the relations of three sections. First we have the sentence, "Their heart cried unto the Lord." Next comes the address to the wall, "O wall of the daughter of Zion," etc. Lastly there is the prayer which extends from verse 20 to the end of the poem. {Lam_2:20-22}
The most simple grammatical arrangement is to take the first clause in connection with the preceding verse. The last substantive was the word "adversaries." Therefore in the rigour of grammar the pronoun should represent that word. Read thus, the sentence relates an action of the enemies of Israel when their horn has been exalted. The word rendered "cried" is one that would designate a loud shout, and that translated "Lord" here is not the sacred name Jehovah but Adonai, a general term that might very well be used in narrating the behaviour of the heathen towards God. Thus the phrase would seem to describe the insolent shout of triumph which the adversaries of the Jews fling at the God of their victims.
On the other hand, it is to be observed that the general title "Lord" (Adonai) is also employed in the very next verse in the direct call to prayer. The heart, too, is mentioned again there as it is here, and that to express the inner being and deepest feelings of the afflicted city. It seems unlikely that the elegist would mention a heart-cry of the enemies and describe this as addressed to "The Lord."
Probably then we should apply this opening clause to the Jews, although they had not been named in the near context, a construction favoured by the abrupt transitions in which the elegist indulges elsewhere. It is the heart of the Jews that cried unto the Lord. Now the question arises, How shall we take this assertion in view of the words that follow? The common reading supposes that it introduces the immediately succeeding sentences. The heart of the Jews calls to the wall of the daughter of Zion, and bids it arise and pray. But with this construction we should look for another word (such as "saying") to introduce the appeal, because the Hebrew word rendered "cried" is usually employed absolutely, and not as the preface to quoted speech. Besides, the ideas would be strangely involved. Some people, indefinitely designated "they," exhort the wall to weep and pray! How can this exhortation to a wall be described as calling to the Lord? The complication is increased when the prayer follows sharply on the anonymous appeal without a single connecting or explanatory clause.
A simpler interpretation is to follow Calvin in rendering the first clause absolutely, but still applying it to the Jews, who, though they are not named here, are supposed to be always in mind. We may not agree with the stern theologian of Geneva in asserting that the cry thus designated is one of impatient grief flowing not "from a right feeling or from the true fear of God, but from the strong and turbid impulse of nature." The elegist furnishes no excuse for this somewhat ungracious judgment. After his manner, already familiar to us, the poet interjects a thought-viz., that the distressed Jews cried to God. This suggests to him the great value of the refuge of prayer, a topic on which he forthwith proceeds to enlarge first by making an appeal to others, and then by himself breaking out into the direct language of petition.
This is not the first occasion on which the elegist has shown his faith in the efficacy of prayer. But hitherto he has only uttered brief exclamations in the middle of his descriptive passages. Now he gives a solemn call to prayer, and follows this with a deliberate full petition, addressed to God. We must feel that the elegy is lifted to a higher plane by the new turn that the thought of its author takes at this place. Grief is natural; it is useless to pretend to be impassive; and, although our Teutonic habits of reserve may make it difficult for us to sympathise with the violent outbursts that an Oriental permits himself without any sense of shame, we must admit that a reasonable expression of the emotions is good and wholesome. Tennyson recognises this in the well-known lyric where he says of the dead warriors wife-
"She must weep or she will die."
Nevertheless, an unchecked rush of feeling, not followed by any action, cannot but evince weakness; it has no lifting power. Although, if the emotion is distressful, such an expression may give relief to the subject, it is certainly very depressing to the spectator. For this reason the Book of Lamentations strikes us as the most depressing part of the Bible-would it not be just to say, as the only part that can be so described? But it would not be fair to this Book to suppose that it did nothing beyond realising the significance of its title. It contains more than a melancholy series of laments. In the passage before us the poet raises his voice to a higher strain.
This new and more elevated turn in the elegy is itself suggestive. The transition from lamentation to prayer is always good for the sufferer. The first action may relieve his pent-up emotions; it cannot destroy the source from which they flow. But prayer is more practical, for it aims at deliverance. That, however, is its least merit. In the very act of seeking help from God the soul is brought into closer relations with Him, and this condition of communion is a better thing than any results that can possibly follow in the form of answers to the prayer, great and helpful as these may be. The trouble that drives us to prayer is a blessing because the state of a praying soul is a blessed state.
Like the muezzin on his minaret, the elegist calls to prayer. But his exhortation is addressed to a strange object-to the wall of the daughter of Zion. This wall is to let its tears flow like a river. It is so far personified that mention is made of the apple of its eye; it is called upon to arise, to pour out its heart, to lift up its hands. The license of Eastern poetry permits the unflinching application of a metaphor to an extent that would be considered extravagant and even absurd in our own literature. It is only in a travesty of melodrama that Shakespeare permits the Thisbe of "A Midsummer Nights Dream" to address a wail. Browning has an exquisitely beautiful little poem apostrophising an old wall; but this is not done so as to leave out of account the actual form and nature of his subject. Walls can not only be beautiful and even sublime, as Mr. Ruskin has shewn in his "Stones of Venice"; they may also wreathe their severe outlines in a multitude of thrilling associations. This is especially so when, as in the present instance, it is the wall of a city that we are contemplating. Not a new piece of builders work, neat and clean and bald, bare of all associations, as meaningless as in too many cases it is ugly, but an old wall, worn by the passing to and fro of generations that have turned to dust long years ago, bearing the bruises of war on its battered face, crumbling to powder, or perhaps half buried in weeds-such a wall is eloquent in its wealth of associations, and there is pathos in the thought of its mere age when this is considered in relation to the many men and women and children who have rested beneath its shadow at noon, or sheltered themselves behind its solid masonry amid the terrors of war. The walls that encircle the ancient English city of Chester and keep alive memories of mediaeval life, the bits of the old London wall that are left standing among the warehouses and offices of the busy mart of modern commerce, even the remote wall of China for quite different reasons, and many another famous wall, suggest to us multitudinous reflections. But the walls of Jerusalem surpass them all in the pathos of the memories that cling to their old grey stones. It does not require a great stretch of imagination to picture these walls as once glowing and throbbing with an intense life, and now dreaming over the unfathomable depths of age-long memories.
In personifying the wall of Zion, however, the Hebrew poet does not indulge in reflections such as these, which are more in harmony with the mild melancholy of Grays "Elegy" than with the sadder mood of the mourning patriot. He names the wall to give unity and concreteness to his appeal, and to clothe it in an atmosphere of poetic fancy. But his sober thought in the background is directed towards the citizens whom that historic wall once enclosed. Herein is his justification for carrying his personification so far. This is more than a wild apostrophe, the outburst of an excited poets fancy. The imaginative conceit wings the arrow of a serious purpose. Let us look at the appeal in detail. First the elegist encourages a free outflow of grief, that tears should run like a river, literally, like a torrent-the allusion being to one of those steep watercourses which, though dry in summer, become rushing floods in the rainy season. This introduction shews that the call to prayer is not intended in any sense as a rebuke for the natural expression of grief, nor as a denial of its existence. The sufferers cannot say that the poet does not sympathise with them. It might seem needless to give this assurance. But anybody who has attempted to offer exhortation to a person in trouble must have discovered how delicate his task is. Let him approach the subject as carefully as he may, it is almost certain that he will chafe the quivering nerves he desires to soothe, so sensitive is the soul in pain to any interference from without. Under these circumstances, the one method by which it is at all possible to smooth the way of approach is an expression of genuine sympathy. There may be a deeper reason for this encouragement of the expression of grief as a preliminary to a call to prayer. The helplessness which it so eloquently proclaims is just the condition in which the soul is most ready to cast itself on the mercy of God. Calm fortitude must always be better than an undisciplined abandonment to grief. But before this has been attained there may come an apathy of despair, under the influence of which the feelings are simply benumbed. That apathy is the very opposite to drying up the fountain of grief as it may be dried in the sunshine of love; it is freezing it. The first step towards deliverance will be to melt the glacier. The soul must feel before it can pray. Therefore the tears are encouraged to run like torrents, and the sufferer to give himself no respite, nor let the apple of his eye cease from weeping. Next the poet exhorts the object of his sympathy-this strange personification of the "wall of the daughter of Zion," under the image of which he is thinking of the Jews-to arise. The weeping is but a preliminary to more promising acts. The sufferer is not to spend the long night in an unbroken flow of grief, like the psalmist "watering his couch with his tears." {Psa_6:6} The very opposite attitude is now suggested. Grief must not be treated as a normal condition to be acquiesced in or even encouraged. The victim is tempted to cherish his sorrow as a sacred charge, to feel hurt if any mitigation of it is suggested, or ashamed of confessing that relief has been received. When he has reached this condition it is obvious that the substance of grief has passed; the ghost of it that remains is fast becoming a harmless sentiment. If, however, the trouble should be still maintaining the tightness of its grip on the heart, there is positive danger in permitting it to be indulged without intermission. The sufferer must be roused if he is to be saved from the disease of melancholia. He must be roused also if he would pray. True prayer is a strenuous effort of the soul, requiring the most wakeful attention and taxing the utmost energy of will. The Jew stood up to pray with hands outstretched to heaven. The relaxed and feeble devotions of a somnolent worshipper must fall flat and fruitless. There is no value in the length of a prayer, but there is much in its depth. It is the weight of its earnestness, not the comprehensiveness of its topics, that gives it efficacy. Therefore we must gird up our loins to pray just as we would to work, or run, or fight.
Now the awakened soul is urged to cry out in the night, and in the beginning of the night watches-that is to say, not only at the commencement of the night, for this would require no rousing, but at the beginning of each of the three watches into which the Hebrews divided the hours of darkness-at sunset, at ten oclock, and at two in the morning. The sufferer is to keep watch with prayer-observing his vespers, his nocturns, and his matins, and of course to fulfil forms, but because, since his grief is continuous, his prayer also must not cease. The is all assigned to the night, perhaps because it is a quiet, solemn season for undisturbed reflection, when therefore the grief that requires the prayer is most acutely felt; or perhaps because the time of sorrow is naturally pictured as a night, as a season of darkness.
Proceeding with our consideration of the details of this call to prayer, we come upon the exhortation to pour out the heart like water before the face of the Lord. The image here used is not without parallel in scripture. Thus a psalmist exclaims-
"I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint:
My heart is like wax;
It is melted in the midst of my bowels." {Psa_22:14}
But the ideas are not just the same in the two cases. While the psalmist thinks of himself as crushed and shattered, as though his very being were dissolved, the thought of the elegist has more action about it, with a deliberate intention and object in view. His image suggests complete openness before God. Nothing is to be withheld. It is not so much that the secrets of the soul are to be disclosed. The end aimed at is not confession, but confidence. Therefore what the writer would urge is that the sufferer should tell the whole tale of his grief to God, quite freely, without any reserve, trusting absolutely to the Divine sympathy.
This confidence is a primary requisite in prayer. Until we can trust our Father it is useless to petition for His aid; we could not avail ourselves of it if it were offered us. Indeed, the soul must come into relations of sympathy with God before any real prayer is at all possible.
We may go further. The attitude of soul that is here recommended is in itself the very essence of prayer. The devotions that consist in a series of definite petitions are of secondary worth, and superficial in comparison with this outpouring of the heart before God. To enter into relations of sympathy and confidence with God is to pray in the truest, deepest way possible, or. even conceivable. Prayer in the heart of it is not petition; that is the beggars resort. It is communion-the childs privilege. We must often be as beggars, empty of everything before God; yet we may also enjoy the happier relationship of sonship with our Father. Even in the extremity of need perhaps the best thing we can do is to spread out the whole case before God. It will certainly relieve our own minds to do so, and everything will appear changed when viewed in the light of the Divine presence. Perhaps we shall then cease to think ourselves aggrieved and wronged; for what are our deserts before the holiness of God? Passion is allayed in the stillness of the sanctuary, and the indignant protest dies upon our lips as we proceed to lay our case before the eyes of the All-Seeing. We cannot be impatient any longer; He is so patient with us so fair, so kind, so good. Thus, when we cast our burden upon the Lord, we may be surprised with the discovery that it is not so heavy as we supposed. There are times when it is not possible for us to go any further. We do not know what relief to ask for, or even whether we should request to be in any way delivered from a load which it may be our duty to bear, or the endurance of which may be a most wholesome discipline for us. These possibilities must always put a restraint upon the utterance of positive petitions. But they do not apply to the prayer that is a simple act of confidence with God. The secret of failure in prayer is not that we do not ask enough; it is that we do not pour out our hearts before God, the restraint of confidence rising from fear or doubt simply paralysing the energies of prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray not only because He gives us a model prayer, but much more because He is in Himself so true and full and winsome a revelation of God, that as we come to know and follow Him our lost confidence in God is restored. Then the heart that knows its own bitterness, and that shrinks from permitting the stranger even to meddle with its joy-how much more then with its sorrow?-can pour itself out quite freely before God, for the simple reason that He is no longer a stranger, but the one perfectly intimate and absolutely trusted Friend.
It is to be noted that the elegist points to a definite occasion for the outpouring of the heart before God. He singles out specifically the sufferings of the starving children-a terrible subject that appears more than once in this elegy, shewing how the horror of it has fastened on the imagination of the poet. This was the most heart-rending and mysterious ingredient in the bitter cup of the woes of Jerusalem. If we may bring any trouble to God we may bring the worst trouble. So this becomes the mare topic of the prayer that follows. Here the cases of the principal victims are cited. Priest and prophet, notwithstanding the dignity of office, young man and maiden, old man and little child all alike have fallen victims. The ghastly incident of a siege, where hunger has reduced human beings to the level of savage beasts, women devouring their own children, is here cited, and its cause, as well as that of all the other scenes of the great tragedy, boldly ascribed to God. It is God who has summoned His Terrors as at other times He had summoned His people to the festivals of the sacred city. But if God mustered the whole army of calamities it seems right to lay the story of the havoc they have wrought before His face; and the prayer reads almost like an accusation, or at least an expostulation, a remonstrance. It is not such, however; for we have seen that elsewhere the elegist makes full confession of the guilt of Jerusalem and admits that the doom of the wretched city was quite merited. Still, if the dire chastisement is from the hand of God, it is God alone who can bring deliverance. That is the final point to be reached.
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 On vv11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 20 (כ) Lam_2:11. So exasperating is his misery that he…
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(כ) Lam_2:11. So exasperating is his misery that he feels as if organic parts of his body were dismembered. My eyes fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the ground—an effect of terrible grief, showing how body and soul are sympathetic with each other over the breach of the daughter of my people. This shattered condition was replete with the harrowing details of suffering, as when the young children and the sucklings faint in the streets of the city.
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(ל) Lam_2:12. His ears heard their piteous cravings, while to their mothers they are saying, Where is corn and wine, solid and liquid nourishment. Even when listening, his eyes saw the older children faint as the wounded in the streets of the city, and infants in arms poured their souls into their mother’s bosom, which could supply no aliment.
HOMILETICS
THE UTTER EXHAUSTION OF GRIEF
(Lam_2:11-12)
I. Because of the hopelessness of the desolation endured. “For the destruction of the daughter of my people” (Lam_2:11). The desolation is complete. Everything is destroyed—Temple, home, army, nation, wealth, food, and the very capacity to rouse themselves from the torpor of despair. When the light of hope is quenched it is impossible to put forth effort. Paralysis is destruction.
II. Because of the heart-rending spectacle of little children fainting in the streets and dying in their mothers’ arms, while they vainly moan for food. “Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets. They say to their mothers, ‘Where is corn and wine?’ when their soul was poured out into their mother’s bosom” (Lam_2:11-12). The harrowing details here given are the most affecting that have yet been depicted by the graphic and versatile pen of the prophet. The cry—an oft-repeated cry, as the tense means—of the children for food, which the mothers were powerless to supply, only added to the tortures they already suffered. So completely prostrate were they with their misery, that they saw their children die with indifference, and could not conceal an unnatural relief when they heard their last sob. Excessive grief blunts the edge of the finest natural instincts.
III. Because all the powers for expressing emotion are completely spent. “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth” (Lam_2:11). Jeremiah employs the terms in ordinary use, and as they were popularly understood. As the heart was regarded by the Jews as the seat of the intellect, so the liver, as the chief of the large viscera classed together under the name of bowels, was supposed to be the seat of the emotions. By the pouring out, therefore, of the liver upon the ground was meant that his feelings had entirely given way under the acuteness of his sorrow, and he could no longer restrain them.—Speaker’s Comm. The agony of grief was passed. It was quelled by sheer exhaustion. He wept till he could weep no more. He grieved till he was incapable of feeling his grief. A tearless sorrow is the most dangerous, and the most difficult to cure.
LESSONS.—
1. There is a limit to the greatest human sorrow.
2. There is a moment in the experience of the sufferer when death itself is welcome.
3. The greatest sorrow is a painful testimony to the desolating power of sin.
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Grief prostrating. Late in the afternoon of a summer day I entered a quiet graveyard where slept one of my dearest friends. It occupied the brow of a hill, which, with many a knoll and graceful undulation, sloped to the green meadow, watered by a winding stream, now catching, at its repeated curves, the rays of the setting sun. On the left was a pleasant wood, where the sturdy pine and fruit-bearing beech concealed narrow paths to cool caves and mossy banks. White birches and the trembling aspen, with the sweet-scented willow, grew upon the right, and from beyond rose the curling smoke from the cottage-houses. A robin sang its song of love and praise, a sparrow passed me bearing food to its little progeny, and the chirp of the merry grasshopper mingled with the hum of hundreds of flitting insects. But for this peace-breathing scene I had no greeting. The wild storm, thunder, rain, and darkness had been more welcome. Yielding utterly to my grief, I threw myself upon the sod, and took no heed of time. There came over me a sense of utter and hopeless desolation; an agony like that of death turned to bitterness the blessings of my lot.
—Grief is a flower as delicate and prompt to fade as happiness. Still it does not wholly die. Like the magic rose, dried and unrecognisable, a warm air breathed on it will suffice to renew its bloom.—De Gasparin.
Misery makes indelible impressions. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories is in a direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their apparent age runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as they increase in magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains backward through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of life before its blot of tears or of blood is dry on the page we are turning. Did you ever happen to see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint? The smooth piston slides backwards and forwards as a lady might slip her delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one of its fingers calmly but firmly upon a bit of metal; it is a coin now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is that a great silent-movingsilent-moving an hour or a moment—as sharp an impression as if it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it.—Holmes.
Distress exhausting. Distress is trouble of a mental kind, tending to despair. Tribulation may be described as the “fighting without,” whilst distress may be described as the “fears within.” That kind of trouble is indicated which comes upon a wrestler when his antagonist has succeeded in throwing him after a long struggle, has got his foot on him, is holding him down, and all seems to be up with him. Before, when wrestling, he was troubled, now he is distressed. Thus we see that the afflictions contemplated by the terms tribulation and distress are no light ones; and it is little wonder that, under the strain of such untoward circumstances of outward and inward trouble, the Christian should lose heart and fear the worst.
Grief excessively indulged. Ebenezer Adams, an eminent member of the Society of Friends, on visiting a lady of rank, whom he found, six months after the death of her husband, seated on a sofa covered with black cloth and in all the dignity of woe, approached her with great solemnity, and gently taking her by the hand, thus addressed her: “So, friend, I see, then, thou hast not yet forgiven God Almighty.” This reproof had so great an effect on the lady, that she immediately laid aside her violent grief, and again entered on the discharge of the duties of life.
The cure of excessive sorrow. A pale mourner stood bending over the tomb, and his tears fell fast and often. As he raised his humid eyes to heaven, he cried, “My brother! O my brother.” A sage passed that way and said, “For whom dost thou mourn?” “One,” replied he, “whom I did not sufficiently love while living, but whose inestimable worth I now feel.” “What wouldst thou do if he were restored to thee?” The mourner replied that he would never offend him by an unkind word, but would take every occasion to show his friendship, if he could but come back to his fond embrace. “Then, waste not thy time in useless grief,” said the sage; “but if thou hast friends, go and cherish the living, remembering that they will one day be dead also.”
—Like the passengers through the tunnelled Alps from the dark, cold, stifling air, emerging on the broad light-flooded plains of Lombardy, it is often by a way which they know not, gloomy and underground, that the convoy is carried which God’s Spirit is bringing to the wealthy place; and your present grief you will have no reason to regret if it introduce you to God’s friendship and to joys which do not perish in the using. Affliction is God’s message.—Hamilton.
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.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v11 The Vanity of Human Consolation Together with a Plea…
The Vanity of Human Consolation Together with a Plea for Help
v. 11. Mine eyes do fail with tears, being spent, worn out, with weeping, my bowels are troubled, his heart being most deeply affected, my liver is poured upon the earth, that is,—since the liver was considered the seat of the passions,—all my feelings are dissolved with pain, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city, the fainting away of these innocent victims of the calamity being the very climax of its severity.
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v. 12. They say to their mothers, as they are tortured with the pangs of hunger, Where is corn and wine? anything to eat, when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, faint with weakness for lack of food, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom, breathing out their lives while lying on their mothers’ laps, the latter being compelled to look on in helpless misery.
v. 13. What thing shall I take to witness for thee? to bring some measure of comfort from the experience of others. What thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? in making some comparison which would tend to arouse her drooping spirits. What shall I equal to thee that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? Any attempt of this kind is bound to fail in this instance, since no real comparison can be made. For thy breach is great like the sea, immeasurably boundless in extent and depth; who can heal thee? As the conditions are, Jerusalem can expect neither comfort nor healing from her prophets.
v. 14. Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee, namely, the false prophets, to whom the people of Jerusalem listened, much against Jeremiah’s advice; and they have not discovered thine iniquity, pointing out the real cause of all this misery, to turn away thy captivity, namely, by leading the people to repentance, but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment, that is, the contents of their prophecies, while apparently directed against the enemies, are such as to bring ruin upon Judah.
v. 15. All that pass by clap their hands at thee, in scorn and mockery; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, in expressing the derision which they felt, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? It is a question of scornful wonderment, denying Jerusalem’s right ever to have borne such designations. To this behavior of strangers is added the mocking triumph of enemies.
v. 16. All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee, in a gesture of mockery and derision; they hiss and gnash the teeth, as an expression of satisfied rage, of vindictive malice. They say, We have swallowed her up, thus effecting a complete destruction; certainly this is the day that we looked for, which they had so eagerly awaited; we have found, we have seen it, and they feel a corresponding satisfaction and pleasure. But the destruction of Jerusalem was not a chance happening, nor was it alone the culmination of men’s hateful plans.
v. 17. The Lord hath done that which He had devised, what He had resolved upon; He hath fulfilled His word that He had commanded in the days of old, for the holiness of the Lord demands the punishment of every act of rebellion against His holy Law; He hath thrown down and hath not pitied, carrying out His threat with merciless severity; and He hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries, so that they were given power, authority, and victory.
v. 18. Their heart, that of the Jews suffering such great afflictions, cried unto the Lord, even while they addressed the fortifications of their city, O wall of the daughter of Zion, the city with all its inhabitants, let tears run down like a river day and night, in the intensity of grief over the present conditions; give thyself no rest, no surcease from sorrow; let not the apple of thine eye cease, in desisting from shedding tears.
v. 19. Arise, cry out in the night, throughout all the watches of the night; in the beginning of the watches, with the desire and strength for weeping renewed again and again, pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord, the very heart dissolving in tears, as it were, in the excess of the sorrow caused by the great calamity; lift up thy hands toward Him, in a gesture of fervent supplication, for the life of thy young children that faint for hunger in the top, at the head, of every street.
v. 20. Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done this, so the prayer of the city’s inhabitants now arises. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? in revolting cannibalism caused by excessive hunger. Cf Lev 26:29; ’Deu 28:53; Jer 19:9. Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord? The one was against God’s moral order governing the universe, the other conflicted with His covenant and the worship connected with it.
v. 21. The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets, being slaughtered without mercy; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword, neither age nor sex being spared. Thou hast slain them in the day of Thine anger; Thou hast killed and not pitied.
v. 22. Thou hast called as in a solemn day, as for a festival prepared for the enemies, my terrors round about, from every direction, so that Jerusalem was surrounded by them, so that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained, all being involved in the common ruin; those that I have swaddled and brought up, with the fondest love of a parent, hath mine enemy consumed. Fortunate is the person who, when experiencing the Lord’s punishment, cried out thus in true repentance!
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21 General Information:
General Information:
The author shifts from describing Jerusalem to describing his own experience.
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My eyes have failed from their tears
This is an idiom. AT: "I have cried until I cannot cry anymore" (See: Idiom)
my stomach churns
The word "churn" means to move around violently, normally in a circular rotation. This does not mean the stomach is literally churning, but describes how the author feels. AT: "my insides ache" or "my stomach hurts" (See: Metaphor)
my inner parts are poured out to the ground
The author speaks of feeling grief in his inner being as if his inner body parts had fallen out of his body onto the ground. AT: "my entire inner being is in grief" (See: Metaphor)
the daughter of my people
This is a poetic name of Jerusalem, which is spoken of here as if it were a woman. AT: "my people" (See: Metonymy and Personification)
Where is grain and wine?
This rhetorical question is used as a request for something to eat. The children are telling their mother that they are hungry. The phrase "grain and wine" represents food and drink. This question may be written as a statement. AT: "Give us something to eat and drink." (See: Metonymy and Rhetorical Question)
as they faint like a wounded man
This speaks of the children fainting from hunger and thirst in the same way that a wounded man faints. (See: Simile)
their lives are poured out on the bosom of their mothers
This speaks of the children dying as if their lives were a liquid that was being poured out. AT: "they slowly die in the arms of their mothers" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
people group
grain
wine
life
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 On vv13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22 2:13 Who can heal you? Reputed healers and prophets…
2:13 Who can heal you? Reputed healers and prophets were all liars and frauds (Jer 6:13-14).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.