x

Biblia Todo Logo
idiomas
BibliaTodo Commentaries





«

Lamentations 5 - Fleming Don Bridgeway Bible - Commentary

×

Lamentations 5

1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: Consider, and behold our reproach.

2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, Our houses to aliens.

3 We are orphans and fatherless, Our mothers are as widows.

4 We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us.

5 Our necks are under persecution: We labour, and have no rest.

6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians, And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities.

8 Servants have ruled over us: There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives Because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin was black like an oven Because of the terrible famine.

11 They ravished the women in Zion, And the maids in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes are hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honoured.

13 They took the young men to grind, And the children fell under the wood.

14 The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their musick.

15 The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.

16 The crown is fallen from our head: Woe unto us, that we have sinned!

17 For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim.

18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, The foxes walk upon it.

19 Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; Thy throne from generation to generation.

20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, And forsake us so long time?

21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old.

22 But thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us.

×

Lamentations 5

A prayer for mercy (5:1-22)

This poem was apparently written in Judah some time after the fall of Jerusalem. Only the people of no use to Babylon were left in the land, and this poem reflects the hardships they faced (cf. Jer 52:16).

In a plea to God for mercy, the people remind him of their present shame (5:1). Death has broken up their families, and the invaders have taken over their houses and lands (2-3). They live and work like slaves in their own country, and have to buy water from their foreign overlords (4-5). Their ancestors tried to keep the nation alive by seeking help from Egypt and Assyria, but they actually brought the nation to ruin. Now the people have to submit to Babylonian guards who are little more than slaves (6-8).

Conditions in Judah are terrible. The people have to search the barren country regions for food, and in doing so they risk death from desert bandits (9-10). Judean women are raped, former leaders are tortured, and children are forced to work like slaves (11-13). The old way of life has gone, and with it has gone all celebration and rejoicing (14-15). People everywhere are unhappy, discouraged and ashamed. They acknowledge that their sin has brought all this upon them (16-18).

In a final desperate plea, the people cry to the sovereign ruler of the world not to reject them but to bring them back to himself. They ask that he will restore their nation and give them the happiness they once enjoyed. God is eternal and unchangeable, and they are his people; surely he will not forget them (19-22).




»

Rights in the Authorized (King James) Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Published by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge Univ. Press & BFBS
Follow us:



Advertisements