Lamentations 1:12

12 Come to me, all you who go by! Keep your eyes on me, and see if there is any pain like the pain of my wound, which the Lord has sent on me in the day of his burning wrath.

Lamentations 1:12 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:12

[Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
&c.] O ye strangers and travellers that pass by, and see my distress, does it not at all concern you? does it not in the least affect you? can you look upon it, and have no commiseration? or is there nothing to be learned from hence by you, that may be instructive and useful to you? Some consider the words as deprecating; may the like things never befall you that have befallen me, O ye passengers; be ye who ye will; I can never wish the greatest stranger, much less a friend, to suffer what I do; nay, I pray God they never may: others, as adjuring. So the Targum,

``I adjure you, all ye that pass by the way, turn aside hither:''

or as calling; so the words may be rendered, "O all ye that pass by" {y}; and Sanctius thinks it is an allusion to epitaphs on tombs, which call upon travellers to stop and read the character of the deceased; what were his troubles, and how he came to his end; and so what follows is Jerusalem's epitaph: behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is
done unto me;
as it is natural for everyone to think their own affliction greatest, and that none have that occasion of grief and sorrow as they have; though there is no affliction befalls us but what is common unto men; and when it comes to be compared with others, perhaps will appear lighter than theirs: wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger;
signifying, that her affliction was not a common one; it was not from the hand of man only, but from the hand of God; and not in the ordinary way of his providence; but as the effect of his wrath and fury, in all the fierceness of it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 (lk Mkyla awl) "O vos omnes", V. L.

Lamentations 1:12 In-Context

10 The hand of her hater is stretched out over all her desired things; for she has seen that the nations have come into her holy place, about whom you gave orders that they were not to come into the meeting of your people.

11 Breathing out grief all her people are looking for bread; they have given their desired things for food to give them life: see, O Lord, and take note; for she has become a thing of shame.

12 Come to me, all you who go by! Keep your eyes on me, and see if there is any pain like the pain of my wound, which the Lord has sent on me in the day of his burning wrath.

13 From on high he has sent fire into my bones, and it has overcome them: his net is stretched out for my feet, I am turned back by him; he has made me waste and feeble all the day.

14 A watch is kept on my sins; they are joined together by his hand, they have come on to my neck; he has made my strength give way: the Lord has given me up into the hands of those against whom I have no power.