Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5:1-22 . EPIPHONEMA, OR A CLOSING RECAPITULATION OF THE CALAMITIES TREATED IN THE PREVIOUS ELEGIES.

1. ( Psalms 89:50 Psalms 89:51 ).

2. Our inheritance--"Thine inheritance" ( Psalms 79:1 ). The land given of old to us by Thy gift.

3. fatherless--Our whole land is full of orphans [CALVIN]. Or, "we are fatherless," being abandoned by Thee our "Father" ( Jeremiah 3:19 ), [GROTIUS].

4. water for money--The Jews were compelled to pay the enemy for the water of their own cisterns after the overthrow of Jerusalem; or rather, it refers to their sojourn in Babylon; they had to pay tax for access to the rivers and fountains. Thus, "our" means the water which we need, the commonest necessary of life.
our wood--In Judea each one could get wood without pay; in Babylon, "our wood," the wood we need, must be paid for.

5. Literally, "On our necks we are persecuted"; that is, Men tread on our necks ( Psalms 66:12 , Isaiah 51:23 ; compare Joshua 10:24 ). The extremest oppression. The foe not merely galled the Jews face, back, and sides, but their neck. A just retribution, as they had been stiff in neck against the yoke of God ( 2 Chronicles 30:8 , Margin; Nehemiah 9:29 , Isaiah 48:4 ).

6. given . . . hand to--in token of submission
to . . . Egyptians--at the death of Josiah ( 2 Chronicles 36:3 2 Chronicles 36:4 ).
Assyrians--that is, the Chaldeans who occupied the empire which Assyria had held. So Jeremiah 2:18 .
to be satisfied with bread--( Deuteronomy 28:48 ).

7. ( Jeremiah 31:29 ).
borne their iniquities--that is, the punishment of them. The accumulated sins of our fathers from age to age, as well as our own, are visited on us. They say this as a plea why God should pity them (compare Ezekiel 18:2 , &c.).

8. Servants . . . ruled . . . us--Servants under the Chaldean governors ruled the Jews ( Nehemiah 5:15 ). Israel, once a "kingdom of priests" ( Exodus 19:6 ), is become like Canaan, "a servant of servants," according to the curse ( Genesis 9:25 ). The Chaldeans were designed to be "servants" of Shem, being descended from Ham ( Genesis 9:26 ). Now through the Jews' sin, their positions are reversed.

9. We gat our bread with . . . peril--that is, those of us left in the city after its capture by the Chaldeans.
because of . . . sword of . . . wilderness--because of the liability to attack by the robber Arabs of the wilderness, through which the Jews had to pass to get "bread" from Egypt (compare Lamentations 5:6 ).

10. As an oven is scorched with too much fire, so our skin with the hot blast of famine (Margin, rightly, "storms," like the hot simoom). Hunger dries up the pores so that the skin becomes like as if it were scorched by the sun ( Job 30:30 , Psalms 119:83 ).

11. So in just retribution Babylon itself should fare in the end. Jerusalem shall for the last time suffer these woes before her final restoration ( Zechariah 14:2 ).

12. hanged . . . by their hand--a piece of wanton cruelty invented by the Chaldeans. GROTIUS translates, "Princes were hung by the hand of the enemy"; hanging was a usual mode of execution ( Genesis 40:19 ).
elders--officials ( Lamentations 4:16 ).