Lamentations 2:11

11 1My eyes are spent with weeping; 2my stomach churns; 3my bile is poured out to the ground 4because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, 5because infants and babies 6faint in the streets of the city.

Lamentations 2:11 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 2:11

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: 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 F20; 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.


FOOTNOTES:

F20 (rbv le) "propter contritionem", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius; "propter confractionem", Piscator; "propter fractionem", Cocceius.

Lamentations 2:11 In-Context

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.
12 They cry to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom.
13 What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you?

Cross References 6

  • 1. [ver. 18; Lamentations 5:17; Psalms 6:7]
  • 2. See Lamentations 1:20
  • 3. [Job 16:13]
  • 4. Lamentations 3:48
  • 5. [Lamentations 4:4; Jeremiah 44:7]
  • 6. ver. 19; [Isaiah 51:20]
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.