Lamentations 1:11

11 Caph All her people sought their bread with sadness; they have given all their precious things for food to maintain life; see, O LORD, and consider, for I am become vile.

Lamentations 1:11 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:11

All her people sigh
Not her priests only, ( Lamentations 1:4 ) ; but all the common people, because of their affliction, particularly for want of bread. So the Targum,

``all the people of Jerusalem sigh because of the famine;''

for it follows: they seek bread;
to eat, as the Targum; inquire where it is to be had, but in vain: they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
or, "to cause the soul to return" ^F24; to fetch it back when fainting and swooning away through famine; and therefore would give anything for food; part with their rich clothes, jewels, and precious stones; with whatsoever they had that was valuable in their cabinets or coffers, that they might have meat to keep from fainting and dying; to refresh and recruit their spirits spent with hunger: see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile;
mean, base, and contemptible, in the eyes of men, through penury and want of food; through poverty, affliction, and distress; and therefore desires the Lord would consider her case, and look with pity and compassion on her.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F24 (vpn byvhl) "ad reducendum animam", Montanus, Piscator.

Lamentations 1:11 In-Context

9 Teth Her filthiness is in her skirts; she did not remember her latter end; therefore she came down surprisingly; she has no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.

10 Jod The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her precious things, and she saw the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

11 Caph All her people sought their bread with sadness; they have given all their precious things for food to maintain life; see, O LORD, and consider, for I am become vile.

12 Lamed Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is come unto me because the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

13 Mem From upon high he has sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; he has spread a net for my feet; he has turned me back; he has made me desolate and always with pain.