Lamentations 1:12

12 Is it nothing to you, {all who pass by}?^[a] Look and see if there is sorrow like my sorrow,^[b] which was dealt to me, which Yahweh inflicted on the {day of his wrath}.^[c]

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 enemy has stretched out his hand over all her treasures; for she has seen the nations, they entered her sanctuary, those whom you commanded not to enter in your assembly.

11 All her people groan, they are searching for bread. They give their treasures for food, to bring back life. See, O Yahweh, and look, [how] I am despised.

12 Is it nothing to you, {all who pass by}? Look and see if there is sorrow like my sorrow, which was dealt to me, which Yahweh inflicted on the {day of his wrath}.

13 From heaven he sent fire, into my bones he let it descend. He spread out a net for my feet; he turned me back, he gave me devastation, fainting all day.

14 My rebellion was bound [as] a yoke, with his hand it was fastened together; it was put on my neck [and] caused my strength to fail. The Lord gave me into the hands [of those whom] I cannot withstand.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "all who cross a road"
• [b]. Or "pain like my pain"
• [c]. Literally "on the day of the blaze of his nose"