Lamentations 1:21

21 CHSEN. Hear, I pray you, for I groan: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard mine afflictions, and rejoice because thou hast done : thou hast brought on the day, thou hast called the time: they are become like to me.

Lamentations 1:21 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:21

They have heard that I sigh: [there is] none to comfort me,
&c.] That is, the nations, as the Targum; the neighbouring ones, those that were her confederates and allies; the same with her lovers, as before, as Aben Ezra observes; these being near her, knew full well her sorrowful and distressed condition, being as it were within the hearing of her sighs and groans; and yet none of them offered to help her, or so much as to speak a comfortable word to her: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble;
not only her friends, but foes; meaning the Tyrians, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, and as the following description of them shows; for it must design others from the Chaldeans, that were the immediate cause of it: they are glad that thou hast done [it];
brought all this ruin and destruction on Jerusalem, which could never have been done, if the Lord had not willed it; and at this the above mentioned nations rejoiced; see ( Ezekiel 25:3 ) ( Obadiah 1:12 ) ; there being a considerable stop on the word glad, it may be rendered, as by some, "they are glad; but thou hast done it" ^F14; not they, but thou; and therefore must be patiently bore, and quietly submitted to, it being the Lord's doing: thou wilt bring the day [that] thou hast called;
the time of, he destruction of, he Chaldeans, who had the chief hand in the ruin of the Jewish nation, and of those that rejoiced at it; which time was fixed by the Lord, and proclaimed and published by his prophets, and would certainly and exactly come, as and when it was pointed out: some ^F15 take it to be a wish or prayer, that God would bring it, as he had declared; though others interpret it in a quite different sense, "thou hast brought the day" ^F16; meaning on herself, the determined destruction; so the Targum,

``thou hast brought upon me the day of vengeance; thou hast called a time upon me to my desolation:''

and they shall be like unto me;
in the same distressed, desolate, and sorrowful condition, being brought to ruin and destruction; which afterwards was the case of the Chaldeans, and all the other nations.

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 (tyve hta yk) "laetati sunt; sed tu fecisti", Grotius.
F15 "Utinam induceres diem", so some in Vatablus.
F16 (Mwy tabx) "adduxisti diem", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "induxisti [aut] inducis", Vatablus.

Lamentations 1:21 In-Context

19 KOPH. I called my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and my elders failed in the city; for they sought meat that they might restore their souls, and found not.

20 RHECHS. Behold, O Lord; for I am afflicted: my belly is troubled, and my heart is turned within me; for I have been grievously rebellious: abroad the sword has bereaved me, even as death at home.

21 CHSEN. Hear, I pray you, for I groan: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard mine afflictions, and rejoice because thou hast done : thou hast brought on the day, thou hast called the time: they are become like to me.

22 THAU. Let all their wickedness come before thy face; and strip them, as they have made a gleaning for all my sins: for my groans are many, and my heart is grieved.