Lamentations 1:12

12 "And you passersby, look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this? Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me, what God did to me in his rage?

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 reached out to take all her favorite things. She watched as pagans barged into her Sanctuary, those very people for whom you posted orders: keep out: this assembly off-limits.

11 All the people groaned, so desperate for food, so desperate to stay alive that they bartered their favorite things for a bit of breakfast: "O God, look at me! Worthless, cheap, abject!

12 "And you passersby, look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this? Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me, what God did to me in his rage?

13 "He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot, then he set traps all around so I could hardly move. He left me with nothing - left me sick, and sick of living.

14 "He wove my sins into a rope and harnessed me to captivity's yoke. I'm goaded by cruel taskmasters.