Lamentations 1:14

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

Lamentations 1:14 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:14

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand
That is, the punishment of her sins was laid upon her by the Lord himself; his hand was in it; it came from him; the Chaldeans were only instruments; and a heavy yoke this was. So the Targum renders it,

``the yoke of my rebellions is made heavy by his hand:''

they are wreathed, [and] come upon my neck;
or, "twisted together" ^F2; as lines to make a cord; or as several cords to make a rope; or as branches of trees or withes are implicated and entwined; and so the Targum,

``they are twisted together as the branches of a vine.''

It denotes the complication of judgments upon the Jewish nation for their sins, with which they were holden as with cords; and which were like ropes about their necks, very heavy and distressing to them, and from which they could not deliver themselves. Mr. Broughton thinks the apostle has reference to this passage; and explains it by the sin that easily besets, or cunningly wraps about, ( Hebrews 12:1 ) ; he hath made my strength to fall;
by the weight of punishment laid upon her, which she could not stand up under, but sunk and fell: this may be understood of her strong and mighty men; her men of valour and courage, who yet stumbled and fell: the Lord hath delivered me into [their] hands, [from whom] I am not
able to rise up;
meaning the Chaldeans; nor were the Jews at last delivered from them by their own strength, but by the means of Cyrus the Persian conquering Babylon.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 (wgrtvy) "involutae", Vatablus; "perplexae", Pagninus, Montanus, Calvin; "contortae", Piscator, Grotius, Michaelis.

Lamentations 1:14 In-Context

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.

15 "The Master piled up my best soldiers in a heap, then called in thugs to break their fine young necks. The Master crushed the life out of fair virgin Judah.

16 "For all this I weep, weep buckets of tears, and not a soul within miles around cares for my soul. My children are wasted, my enemy got his way."