Lamentations 4:5

5 Those who once ate fine foods are now starving in the streets. People who grew up wearing nice clothes now pick through trash piles.

Lamentations 4:5 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 4:5

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets
That were brought up in the king's palace, or in the houses of noblemen; or, however, born of parents rich and wealthy, and had been used to good living, and had fared sumptuously and deliciously every day, were now wandering about in the streets in the most forlorn and distressed condition, seeking for food of any sort, but could find none to satisfy their hunger; and so, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, perished in the ways or streets: they that were brought up in scarlet:
in dyed garments, as Jarchi; clothed with scarlet coloured ones, as was the manner of the richer and better sort of people, ( Proverbs 31:21 ) ; or, "brought up upon scarlet" F15; upon scarlet carpets, on which they used to sit and eat their food, as is the custom of the eastern people to this day: these embrace dunghills,
are glad of them, and with the greatest eagerness rake into them, in order to find something to feed upon, though ever so base and vile; or to sit and lie down upon. Aben Ezra interprets it of their being cast here when dead, and there was none to bury them.


FOOTNOTES:

F15 (elwt yle) "super coccinum", Pagninus, Montanus; "super coccino", Piscator, Michaelis.

Lamentations 4:5 In-Context

3 Even wild dogs give their milk to feed their young, but my people are cruel like ostriches in the desert.
4 The babies are so thirsty their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths. Children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.
5 Those who once ate fine foods are now starving in the streets. People who grew up wearing nice clothes now pick through trash piles.
6 My people have been punished more than Sodom was. Sodom was destroyed suddenly, and no hands reached out to help her.
7 Our princes were purer than snow, and whiter than milk. Their bodies were redder than rubies; they looked like sapphires.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.