Lamentations 2:11

11 I've cried so much I can't see very well. I'm suffering deep down inside. My heart is broken because my people are destroyed. Children and babies are fainting in the streets of the city.

Lamentations 2:11 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 2:11

Mine eyes do fail with tears
According to Aben Ezra, everyone of the elders before mentioned said this; but rather they are the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, who had wept his eyes dry, or rather blind, on account of the calamities of his people; though he himself obtained liberty and enlargement by means thereof: my bowels are troubled;
all his inward parts were distressed: my liver is poured upon the earth;
his gall bladder, which lay at the bottom of his liver, broke, and he cast it up, and poured it on the earth; see ( Job 16:13 ) ; and all this was for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
or, the "breach" of them ^F20; their civil and church state being destroyed and broke to shivers; and for the ruin of the several families of them: particularly because the children and sucklings swoon in the streets of the city;
through famine, for want of bread, with those that could eat it; and for want of the milk of their mothers and nurses, who being starved themselves could not give it; and hence the poor infants fainted and swooned away; which was a dismal sight, and heart melting to the prophet.

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 (rbv le) "propter contritionem", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius; "propter confractionem", Piscator; "propter fractionem", Cocceius.

Lamentations 2:11 In-Context

9 Its gates sank down into the ground. He broke their metal bars and destroyed them. Its king and princes were taken away to other nations. There is no law anymore. Jerusalem's prophets no longer receive visions from the Lord.

10 The elders of the city of Zion sit silently on the ground. They have sprinkled dust on their heads. They've put on black clothes to show how sad they are. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads toward the ground.

11 I've cried so much I can't see very well. I'm suffering deep down inside. My heart is broken because my people are destroyed. Children and babies are fainting in the streets of the city.

12 They say to their mothers, "Where can we find something to eat and drink?" They faint like wounded soldiers in the streets of the city. Their lives are slipping away in their mothers' arms.

13 City of Jerusalem, what can I say about you? What can I compare you to? People of Zion, what are you like? I want to comfort you. Your wound is as deep as the ocean. Who can heal you?