Lamentations 5:8-18

8 Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand.

9 We fetched our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert.

10 Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine.

11 They oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda.

12 The princes were hanged up by their hand: they did not respect the persons of the ancients.

13 They abused the young men indecently: and the children fell under the wood.

14 The ancients have ceased from the gates: the young men from the choir of the singers.

15 The joy of our heart is ceased, our dancing is turned into mourning.

16 The crown is fallen from our head: woe to us, because we have sinned.

17 Therefore is our heart sorrowful, therefore are our eyes become dim.

18 For mount Sion, because it is destroyed, foxes have walked upon it.

Lamentations 5:8-18 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 5

In this chapter are reckoned up the various calamities and distresses of the Jews in Babylon, which the Lord is desired to remember and consider, La 5:1-16; their great concern for the desolation of the temple in particular is expressed, La 5:17,18; and the chapter is concluded with a prayer that God would show favour to them, and turn them to him, and renew their prosperity as of old, though he had rejected them, and been wroth with them, La 5:19-22.