Lamentations 1:11

11 Caph. All her people sigh, they seek bread: they have given all their precious things for food to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile.

Lamentations 1:11 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:11

All her people sigh
Not her priests only, ( Lamentations 1:4 ) ; but all the common people, because of their affliction, particularly for want of bread. So the Targum,

``all the people of Jerusalem sigh because of the famine;''
for it follows: they seek bread;
to eat, as the Targum; inquire where it is to be had, but in vain: they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
or, "to cause the soul to return" F24; to fetch it back when fainting and swooning away through famine; and therefore would give anything for food; part with their rich clothes, jewels, and precious stones; with whatsoever they had that was valuable in their cabinets or coffers, that they might have meat to keep from fainting and dying; to refresh and recruit their spirits spent with hunger: see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile;
mean, base, and contemptible, in the eyes of men, through penury and want of food; through poverty, affliction, and distress; and therefore desires the Lord would consider her case, and look with pity and compassion on her.
FOOTNOTES:

F24 (vpn byvhl) "ad reducendum animam", Montanus, Piscator.

Lamentations 1:11 In-Context

9 Teth. Her filthiness is on her feet, and she hath not remembered her end; she is wonderfully cast down, not having a comforter: behold, O Lord, my affliction, because the enemy is lifted up.
10 Jod. The enemy hath put out his hand to all her desirable things: for she hath seen the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, of whom thou gavest commandment that they should not enter into thy church.
11 Caph. All her people sigh, they seek bread: they have given all their precious things for food to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile.
12 Lamed. O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow: for he hath made a vintage of me, as the Lord spoke in the day of his fierce anger.
13 Mem. From above he hath sent fire into my bones, and hath chastised me: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate, wasted with sorrow all the day long.
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