Lamentations 1:11

11 All her people are sighing -- seeking bread, They have given their desirable things For food to refresh the body; See, O Jehovah, and behold attentively, For I have been lightly esteemed.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Lamentations 1:11 In-Context

9 Her uncleanness [is] in her skirts, She hath not remembered her latter end, And she cometh down wonderfully, There is no comforter for her. See, O Jehovah, mine affliction, For exerted himself hath an enemy.

10 His hand spread out hath an adversary On all her desirable things, For she hath seen -- Nations have entered her sanctuary, Concerning which Thou didst command, `They do not come into the assembly to thee.'

11 All her people are sighing -- seeking bread, They have given their desirable things For food to refresh the body; See, O Jehovah, and behold attentively, For I have been lightly esteemed.

12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye passing by the way? Look attentively, and see, If there is any pain like my pain, That He is rolling to me? Whom Jehovah hath afflicted In the day of the fierceness of His anger.

13 From above He hath sent fire into my bone, And it subdueth it, He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me backward, He hath made me desolate -- all the day sick.