Lamentations 2:11

11 My eyes are worn out from weeping; my stomach is churning. My insides are poured on the ground because the daughter of my people is shattered, because children and babies are fainting in the city streets.

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.


FOOTNOTES:

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

Lamentations 2:11 In-Context

9 Zion's gates sank into the ground; he broke and shattered her bars; her king and her officials are now among the nations. There is no Instruction! Even her prophets couldn't find a vision from the LORD.
10 Daughter Zion's elders sit on the ground and mourn. They throw dust on their heads; they put on mourning clothes. Jerusalem's young women bow their heads all the way to the ground.
11 My eyes are worn out from weeping; my stomach is churning. My insides are poured on the ground because the daughter of my people is shattered, because children and babies are fainting in the city streets.
12 They say to their mothers, "Where are grain and wine?" while fainting like the wounded in the city streets, while their lives are draining away at their own mothers' breasts.
13 What can I testify about you, Daughter Jerusalem? To what could I compare you? With what could I equate you? How can I comfort you, young woman Daughter Zion? Your hurt is as vast as the sea. Who can heal you?
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