Lamentations 1:11

11 All her people are groaning, as they search for something to eat. They barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. "Look, ADONAI! See how despised I am.

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 filthiness was in her skirts; she gave no thought to how it would end. Hence her astounding downfall, with no one to console her. "Look, ADONAI, how I suffer; for the foe has triumphed!"

10 Enemies have reached out their hands to seize all her treasures. She has seen Goyim approach and go inside her sanctuary, those whom you forbade even to enter your assembly.

11 All her people are groaning, as they search for something to eat. They barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. "Look, ADONAI! See how despised I am.

12 "May it not happen to you, all you passers-by! Just look, and see if there is any pain like the pain inflicted on me, which ADONAI made me suffer on the day of his blazing anger.

13 "From on high, he sent down fire deep into my bones; he spread a net to catch my feet; he turned me back; he left me desolate, in misery all day long.