Lamentations 5:5-15

5 Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.

6 We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.

8 Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

9 We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.

11 They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.

13 The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.

14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

15 The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

Lamentations 5:5-15 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.

Footnotes

• [a] i.e. the Assyrians.
• [b] Lit. 'none that rendeth away:' see Ps. 136.24.
• [c] * Or 'fiery red,' as 'burned,' Gen. 43.30; 'yearned,' 1Kings 3.26; 'kindled,' Hos. 11.8.
• [d] Or 'the aged,' as ch. 4.16.
• [e] * Neginoth, 'stringed instruments,' as Title, Ps 4,6,54,55,61,67,76. The verb is, 'to strike the strings:' Isa. 38.20; Lam. 3.14; Hab. 3.19.