Lamentations 2:11

11 My eyes are worn out with tears. My stomach is churning. My heart is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people. Little children and infants faint 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.

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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 have sunk into the ground. [The LORD] destroyed and shattered the bars across its [gates]. Its king and influential people are [scattered] among the nations. There is no longer any instruction [from Moses' Teachings]. Its prophets can find no visions from the LORD.

10 The respected leaders of Zion's people sit silently on the ground. They throw dirt on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.

11 My eyes are worn out with tears. My stomach is churning. My heart is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people. Little children and infants faint in the city streets.

12 They're asking their mothers for some bread and wine as they faint like wounded people in the city streets. Their lives dwindle away in their mothers' arms.

13 "What example can I give you? What parallel can I show you, people of Jerusalem? What comparison can I make that will comfort you, beloved people of Zion? Your wounds are as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?