Lamentations 5:3-13

3 we are become orphans, we have no father, our mothers are as widows.

4 We have drunk our water for money; our wood is sold to us on our neck:

5 we have been persecuted, we have laboured, we have had no rest.

6 Egypt gave the hand , Assur to their own satisfaction.

7 Our fathers sinned, are not: we have borne their iniquities.

8 Servants have ruled over us: there is none to ransom out of their hand.

9 We shall bring in our bread with our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin is blackened like an oven; they are convulsed, because of the storms of famine.

11 They humbled the women in Sion, the virgins in the cities of Juda.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hands: the elders were not honoured.

13 The chosen men lifted up weeping, and the youths fainted under the wood.

Lamentations 5:3-13 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.