Lamentations 1:5

5 Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up because God laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions. Her children, prisoners of the enemy, trudge into exile.

Lamentations 1:5 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 1:5

Her adversaries are the chief
Or, "for the head" ^F14; or are the head, as was threatened, ( Deuteronomy 28:44 ) ; and now fulfilled; the Chaldeans having got the dominion over the Jews, and obliged them to be subject to them: her enemies prosper;
in wealth and riches, in grandeur and glory; live in ease and tranquillity, enjoying all outward felicity and happiness; while Zion was in distress; which was an aggravation of it; and yet this was but righteous judgment: for the Lord hath afflicted her;
who is righteous in all his ways: the Chaldeans were but instruments; the evil was from the Lord, according to his will and righteous determination, as appears by what follows: for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into
captivity before the enemy;
that is, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea were carried captive by the enemy, and drove before them as a flock of sheep, and that for the sins of the nation; and these not a few, but were very numerous, as Mordecai and Ezekiel, and others, who were carried captive young with Jeconiah, as well as many now.

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 (varl) "in caput", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "facti sunt caput", Cocceius.

Lamentations 1:5 In-Context

3 After years of pain and hard labor, Judah has gone into exile. She camps out among the nations, never feels at home. Hunted by all, she's stuck between a rock and a hard place.

4 Zion's roads weep, empty of pilgrims headed to the feasts. All her city gates are deserted, her priests in despair. Her virgins are sad. How bitter her fate.

5 Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up because God laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions. Her children, prisoners of the enemy, trudge into exile.

6 All beauty has drained from Daughter Zion's face. Her princes are like deer famished for food, chased to exhaustion by hunters.

7 Jerusalem remembers the day she lost everything, when her people fell into enemy hands, and not a soul there to help. Enemies looked on and laughed, laughed at her helpless silence.