Ekhah 4:14

14 They have groped about like ivrim (blind men) in the streets; they have defiled themselves with dahm, so that men dare not touch their garments.

Ekhah 4:14 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 4:14

They have wandered [as] blind [men] in the streets
That is, the false prophets and wicked priests; and may be understood either literally, that when the city was taken, and they fled, they were like blind men, and knew not which way to go to make their escape, but wandered from place to place, and could find no way out; or spiritually, though they pretended to great light and knowledge, yet were as blind men, surrounded with the darkness of ignorance and error, and were blind leaders of the blind: they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch
their garments;
or, "could not but touch it with their garments" ^F3; or, "might not" ^F4; it was not lawful for them to do it: the sense is either, that, which way soever these men took to make their escape, they found so many dead carcasses in the streets, and such a profusion of blood by them, that they could not but touch it with their garments; or being besmeared with it, were so defiled, that others might not touch them, even their garments; or these men had defiled themselves with the shedding of the blood of righteous persons; so that they were odious to men, and they shunned them as they would do anything that by the law rendered them in a ceremonious sense unclean, and therefore said as follows:

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 (Mhyvwblb wegy wlkwy alb) "quem non possunt, quin tangent vestimentis suis", "Junius & Tremellius.
F4 "Tangebant eum (nempe sanguinem) vestibus eorum quem non potuerunt", i.e. "jure", Gataker.

Ekhah 4:14 In-Context

12 The malkhei eretz, and all the inhabitants of the tevel (world), would not have believed that the adversary and the oyev should have entered into the sha’arei Yerushalayim.

13 For the sins of her Nevi’im, and the iniquities of her Kohanim, that have shed the dahm of the Tzaddikim in the midst of her,

14 They have groped about like ivrim (blind men) in the streets; they have defiled themselves with dahm, so that men dare not touch their garments.

15 They cried unto them, Go away; tamei (unclean)! Depart, depart, touch not; so they fled away and wandered. They said among the Goyim, They shall no more sojourn there.

16 The anger of Hashem hath scattered them; He will no more regard them; they respected not the persons of the Kohanim; they showed no favor to the Zekenim.