Lamentations 3:51

51 my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the maidens of my city.

Lamentations 3:51 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 3:51

Mine eye affecteth mine heart
Seeing the desolation of his country; the ruins of the city and temple of Jerusalem; and the multitudes of those that were slain, and carried captive; and the distresses the rest were in; this affected his heart, and filled it with grief; as his heart also affected his eyes, and caused them to run down in rivers of water, as before expressed; or, as the Targum,

``the weeping of mine eyes is the occasion of hurt to my soul or life;''

his excessive weeping endangered his life: because of all the daughters of my city;
not Anathoth, his native place, but Jerusalem; so the Targum,

``of Jerusalem my city.''

The meaning is, that his heart was affected at seeing the ruin of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; or of the towns and cities round about it, which that was the metropolis of. Some, as Jarchi, render it, "more than all the daughters of my city" ^F16; his heart was more affected with those calamities than those of the most tender sex, even than any or all of them.

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 (yrye twnb lkm) "supra cunctas filias civitatis meae"; so some in Vatablus; and Jarchi.

Lamentations 3:51 In-Context

49 "My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite,

50 until the LORD from heaven looks down and sees;

51 my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the maidens of my city.

52 "I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause;

53 they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me;