Lamentations 4:5

5 Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those brought up in royal purple now lie on ash heaps.

Lamentations 4:5 in Other Translations

KJV
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
ESV
5 Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.
NLT
5 The people who once ate the richest foods now beg in the streets for anything they can get. Those who once wore the finest clothes now search the garbage dumps for food.
MSG
5 People used to the finest cuisine forage for food in the streets. People used to the latest in fashions pick through the trash for something to wear.
CSB
5 Those who used to eat delicacies are destitute in the streets; those who were reared in purple [garments] huddle in garbage heaps.

Lamentations 4:5 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 4:5

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets
That were brought up in the king's palace, or in the houses of noblemen; or, however, born of parents rich and wealthy, and had been used to good living, and had fared sumptuously and deliciously every day, were now wandering about in the streets in the most forlorn and distressed condition, seeking for food of any sort, but could find none to satisfy their hunger; and so, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, perished in the ways or streets: they that were brought up in scarlet:
in dyed garments, as Jarchi; clothed with scarlet coloured ones, as was the manner of the richer and better sort of people, ( Proverbs 31:21 ) ; or, "brought up upon scarlet" F15; upon scarlet carpets, on which they used to sit and eat their food, as is the custom of the eastern people to this day: these embrace dunghills,
are glad of them, and with the greatest eagerness rake into them, in order to find something to feed upon, though ever so base and vile; or to sit and lie down upon. Aben Ezra interprets it of their being cast here when dead, and there was none to bury them.


FOOTNOTES:

F15 (elwt yle) "super coccinum", Pagninus, Montanus; "super coccino", Piscator, Michaelis.

Lamentations 4:5 In-Context

3 Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert.
4 Because of thirst the infant’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth; the children beg for bread, but no one gives it to them.
5 Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those brought up in royal purple now lie on ash heaps.
6 The punishment of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment without a hand turned to help her.
7 Their princes were brighter than snow and whiter than milk, their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like lapis lazuli.

Cross References 2

  • 1. Jeremiah 6:2
  • 2. S Isaiah 3:26; Amos 6:3-7
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