Lamentations 5:5

5 We were driven by our heads, and rest was not given to faint men. (The yoke is upon our necks, and rest is not given to the weary.)

Lamentations 5:5 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 5:5

Our necks [are] under persecution
A yoke of hard servitude and bondage was put upon their necks, as Jarchi interprets it; which they were forced to submit unto: or, "upon our necks we are pursued" ^F19; or, "suffer persecution": which Aben Ezra explains thus, in connection with the ( Lamentations 5:4 ) ; if we carry water or wood upon our necks, the enemy pursues us; that is, to take it away from us. The Targum relates a fable here, that when Nebuchadnezzar saw the ungodly rulers of the children of Israel, who went empty, he ordered to sow up the books of the law, and make bags or wallets of them, and fill them with the stones on the banks of the Euphrates, and loaded them on their necks: we labour, [and] have no rest;
night nor day, nor even on sabbath days; obliged to work continually till they were weary; and, when they were, were not allowed time to rest themselves, like their forefathers in Egypt.

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FOOTNOTES:

F19 (wnpdrn wnrawu le) "super colla nostra persecutionem passi sumus", Pagninus, Montanus, Calvin; "vel patimur", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Lamentations 5:5 In-Context

3 We be made fatherless children without (a) father; our mothers be as widows (our mothers be like widows).

4 We drank our water for money, we bought our wood for silver. (We must buy our water to drink with money, and we must buy our wood to burn with silver.)

5 We were driven by our heads, and rest was not given to faint men. (The yoke is upon our necks, and rest is not given to the weary.)

6 We gave (the) hand to Egypt, and to Assyrians, that we should be [ful]filled with bread. (We put forth our hands to Egypt, and to Assyria, for food to eat.)

7 Our fathers sinned, and be not, and we bare the wickednesses of them (Our forefathers sinned, and be not, and we carry their wickednesses.)