{"commentary":{"id":"adam-clarke","name":"Adam Clarke Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clarke","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Adam Clarke Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"92e28c9363c876d215e296f2fe04abb3ab7e34a2aacebdf06bd62ae79c6e3dba","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":57,"totalNumberOfChapters":854,"totalNumberOfVerses":13318,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"LAM","commentaryId":"adam-clarke","name":"Lamentations","commonName":"Lamentations","introduction":"Introduction to the Lamentations of Jeremiah This book, like the several books of the Pentateuch, is denominated in Hebrew איכה eicah, how, from its first word; and sometimes קינות kinnoth, lamentations, from its subject. In the Septuagint it is termed QRHNOI TOU IEREMIOU, for the same reason. The Syriac and Arabic copy or follow the Septuagint; and so does the Vulgate, from the Lamentationes of which, the book has that name which it bears in our language. In the Chaldee it has no name; and in it, and perhaps anciently in the Hebrew, it was written consecutively with the last chapter of Jeremiah. It is one of the books of the מגילות Megilloth, or Roll, among the Jews; and because it relates to the ruin of their affairs, and contains promises of restoration, it is peculiarly prized, and frequently read. The five Megilloth are: Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Ruth, and Esther. There has been little difference among learned men concerning the author of this book. The whole current of antiquity and modern times has pointed out Jeremiah as the writer: of this the style is a sufficient evidence. Mr. John Henry Pareau, in a Dissertation prefixed to his Translation and Notes on this book, (8vo. Lugd. Bat. 1790), has proved this point amply from a general collation of the prophecy of Jeremiah with select passages in this book. I have heard of but one learned man who has entertained serious doubts on the subject, Mr. Herman Van der Hardt, who has supposed the five chapters were written by Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Jeconiah. To this opinion I suppose none has ever been converted. There has been more difference of opinion relative to the subject and occasion. Some have thought the book was composed on the death of Josiah; others that it was composed on occasion of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the various desolations connected with it. To this all its parts and its general phraseology seem best to apply; and this is the sentiment most generally embraced at present. This will receive much proof from a minute consideration of the book itself. The composition of this poem is what may be called very technical. Every chapter, except the last, is an acrostic. Of the two first, each verse begins with a several letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in the order of the letters, with this exception, that in the second, third, and fourth chapters, the פ phe is put before the ע ain; whereas in all the acrostic Psalms the latter preceded the former, as it does in all grammars of the Hebrew language. In the first and second chapters each verse is composed of three hemistichs or half verses, except the seventh verse of the first, and the nineteenth of the second chapter, which have each four hemistichs. The third chapter contains sixty-four verses, each, as before, formed of three hemistichs, but with this difference, that each hemistich begins with the same letter, so that the whole alphabet is thrice repeated in this chapter. The fourth chapter is made up of twenty-two verses, according to the number of the Hebrew letters; but the composition is different from all the rest, for each verse consists of only two hemistichs, and those much shorter than any in the preceding chapters. I have called this an inimitable poem; better judges are of the same opinion. \"Never,\" says Bishop Lowth, \"was there a more rich and elegant variety of beautiful images and adjuncts arranged together within so small a compass, nor more happily chosen and applied.\" \"One would think,\" says Dr. South, \"that every letter was written with a tear; every word, the sound of a breaking heart: that the author was compacted of sorrows; disciplined to grief from his infancy; one who never breathed but in sighs, nor spoke but in a groan.\" \"Nor can we too much admire,\" says Dr. Blayney, \"the full and graceful flow of that pathetic eloquence in which the author pours forth the effusions of a patriotic heart, and piously weeps over the ruins of his venerable country. But it was observed before that the prophet's peculiar talent lay in working up and expressing the passions of grief and pity; and, unhappily for him as a man and a citizen, he met with a subject but too well calculated to give his genius its full display.\" David in several places has forcibly depicted the sorrows of a heart oppressed with penitential sorrow; but where, in a composition of such length, have bodily misery and mental agony been more successfully painted? All the expressions and images of sorrow are here exhibited in various combinations, and in various points of view. Misery has no expression that the author of the Lamentations has not employed. Patriots! you who tell us you burn for your country's welfare, look at the prophecies and history of this extraordinary man; look at his Lamentations; take him through his life to his death, and learn from him what true patriotism means! The man who watched, prayed, and lived for the welfare of his country; who choose to share her adversities, her sorrows, her wants, her afflictions, and disgrace, where he might have been a companion of princes, and have sat at the table of kings; who only ceased to live for his country when he ceased to breathe; - that was a patriot, in comparison with whom almost all others are obscured, minished, and brought low, or are totally annihilated!","order":25,"numberOfChapters":5,"sha256":"aa20995389f33f346d9c823349610a2f76142ba31c705ce4074a72c6bca3e84e","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/LAM/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"adam-clarke","book":"LAM","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":5,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/LAM/5.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"adam-clarke","book":"LAM","chapter":5},"totalNumberOfVerses":108},"chapter":{"number":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["How is the gold become dim - The prophet contrasts, in various affecting instances, the wretched circumstances of the Jewish nation, with the flourishing state of their affairs in former times. Here they are compared to gold, זהב zahab, native gold from the mine, which, contrary to its nature, is become dim, is tarnished; and even the fine, the sterling gold, כתם kethem, that which was stamped to make it current, is changed or adulterated, so as to be no longer passable. This might be applied to the temple, but particularly to the fallen priests and apostate prophets.\nThe stones of the sanctuary - אבני קדש abney kodesh, the holy stones; the Jewish godly men, who were even then the living stones of which God built his Church. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["The precious sons of Zion - The Jewish priests and Jewish believers.\nComparable to fine gold - Who were of the pure standard of holiness; holy, because God who called them is holy; but now esteemed no better than earthen pitchers - vessels of dishonor in comparison of what they once were. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Even the sea monsters draw out the breast - The whales give suck to their young ones. The word תנין tannin, signifies all large and cruel creatures, whether aquatic or terrestrial; and need not here be restrained to the former sort. My Old MS. Bible translates curiously: Not and the cruel bestis that ben clepid Lamya, and thei nakeden ther tetis, geve ther whelpis souken.\nLike the ostriches in the wilderness - For her carelessness about her eggs, and her inattention to her young, the ostrich is proverbial. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["The tongue of the sucking child - See the note on Lam 2:12 (note). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Embrace dunghills - Lie on straw or rubbish, instead of the costly carpets and sofas on which they formerly stretched themselves. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["For the punishment - He thinks the punishment of Jerusalem far greater than that of Sodom. That was destroyed in a moment while all her inhabitants were in health and strength; Jerusalem fell by the most lingering calamities; her men partly destroyed by the sword, and partly by the famine.\nInstead of no hands stayed on her, Blayney translates, \"Nor were hands weakened in her.\" Perhaps the meaning is, \"Sodom was destroyed in a moment without any human labor.\" It was a judgment from God himself: so the sacred text: \"The Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven.\" See Gen 19:24. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Her Nazarites were purer than snow - נזיר nazir does not always signify a person separated under a religious vow; it sometimes denotes what is chief or eminent. It is applied to Joseph, Gen 49:26.\nBlayney therefore translates here, Her Nobles.\n\"Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;\nThey were ruddier on the bone than rubies; their veining was the sapphires.\"\nOn which he remarks: - \"In the first line the whiteness of their skin is described, and in the second, their flesh;\" and as גזר gazar signifies to divide and intersect, as the blue veins do on the surface of the body, these are without doubt intended.\nMilk will most certainly well apply to the whiteness of the skin; the beautiful ruby to the ruddiness of the flesh; and the sapphire, in its clear transcendent purple, to the veins in a fine complexion. The reverse of this state, as described in the following verse, needs no explanation. The face was a dismal dark brown, the flesh gone, the skin shrivelled, and apparently wrapped round the bones. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children - See on Lam 2:20 (note). But here there is a reference to mothers eating their own children; and this was done, not by mothers cruel and brutal, but by נשים רחמניות nashim rachmaniyoth, the compassionate, the tender-hearted mothers. From these horrible scenes it is well to pass with as hasty a step as possible. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["The kings of the earth - Jerusalem was so well fortified, both by nature and art, that it appeared as a miracle that it should be taken at all. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests - These most wretched beings, under the pretense of zeal for the true religion, persecuted the genuine prophets, priests, and people of God, and caused their blood to be shed in the midst of the city, in the most open and public manner; exactly as the murderous priests, and blood-thirsty preachers, under the reign of bloody Queen Mary, did in England. However, the profligate priests and idolatrous prophets in Jerusalem, only shed the blood of the saints of God there: but the sanguinary papists, in the above reign, burnt the blood here, for they burnt the people alive; and at the same time, in their worse than Molochean cruelty, consigned, with all the fervor peculiar to their then ruthless Church, the souls of those whom they thus massacred, to the bitter pains of eternal death! O earth, cover not thou their blood! \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["They have wandered as blind men in the streets - Rather, \"They ran frantic through the streets, they were stained with blood.\" This was in their pretended zeal for their cause. Bishop Bonner, who was at the head of those sanguinary executions in England, was accustomed to buffet the poor Protestants, when on their examinations they were too powerful for him in argument: - \n\"He proved his doctrine orthodox,\nBy apostolic blows and knocks.\"\nJust as his elder brethren, the false priests and prophets of Jerusalem. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["When they fled away - These priests and prophets were so bad, that the very heathen did not like to permit them to sojourn among them. The prophet now resumes the history of the siege. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["We have watched for a nation - Viz., the Egyptians, who were their pretended allies, but were neither able nor wilting to help them against the Chaldeans. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["We cannot go in our streets - Supposed to refer to the darts and other missiles cast from the mounds which they had raised on the outside of the walls, by which those who walked in the streets were grievously annoyed, and could not shield themselves. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["They pursued us upon the mountains - They hunted down the poor Jews like wild beasts in every part of the country by their marauding parties, whilst the great army besieged Jerusalem. But this may apply to the pursuit of Zedekiah. See what follows. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord - That is, Zedekiah the king, who was as the life or the city, was taken in his flight by the Chaldeans, and his eyes were put out; so that he was wholly unfit to perform any function of government; though they had fondly hoped that if they surrendered and should be led captives, yet they should be permitted to live under their own laws and king in the land of their bondage. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Rejoice and be Lad, O daughter of Edom - A strong irony.\nThe cup also shall pass through unto thee - Thou who hast triumphed in our disasters shalt shortly have enough of thy own. They had joined themselves to the Chaldeans, (see Psa 137:7), and therefore they should share in the desolations of Babylon. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion - On the contrary: Rejoice, O Jerusalem, for thy captivity will soon end; thy sufferings are nearly completed; thou shalt soon return to thy own land: but he will visit thy iniquity, O Edom; he will discover thy sins. When sin is pardoned it is said to be covered: here, God says he will not cover the sins of Edom - he will not pardon them; they shall drink the cup of wrath.\nThe promise in this last verse may refer to Jerusalem under the Gospel. When they receive Christ crucified, they shall be gathered from all nations, become one with the Church among the Gentiles, be one flock under one and the same Shepherd, and shall be carried no more into captivity.\n\n"]}],"introduction":"The present deplorable sate of the nation is now contrasted with its ancient prosperity, Lam 4:1-12; and the unhappy change ascribed, in a great degree, to the profligacy of the priests and prophets, Lam 4:13-16. The national calamities are tenderly lamented, Lam 4:17-20. The ruin of the Edomites also, who had insulted the Jews in their distress, is ironically predicted, Lam 4:21. See Psa 137:7, and Oba 1:10-12. The chapter closes with a gracious promise of deliverance from the Babylonish captivity, Lam 4:22. \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/LAM/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"adam-clarke","book":"LAM","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/LAM/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"adam-clarke","book":"LAM","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/adam-clarke/LAM/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"adam-clarke","book":"LAM","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":18}