{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"LAM","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Lamentations","commonName":"Lamentations","introduction":"In the Hebrew Bible these Elegies of Jeremiah, five in number, are placed among the Chetuvim, or \"Holy Writings\" (\"the Psalms,\" &c., Luk 24:44), between Ruth and Ecclesiastes. But though in classification of compositions it belongs to the Chetuvim, it probably followed the prophecies of Jeremiah originally. For thus alone can we account for the prophetical books being enumerated by JOSEPHUS [Against Apion, 1.1.8] as thirteen: he must have reckoned Jeremiah and Lamentations as one book, as also Judges and Ruth, the two books of Samuel, &c., Ezra and Nehemiah. The Lamentations naturally follow the book which sets forth the circumstances forming the subject of the Elegies. Similar lamentations occur in Sa2 1:19, &c.; Sa2 3:33. The Jews read it in their synagogues on the ninth of the month Ab, which is a fast for the destruction of their holy city. As in Ch2 35:25, \"lamentations\" are said to have been \"written\" by Jeremiah on the death of Josiah, besides it having been made \"an ordinance in Israel\" that \"singing women\" should \"speak\" of that king in lamentations; JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.5.1], JEROME, &c., thought that they are contained in the present collection. But plainly the subject here is the overthrow of the Jewish city and people, as the Septuagint expressly states in an introductory verse to their version. The probability is that there is embodied in these Lamentations much of the language of Jeremiah's original Elegy on Josiah, as Ch2 35:25 states; but it is now applied to the more universal calamity of the whole state, of which Josiah's sad death was the forerunner. Thus Lam 4:20, originally applied to Josiah, was \"written,\" in its subsequent reference, not so much of him, as of the throne of Judah in general, the last representative of which, Zedekiah, had just been carried away. The language, which is true of good Josiah, is too strong in favor of Zedekiah, except when viewed as representative of the crown in general. It was natural to embody the language of the Elegy on Josiah in the more general lamentations, as his death was the presage of the last disaster that overthrew the throne and state.\n\nThe title more frequently given by the Jews to these Elegies is, \"How\" (Hebrew, Eechah), from the first word, as the Pentateuch is similarly called by the first Hebrew word of Gen 1:1. The Septuagint calls it \"Lamentations,\" from which we derive the name. It refers not merely to the events which occurred at the capture of the city, but to the sufferings of the citizens (the penalty of national sin) from the very beginning of the siege; and perhaps from before it, under Manasseh and Josiah (Ch2 33:11; Ch2 35:20-25); under Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah (Ch2 36:3-4, Ch2 36:6-7, Ch2 36:10-11, &c.). LOWTH says, \"Every letter is written with a tear, every word the sound of a broken heart.\" The style is midway between the simple elevation of prophetic writing and the loftier rhythm of Moses, David, and Habakkuk. Terse conciseness marks the Hebrew original, notwithstanding Jeremiah's diffuseness in his other writings. The Elegies are grouped in stanzas as they arose in his mind, without any artificial system of arrangement as to the thoughts. The five Elegies are acrostic: each is divided into twenty-two stanzas or verses. In the first three Elegies the stanzas consist of triplets of lines (excepting Lam 1:7; Lam 2:19, which contain each four lines) each beginning with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in regular order (twenty-two in number). In three instances (Lam 2:16-17; Lam 3:46-51; Lam 4:16-17) two letters are transposed. In the third Elegy, each line of the three forming every stanza begins with the same letter. The stanzas in the fourth and fifth Elegies consist of two lines each. The fifth Elegy, though having twenty-two stanzas (the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet), just as the first four, yet is not alphabetical; and its lines are shorter than those of the others, which are longer than are found in other Hebrew poems, and contain twelve syllables, marked by a cÃ&brvbrsura about the middle, dividing them into two somewhat unequal parts. The alphabetical arrangement was adopted originally to assist the memory. GROTIUS thinks the reason for the inversion of two of the Hebrew letters in Lam 2:16-17; Lam 3:46-51; Lam 4:16-17, is that the Chaldeans, like the Arabians, used a different order from the Hebrews; in the first Elegy, Jeremiah speaks as a Hebrew, in the following ones, as one subject to the Chaldeans. This is doubtful. \n\n\n\nNext: Lamentations Chapter 1\n\n","order":25,"numberOfChapters":5,"sha256":"253f4c267f5a2683cc6751e31f8cf89f77ebaf62c7549df5097da6fa1b4c330e","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LAM/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LAM","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":5,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LAM/5.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LAM","chapter":5},"totalNumberOfVerses":148},"chapter":{"number":5,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Our inheritance--\"Thine inheritance\" (Psa 79:1). The land given of old to us by Thy gift.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["fatherless--Our whole land is full of orphans [CALVIN]. Or, \"we are fatherless,\" being abandoned by Thee our \"Father\" (Jer 3:19), [GROTIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["water for money--The Jews were compelled to pay the enemy for the water of their own cisterns after the overthrow of Jerusalem; or rather, it refers to their sojourn in Babylon; they had to pay tax for access to the rivers and fountains. Thus, \"our\" means the water which we need, the commonest necessary of life. \n\nour wood--In Judea each one could get wood without pay; in Babylon, \"our wood,\" the wood we need, must be paid for.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Literally, \"On our necks we are persecuted\"; that is, Men tread on our necks (Psa 66:12; Isa 51:23; compare Jos 10:24). The extremest oppression. The foe not merely galled the Jews face, back, and sides, but their neck. A just retribution, as they had been stiff in neck against the yoke of God (Ch2 30:8, Margin; Neh 9:29; Isa 48:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["given . . . hand to--in token of submission (see on Jer 50:15). \n\nto . . . Egyptians--at the death of Josiah (Ch2 36:3-4). \n\nAssyrians--that is, the Chaldeans who occupied the empire which Assyria had held. So Jer 2:18. \n\nto be satisfied with bread-- (Deu 28:48).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["(Jer 31:29). \n\nborne their iniquities--that is, the punishment of them. The accumulated sins of our fathers from age to age, as well as our own, are visited on us. They say this as a plea why God should pity them (compare Eze 18:2, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Servants . . . ruled . . . us--Servants under the Chaldean governors ruled the Jews (Neh 5:15). Israel, once a \"kingdom of priests\" (Exo 19:6), is become like Canaan, \"a servant of servants,\" according to the curse (Gen 9:25). The Chaldeans were designed to be \"servants\" of Shem, being descended from Ham (Gen 9:26). Now through the Jews' sin, their positions are reversed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["We gat our bread with . . . peril--that is, those of us left in the city after its capture by the Chaldeans. \n\nbecause of . . . sword of . . . wilderness--because of the liability to attack by the robber Arabs of the wilderness, through which the Jews had to pass to get \"bread\" from Egypt (compare Lam 5:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["As an oven is scorched with too much fire, so our skin with the hot blast of famine (Margin, rightly, \"storms,\" like the hot simoom). Hunger dries up the pores so that the skin becomes like as if it were scorched by the sun (Job 30:30; Psa 119:83).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["So in just retribution Babylon itself should fare in the end. Jerusalem shall for the last time suffer these woes before her final restoration (Zac 14:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["hanged . . . by their hand--a piece of wanton cruelty invented by the Chaldeans. GROTIUS translates, \"Princes were hung by the hand of the enemy\"; hanging was a usual mode of execution (Gen 40:19). \n\nelders--officials (Lam 4:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["young men . . . grind--The work of the lowest female slave was laid on young men (Jdg 16:21; Job 31:10). \n\nchildren fell under . . . wood--Mere children had to bear burdens of wood so heavy that they sank beneath them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Aged men in the East meet in the open space round the gate to decide judicial trials and to hold social converse (Job 29:7-8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["The crown--all our glory, the kingdom and the priesthood (Job 19:9; Psa 89:39, Psa 89:44).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["(Lam 1:22; Lam 2:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["foxes--They frequent desolate places where they can freely and fearlessly roam.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["(Psa 102:12). The perpetuity of God's rule over human affairs, however He may seem to let His people be oppressed for a time, is their ground of hope of restoration.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["for ever--that is, for \"so long a time.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["(Psa 80:3; Jer 31:18). \"Restore us to favor with Thee, and so we shall be restored to our old position\" [GROTIUS]. Jeremiah is not speaking of spiritual conversion, but of that outward turning whereby God receives men into His fatherly favor, manifested in bestowing prosperity [CALVIN]. Still, as Israel is a type of the Church, temporal goods typify spiritual blessings; and so the sinner may use this prayer for God to convert him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Rather, \"Unless haply Thou hast utterly rejected us, and art beyond measure wroth against us,\" that is, Unless Thou art implacable, which is impossible, hear our prayer [CALVIN]. Or, as Margin, \"For wouldest Thou utterly reject us?\" &c.--No; that cannot be. The Jews, in this book, and in Isaiah and Malachi, to avoid the ill-omen of a mournful closing sentence, repeat the verse immediately preceding the last [CALVIN].\n\n\n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Introduction\n\n"]}],"introduction":"EPIPHONEMA, OR A CLOSING RECAPITULATION OF THE CALAMITIES TREATED IN THE PREVIOUS ELEGIES. (Lam. 5:1-22)\n\n(Psa 89:50-51).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LAM/5.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LAM","chapter":5},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/1.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":1},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LAM/4.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LAM","chapter":4},"numberOfVerses":20}