rather be referred to ^^) to ferment, rise into froth; for even in Ps. lv. 9 "i*?n does not mean to be red, but to rise into froth. DW, u bowels/' are the nobler portions of the internal organs of the body, the seat of the affections; cf. Delitzsch's Biblical Psychology (Clark's translation), p. 314 ff. " My heart has turned within me" is an expression used in IIos. xi. 8 to designate the feeling of compassion; but here it indicates the most severe internal pain, which becomes thus agonizing through the consciousness of its being deserved on account of resistance to God. ViD for nn», like to3, Jer. xxii. 10, xxx. 19, etc. Both forms occur together in other verbs also; cf. Olshausen, ( § 245, h [Ewald, § 238, c; Gesen., § 75, Rem. 2]. Bat the judgment also is fearful: for " without (Pn-< foris, i.e. in the streets and the open country) the sword renders childless," through the slaughter of the troops; u within (FP33, in the houses) HISS, like death." It is difficult to account for the use of 3; for neither the 3 of comparison nor the so-called 3 veritatis affords a suitable meaning; and the transposition of the words into mors intus (Rosenrnuller, after Lowe and Wolfsohn) is an arbitrary change. Death, mentioned in connection with the sword, does not mean death in general, but special forms of death through maladies and plagues, as in Jer. xv. 2, xviii. 21, not merely the fever of hunger, Jer. xiv. 18; on the other hand, cf. Ezek. vii. 15, " the sword without, pestilence and hunger within." But the difficulty connected with WRM is not thereby removed. The verb bzv belongs to both clauses; but " the sword" cannot also be the subject of the second clause, of which the nominative must be HISS, " all that is like death," i.e. everything besides the sword that kills, all other causes of death,— pestilences, famine, etc. 3 is used as in niTUM, Dan. x. 18. That this is the meaning is shown by a comparison of the present passage with Deut. xxxii. 25, which must have been before the writer's mind, so that he took the words of the first clause, viz. " without, the sword bereaves," almost as they stood, but changed n»*8 trying* into Tms IV33,— thus preferring
" whtl Is like death," instead of "terror," to describe the cause traction. Calvin long ago hit the sense in bis paraphrase morCss, and the accompanying explanation: utitur nota sumhtudinit, qvari diceret: nihil domi oecurrere niri mortah (mere correctly v.orlijaum). Much light is thrown on the expression by the parallel adduced by Kalkschmidt from JSneid u. 368, 369: crudelU ubique Luetut, ubique j t phrima
From speaking of friends, a transition is made in ver *1 enemies. Regarding the explanation of Rosenmttller, auditint quidem amiei mei, a me imphrati ver. 19, quod g. ■. nno sunt omn, s hos I, Thenius observes that it introduces too much. This remark is still more applicable to his own interpretation: «< People (certainly) hear how I sigh, (yet) I have no comforter." The antithesis introduced by the insertion of «yef destroys the simplicity of arrangement amonffthe clauses, although C. B. Michaelis and Gerlach also explain the passage in the same manner. The subject of the words, •' thev have heard," in the first clause, is not the friends who are.said m ver. 19 to have been called upon for help, nor those designated in the second clause of ver. 21 as « all mine enemies " but persons unnamed, who are only characterized in the second clause as enemies, because they rejoice over the calamity which they have heard of as having befallen Jerusalem. The first clause forms the medium of transition from the faithless friends (ver. 19) to the open enemies (ver. 216); hence the subject is left undefined, so that one may think of friends and enemies. 1 he foes rejoice that God has brought the evil on her The words l»?lon, which follow, cannot also be dependent on <2 ( that Thou hast brought tho day which Thou hast anl nonnced ') inasmuch as the last clause, « and they shall be like me does not harmonize with them. Indeed, Nagelsbach and Gerlach, who assume that this is the connection of the clause « Thou hast brought," etc., take '= Km adversatively: but they shall be like me." If, however, "they shall be" etc, were intended to form an antithesis to « all mine enemies have heard, etc., the former clause would be introduced by nm Ihe mere change of tense is insufficient to prove the point. It must further be borne in mind, that in such a case there would be introduced by the words " and they shall be," etc., a Tew series of ideas, the second great divs.on of the prayer; brS is opposed by the arrangement of the clauses. The second p rtion'of the prayer cannot be attached to the end of he verse. The new series of thoughts begin, rather w th ' Thou hast brought," which the Syriac has rendered by the JerTtlve, venire fac. Similarly Luther translates: "then Zrefo e U* the day come." C. B. Michael* Rosenmuller, Par an, etc, also take the words optatively, referring to the Arabic idiom, according to which a wish is expressed m a vivid manner by the perfect. This optative use of the perfect cer- Tamy cannot be shown to exist in the Hebrew, but perhaps it may be employed to mark what is viewed as cer am to follow, Z which case the Germans use the present. The use of the perfect shows that the occurrence expected is regarded as so certain to happen, that it is represented as i it had already taken place. The perfects in iii. 56-61 are taken in tins sense by nearly all expositors. Similarly we take the clause now before us to mean, « Thou bringest on the day winch Thou hast proclaimed (announced)," i.e. the clay of judgment on the nations, Jer. xxv, « so that they become like me, i.e. so that the foes who rejoice over my misfortune Buffer the same fate as myself. « The clay [which] Thou hast proclaimed 1ms been too specifically rendered in the Vulgate, adduxitti Jam consolationis, probably with a reference of the proclamation to Isa. xl. 2.— After this expression of certainty regarding the coming of a day of punishment for her enemies, there follows, ver 22, the request that all the evil they have done to Jerusalem may come before the face of God, in order that He may punish it (cf. Ps. cix. 15 with ver. 14),— do to thein as He has done to Jerusalem, because of her transgressions. The clause which assigns the reason (" for many are my sighs," etc.) does not refer to that which immediately precedes; for neither the request that retribution should be taken, nor the confession of guilt (" for all my transgressions"), can be accounted for by pointing to the deep misery of Jerusalem, inasmuch as her sighing° and sickness are not brought on her by her enemies, but are the result of the sufferings ordained by God regarding her. The words contain the ground of the request that God old look on the misery (ver. 20), and show to the wretched one the compassion which men refuse her. *Ji '-s is exactly the same expression as that in Jer. viii. 18; cf. also [sa. i..r>. The reason thus given for making the entreaty forms an abrupt terminationj and with these words the sound of lamentation dies away.
CHAP. II. — LAMENTATION OVER THE JUDGMENT OF DESTRUOriON THAT HAS COME ON ZIOM AND THE DESOLATION OF JUDAH.
1 Alas! how the Lord envelopes the daughter of Zion in Bis wrath! He hath cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth;
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, He hath not
Judah; He hath smitten [them] down to the earth. He hath profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He hath cut off, in the burning of wrath, every horn of Israel; He hath drawn back His right hand from before the enemy,
And hath burned among Jacob like a flaming lire, [which] devours round about. •4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy, standing [with] His right hand like an adversary. And He slew all the desires of the eye:
On the tent of the daughter of Zion hath He poured out His fury like fire. 5 The Lord hath become like an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel. He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds, And hath increased on the daughter of Judah groaning and moaning. C And He hath violently treated His own enclosure, like a garden; He hath destroyed His own place of meeting: Jahveh hath caused to be forgotten in Zion the festival and the Sabbath, And in the fierceness of His wrath He hath rejected king and priest.
sanctuary; He hath delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; They have made a noise in the house of Jahveh, as [on] the day of a
8 Jahveh hath purposed to destroy the walls of the daughter of Zion: He hath stretched out a line, He hath not drawn back His hand from
demolishing; And He hath made the rampart and the [city] wall to mourn; they sorrow together.
Her king and her princes are among the nations; there is no law. Her prophets also find no vision from Jahveh.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they are
They have cast up dust upon their head, they have clothed themselves with sackcloth garments: The virgins of Jerusalem have brought down their head to the earth.
My liver is poured out on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people; Because the young child and the suckling pine away in the streets of
12 They said to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they were fainting like one wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul was poured out into the bosom of their mothers.
daughter of Jerusalem V What shall I liken to thee, that I may comfort thee, 0 virgin daughter of Zion? For thy destruction is great, like the sea; who can heal thee?
And have not revealed thine iniquity, to turn thy captivity; But they have seen for thee burdens of vanity, and expulsion.
[saying, " Is] this the city that they call ' The perfection of beauty, a joy of the
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teetli; they say, " We have swallowed [her]; Assuredly this is the day that we have expected; W€ have found [it], we have seen [it]."
He hath executed His word which He commanded from the days of yore: He hath broken down, and hath not spar And He hath made the enemy rejoice over thee; He hath raised up the horn of thine adversaries.
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream by day and by night: Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, wail in the night; at the beginning of the watches, Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thine har^s to Him for the soul of thy young children, That faint for hunger at the head of every street.
0 Jahveh, and consider to whom Thou bast acted thus! Shall women eat their [body's] fruit, the children of their care? Or shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 'llii- boy and the old man lie without, on the ground j Mv virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword ■
This second poem contains a new and more bitter lamentation regarding the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah; and it is distinguished from the first, partly by the bitterness i>{ the complaint, but chiefly by the fact that while, in the first, the oppressed, helpless, and comfortless condition of Jerusalem is the main feature, — here, on the other hand, it is the judgment which the Lord, in His wrath, has decreed against Jerusalem and Judah, that forms the leading thought in the complaint, as is shown by the prominence repeatedly given to the wrath, rage, burning wrath, etc. (ver. 1 ff.). The description of this judgment occupies the first part of the poem (vers. 1-10); then follows, in the second part (vers. 11-19), the lamentation over the impotency of human consolation, and over the scoffing of enemies at the misfortunes of Jerusalem (vers, ll-ll)). It was the Lord who sent this judgment; and it is lie alone who can give comfort and help in this distress. To Him must the daughter of Zion betake herself with her complaint (vers. 17-19); and this she actually does in the concluding portion (vers. 20-22).
Vers. 1-10. Description of the judgment. — Ver. 1. The lamentation opens with sighs for the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The first member of the verse contains the general idea that the Lord Q™, the Lord kclt &;oyr)vi veiT suitably used instead of mrv) has, in His wrath, enveloped Jerusalem with clouds. This thought is particularized in the two members that follow, and is referred to the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple. 2\ir, from 3ty (which is air. \ey. as a verb, and is probably a denominative from 3V, a cloud), signifies to cover or surround with clouds. 13X3 does not mean
"with His wrath" (Ewald, Thenius), but "in His wrath," as is shown by vers. 3, 6, 21, 22. " The daughter of Zion" here means the city of Jerusalem, which in the second member is called " the glory (or ornament) of Israel," by which we are to understand neither res Judceorum florentissimcB in general (Rosenmiiller), nor the temple in special, as the " splendid house," Isa. Ixiv. 10 (Michaelis, Vaihinger). Jerusalem is called the glory or ornament of Israel, in the same way as Babylon in Isa. Ixiv. 10 is called " the glory of the splendour of the Chaldeans" (Thenius, Gerlach). In the figurative expression, " He cast down from heaven to earth," we are not to think there is any reference to a thunderbolt which knocks down an object, such as a lofty tower that reaches to heaven (Thenius); " from heaven " implies that what is to be thrown down was in heaven, as has been already remarked by Raschi in his explanation, postquam sustullsset cos (Jmhros) usque ad avium, eosdem dejecit in terrain, where we have merely to substitute " Jerusalem" for eos, which is too vague. Gerlach has rightly remarked that the expression " cast down from heaven " is to be accounted for by the fact that, in the first member of the verse, Jerusalem is compared to a star, in the same way as Babylon is expressly called a star in Isa. xiv. 12; nay, what is more, Jerusalem is here compared to a star that has fallen from heaven; the reference to that passage thus becomes unmistakeable. Moreover, the casting down from heaven means something more than deprivation of the glory that had come on the city in consequence of God's dwelling in the midst of it (Gerlach); it signifies, besides, the destruction of the city, viz. that it would be laid in ashes. In all this, the Lord has not been thinking of, i.e. paid any regard to, His footstool, i.e. the ark of the covenant (1 Chron. xxviii. 2; Ps. xcix. 5), — not the temple (Ewald), although we cannot think of the ark without at the same thinking of the temple as the house in which it was kept. The ark, and not the temple, is named, because the temple became a habitation of the Lord, and a place where He revealed Himself, only through the ark of the covenant, with which the Lord had graciously connected His presence among His people. It is further implied, in the fact that God does not think of His footstool, that the ark itself was destroyed
Qg with the temple and the city. — Yer. 2. The Lord has destroyed not merely Jerusalem, but the whole kingdom. vu2,
•■ to swallow up," involves the idea of utter annihilation, the fury of destruction, just in the same way as it [viz. the fury]
is peculiar to n")-V, the overflowing of anger. u He hath not spared" forms an adverbial limitation of the previous statement, u unsparingly." The Qeri IW, instead of 10, is an unnecessary and unpoetie emendation. nisr?3, all the pastures of Jacob. According to its etymology, HJJ means a place where shepherds or nomads rest, or stay, or live; here, it is not to be understood specially of the dwellings as contrasted with, or distinguished from the pasture-grounds, but denotes, in contrast with the fortresses (dyss), the open, unfortified places of the country in which men and cattle enjoy food and rest. " The strongholds of the daughter of Judah " are not merely the fortifications of Jerusalem, but the fortresses generally of the country and kingdom of Judah; cf. Jcr. v. 17, xxxiv. 7. H»J P^n, " to cast down to the ground" (used of the pulling down of walls, cf. Isa. xxv. 12), is an epexegesis of Din, as in Ex. xiii. 14, and is not to be joined (in opposition to the accents) with what succeeds, and taken figuratively. For neither does b^n need any strengthening, nor does pNv i^n suitably apply to the kingdom and its princes. The desecration of the kingdom consisted in its being dishonoured by the disgraceful conduct of its rulers; cf. Ps. lxxxix. 40.
In vers. 3 and 4, the writer describes the hostile conduct of the Lord towards Israel, by which the kingdom of Judah was destroyed. Thenius utterly mistakes the poetic character of the description given, and evidently finds in it the several events that occurred up to the taking of the city, all mentioned in their natural order; according to this, the perfects would require to be translated as preterites. But this view can be made out only by giving an arbitrary meaning to the several figures used; e.g., it is alleged that u every horn " means the frontier fortresses, that the expression " before the enemy" refers to the time when the latter turned his face against Jerusalem, and so on. The three members of ver. 3 contain a climax: deprivation of the power to resist; the withdrawal of aid; the necessary consequence of which wras the burning like a flame of fire. " To cut down the horn " means to take away offensive and defensive power; see on Jer. xlviii. 25. " Every horn" is not the same as "all horns," but means all that was a horn of Israel (Gerlach). This included not merely the fortresses of Judah, but every means of defence and offence belonging to the kingdom, including men fit for war, who are neither to be excluded nor (with Le Clerc) to be all that is understood by u every horn." In the expression iW... 3'$}, the suffix, as in taf g, ver. 4, refers to Jahveh, because the suffix joined to T always points back to the subject of the verb y&\; cf. Ps. lxxiv. 11. God drew back His hand before the enemy, i.e. He withdrew' from the people His assistance in the struggle against the enemy. Such is the meaning given long ago by the Chaldee: ncc auxiliatus est populo suo coram hoste. 2piT2 ny;n does not mean "He consumed Jacob;" but He burned (i.e. made a conflagration) in Jacob; for, in every passage in which T£3 is construed with 2, it does not mean to " burn something," but to burn in or among, or to kindle a fire (cf. Job i. 16, where the burning up is only expressed by E^n-> Num. xi. 3, Ps. cvi. 18), or to set something on fire, Isa. xlii. 25. The burning represents devastation; hence the comparison of iV-". with "like fire of flame (= flaming, brightly blazing fire, cf. Isa. iv. 5, Ps. cv. 32) that devours round about.'' The subject of 1V2) is Jahveh, not ira Jovce (Kosenm tiller), or nan? (Neumann), or the enemy (Gerlach). The transition from the perfect with 1 consec. does not cause any change of the subject; this is shown by vers. 4 and 5, where also the second clause is connected with the first by means of 1 consec. But the statement of Gerlach — that if Jahveh and not the enemy be the subject, then the consecutive sentence (the burning among Jacob as the result of the withdrawal of Jahveh' s hand before the enemy) would be inexplicable — gives no evidence of its truth. The kindling or making of the fire in Jacob is, of course, represented as a result of what is previously stated, yet not as the consequence merely of the withdrawal of his hand, but alsp of the cutting off of every horn. In both of these ways, God has kindled in Jacob a fire which grows into a destructive conflagration. — In ver. 4 the idea is still further developed: God not merely delivered up His people to the enemy, leaving them defenceless and helpless, but also came forward Himself to fight against them as an enemy. He bent His bow like a warrior, showing Himself, in reference to His claims, as an adversary or oppressor. The specification ft His right hand" is added, not so much for the purpose of defining more exactly the activity of the right hand sing it to shoot the arrows or wield the sword; cf. I >eut. wxii. if., Ps. vii. 13f.)j as rather with the view of expressing more precisely the hostile attitude of God, since the right hand of God IS at other times represented as the instrument of help. The expression "and He slew," which follows, docs not require ns to think of a sword in the right hand of God, since wo can also kill with arrows. God slew as an enemy; He destroyed everything that was precious in men's Bight, i.e. not merely omnes homines estate, specie, dignitah conspicuos (C. 1>. Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, Thenius); for, in Ps. Ixxviii. 47, inn is also used with reference to the effect of hail on the vine; and the arrows shot from the bow are merely named by synecdoche, and by way of specification, as instruments of war for destruction. Still less can rV^TrHP signify omnia ca templi ornamenta, quibus merito gloriabatur populus (Kalkschmidt), since it is not till ver. 6 ff. that the temple is spoken of. u The word is to be taken in its widest generality, which is indicated by * all;' accordingly, it comprehends everything that can be looked upon as dear," including children (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 25) and the sanctuary, though all these do not exhaust the meaning of the word (Gerlaeh). Upon the tent of the daughter of Zion He poured out His fury in fire. The daughter of Zion means the inhabitants of Jerusalem: her tent is not the temple (Kalkschmidt, Ewald), which is never called the tent of the daughter of Zion, but only that of Jahveh (1 Kings ii. 28, etc.); but her house, i.e. the city as a collection of dwellings. The figure of the outpouring of wrath is often used, not only in Jer. vi. 11, x. 25, xlii. 18, etc., but also in Hos. v. 10, Zeph. iii. 8, Ps. lxix. 25, Ixxvi. 6, etc. — Ver. 5. The Lord has become like an enemy. 2>N3 is not separated from fljfl by the accents (Pesik and Mahpak before, and Kadma after); so that there appears to be nothing to justify the remark of Gerlaeh, that, " as if the prophet were hesitating whether he should state explicitly that the Lord had become an enemy, he breaks off the sentence he had begun, * The Lord hath become
... / and continues, < He hath destroyed like a mighty one.'" As to J&3 cf. ver. 2. "Israel" is the name of Judah viewed as the covenant people. The swallowing or destruction of Israel is explained in the clauses which follow as a destruction of the palaces and fortresses. The mention of the palaces points to the destruction of Jerusalem, while the " fortresses " similarly indicate the destruction of the strong cities in the country. The interchange of the suffixes n1— and V— is accounted for on the ground that, when the writer was thinking of the citadels', the city hovered before his mind; and when he regarded the fortresses, the people of Israel similarly presented themselves. The same interchange is found in Hos. viii. 14; the assumption of a textual error, therefore, together with the conjectures based on that assumption, is shown to be untenable. On the expression, "He hath destroyed his strongholds," cf. Jer. xlvii. 18; on »"WK1 i"1^^, Isa. xxix. 2: in this latter case, two wordforms derived from the same stem are combined for the sake of emphasis. " Daughter of Judah," as in ver. 2, cf. i. 15.
In vers. 6 and 7, mention is made of the destruction of the temple and the cessation of public worship, "lie treated violently (cruelly)," i.e. laid waste, " like a garden, His enclosure." 7]b (from ^ = ^2^ to intertwine, hedge round) signifies a hedge or enclosure. The context unmistakeablv shows that by this we are to understand the temple, or the holy place of the temple; hence!jfc> is not the hedging, but what is hedged in. But the comparison J33 has perplexed expositors, and given occasion for all kinds of artificial and untenable explanations. We must not, of course, seek for the point of the comparison in the ease with which a garden or garden-fence may be destroyed, for this does not accord with the employment of the verb Den; but the garden is viewed as a pleasure-ground, which its owner, if it does not suit its purpose, destroys or gives up again, without much hesitation. The emphasis lies on the suffix in ^t\ "Ms own enclosure," God's enclosure = the sacred enclosure (Gerlach), the sanctuary protected by Himself, protected by laws intended to keep the sanctity of the temple from profanation. The second clause states the same thing, and merely brings into prominence another aspect of the sanctity of the temple by the employment of the word VljtfD. This noun, as here used, does not mean the M time,*1 but the "place of meeting;" this is not, however, the place where the people assemble, but the place of meeting of the Lord with His people, where He shows Himself present, and grants His favour to the congregation appearing before Him. Thus, like 1$B?»jfc, the word signifies the place where God reveals His gracious presence to His people; cf. Ex. \w. 22, and the explanation of WJjffa given in that passage. In the first member of the verse, the temple is viewed as a place sacred to (Jed; in the second, as the place where He specially manifests His gracious presence in Israel. With the destruction of the temple, Jahveh (the covenant God) caused feast and Sabbath, i.e. all public festivals and divine service, to be forgotten. The destruction of the sacred spots set apart for the worship of the Lord was attended with the cessation of the sacred festivals. Thereby it became evident that the Lord, in His fierce anger, had rejected king and priest. The singulars, festival, Sabbath, king, and priest, are used in unrestricted generality. King and priest are regarded as the divinely chosen media of the covenant graces. The abolition of public worship practically involved that of the priesthood, for the service of the priests was connected with the temple. Expositors are much divided in their views regarding the object for which the king is here mentioned in connection with the priest. There is no special need for refuting the opinion of Thenius, that king and priest are named as the two main factors in the worship of God, because the seat of the king was upon Zion as well as that of the priesthood; for the seat of the priests was as little on Mount Zion as the king's palace was on the temple mount. Moreover, the words do not treat of the destruction of the royal palace and the dwellings of the priests, but declare that royalty and the priesthood will be rejected. The mention of the king in connection with the priests implies a close connection also of royalty with the temple. Nagelsbach, accordingly, is of opinion that the kings also belong to the number of those summoned to celebrate the feasts, and were not merely Jehovah's substitutes before the people, but also " representatives of the people before God;" for he adopts the remark of Oehler (in Herzog's Real Enc. viii. S. 12), that " the Israelitish kingdom (especially in David and Solomon) bears a certain sacerdotal character, inasmuch as the king, at the head of the people and in their name, pays homage to God, and brings back ao-ain to the people the blessing of God (2 Sam. vi. 17 ff.; 1 Kings iii. 4, viii. 14 ff., 55 ff., 62 ff., ix. 25; 1 Chron. xxix. 10 ff.; 2 Chron. i. 6, compared with Ezek. xlvi. 1 ff.)." This sacerdotal character of royalty, however, was but the outcome of the sacerdotal character of the people of Israel. In view of this, the king, because of his position as the head of the people in civil matters (for he was prcecipuum ecclesice membrwn), fully brought out the relation of the people to the Lord, without, however, discharging any peculiarly sacerdotal function. The complaint in the present verse, — that, with the destruction of the temple, and the abolition of the service connected with it, Jahveh had rejected king and priest, — implies that royalty in Israel stood in as intimate connection with the temple as the priesthood did. This connection, however, is not to be sought for so much in the fact that it was the incumbent duty of the theocratic king. in the name and at the head of the people, to pay homage to God, and to see that the public worship of Jahveh was upheld; we must rather seek for it in the intimate relation instituted by God between the maintenance of the Davidic monarchy and the building of the house of God. This connection is exhibited in the promise made by God to David, when the latter had resolved to build a house for the Lord to dwell in: lie (Jahveh) shall build a house to him (David), viz. raise up his seed after him, and establish his kingdom for ever; and this seed of David shall build a house to His name (2 Sam. vii. 12 ff.). This promise, in virtue of which Solomon built the temple as a dwelling for the name of Jahveh, connected the building of the temple so closely with the kingdom of David, that this continued existence of the temple might be taken as a pledge of the continuance of David's house; while the destruction of the temple, together with the abolition of the public ministrations, might, on the other hand, serve as a sign of the rejection of the Davidic monarchy. Viewing the matter in this light, Jeremiah laments that, with the destruction of the temple and the abolition of the public festivals, Jahveh has rejected king and priest, i.e. the royal family of David as well as the Levitical priesthood. —In ver. 7, special mention is further made of the rejection of the altar, and of the sanctuary as the centre of divine worship rhe verbs rui and nw are need in Ps. Ixxxix. 39, 40, in connection with the rejection of the Davidic monarchy. "The sanctuary," mentioned in connection with "the altar/' does not moan the temple in general, but its inner sanctuary,— the holy place and the most holy place, as the places of worship corresponding to the altar of the fore-court. The temple-building is designated by - the walls of her palaces." For, that by,Tni:?-iX we are to understand, not the palaces of the city of David thi^ royal palaces, but the towering pile of the temple, is unmistakeably evident from the fact that, both before and after it is the temple that is spoken of,— not its fortifications, the castles specially built for its defence (Thenius); because JtolN does not mean a fortified building, but (as derived from Cnx to be high) merely a lofty pile. Such were the buildings'of t temple in consequence of their lofty situation on Moriah. In the house of Jahveb, the enemy raises a loud cry (£p in: cf Jer. xxii. 20), as on a feast-day. The cry is therefore not a war-cry (Pareau, Rosen muller), but one of jubilee and triumph, as if they had come into the temple to a festival: in Ps. Ixxiv. 4, the word used is JK0, to roar [as a lion]. t The lament over the destruction of the kingdom concludes in vers. 8, 9, by mentioning that the walls of Jerusalem are destroyed; with this the Chaldeans ended the work of demolition. The expression r«r a*n represents this as the execution of a divine decree,-a turn which forms an appropriate introduction to the close of the work of destruction. Raschi makes the following remark concerning this: a longo hide tempore, in ammum induxerat, hanc urhem vastare secundum Mud quod Jer. xxxn. 31 dixit. This intention He has now carried out. The words, << He stretched out the measuring-line," are more exactly determined by what follows, « He withdrew not His hand from destroying; " this shows the extent to which the destruction was carried out. The measuring-line was drawn out for the purpose of determining the situation and direction of buildings (Job xxxviii. 5; Zech. i. 15); but Jahveh applies it also for the purpose of pulling down buildings (2 Kings xxi 13; Isa. xxxiv. 11; Amos vii. 7), in order to indicate that He carries out the destruction with the same precision as that of the builder in finishing his work. The rampart and the wall sorrow over this. &n (from fen) is the rampart, U the low wall with the ditch, surrounding the fortress outside the city wall- cf. 2 Sam. xx. 15, Tsa. xxvi. 1. The gates of the daughter of Zion (i.e. of Jerusalem) are sunk into the earth, i e have been completely buried under rubbish by the demolition as if they had sunk into the ground. The subject to 13^5 13K is Jahveh. The bars of the daughter of Zion are those with which the city gates were closed, for the protection of the inhabitants. With the destruction of Jerusalem the kingdom of God is destroyed. King and princes are among the heathen,— carried away into exile. It must, indeed, be allowed that nnin pK is connected by the accents with what precedes; and'Gerlach defends the construction, " they are among the heathen without law,"— not only agreeing with Kalkschmidt in taking nnin p« as a designation of the D*l as ethnicij—ad gentes, quibua divina nulla erat revelatio, — but also with Luther, who translates: "her king and her princes are among the heathen, because they cannot administer the law," or generally, have it not. But, on the other hand, the accents merely indicate the stichometrical arrangement, not the relation of the words according to their sense; and the remark, " that ver. %c sets forth the fate of the persons who stood to the city in the relation of helpers and counsellors or comforters (her king, her prophets), of whose help (counsel, or comfort) the city was deprived, as well as of the external means of defending her" (first member), proves nothing at all, for the simple reason that the priests also belonged to the number of the helpers, counsellors, and comforters of the city; hence, if this were the meaning, and the two halves of the verse were meant to stand in this relation, then the priests would certainly have been mentioned also. The second half of the verse is not connected with the first in the manner supposed by Gerlach; but, from the whole preceding description of the way in which the divine wrath has been manifested against Jerusalem, it draws this conclusion: " Judah has lost its king and its princes, who have been carried away among the heathen: it has also lost the law and prophecy." "Law" and u vision " are mentioned as both media of divine revelation. The law is the usalem and of the temple, the divinely appointed constitution of Israel was abolished and destroyed. Prophecy v the constant witness to the presence of God among His people; by this means the Lord sought to conduct [srael to the object of their election and calling, and to lit them for becoming a a preterite, hut the expression of an accomplished fact. The phets of the daughter of Zion no longer obtain any vision or revelation from Jah\eh: the revelation of God by proph has ceased for Zion. The words imply that there are still,>hets, and merely affirm that they do not receive any
I from God. This is not opposed to the fact that Jeremiah, some months after the destruction of Jerusalem, again received a revelation: cf. Jer. xlii. 1 with ver. 7. The meaning of the complaint is simply that Jahveh no longer owns His people, no longer gives them a token of His gracious presence, just as it is said in Pa. lxxiv. 9, "There is no more any prophet." But it is not thereby declared that prophecy has altogether and for ever been silenced, but merely that, when Jerusalem was destroyed, Israel received no prophetic communication, — that God the Lord did not then send them a message to comfort and sustain them. The revelation which Jeremiah (xlii. 7) received regarding the determination of the people who sought to flee to Egypt, has no connection with this at all, for it does not contain a word as to the future destiny of Jerusalem. Hence it cannot be inferred, with Thenius, from the words now before us, that the present poem was composed before that revelation given in Jer. xlii. 7 ff.; nor yet, with Niigelsbach, that the writer had here before his mind the condition of the great mass of the people who had been carried away into exile. Neither, indeed, were the people in exile without prophetic communications; for, even so early as six years before the overthrow of Jerusalem, God had raised up to the exiles a prophet in the person of Ezekiel. — Ver. 10. The whole of the people have sunk into deep sorrow over this misfortune. The elders, as the counsellors of the city, sit on the ground in silence, from deep sorrow; cf. Job ii. 8, 13, and
Vers..11-16. The impotence of human comfort, and the mockery of enemies. Ver. 11 f. The misery that has befallen the people is so fearful, that sorrow over it wears out one's life. " Mine eyes pine away because of tears," is the complaint of the prophet, not merely for himself personally, but in the name of all the godly ones. " Mine eyes pine " is the expression used in Ps. Ixix. 4. On W ^91»n, cf. i. 20. The expression, "my liver is poured out on the earth," occurs nowhere else, and is variously explained. That the liver is fons sanguinis, and thus the seat of the animal life (Rosenmiiller, Thenius), cannot be made out from Prov. vii. 23. This passage rather forms a proof that among the Hebrews, according to a view widely prevalent in ancient times, the liver was considered the seat of sensual desire and lust (cf. Delitzsch's Bib, Psychology, Clark's translation, p. 316). But this view is insufficient as an explanation of the passage now before us. Besides, there are no proofs to show that "liver " is used for " heart," or even for "gall," although Job xvi. 13 is unwarrantably adduced in support of this position. A closely related expression, certainly, is found in Job xxx. 16, Ps. xlii. 5, where the soul is said to be poured out; but the liver is different from Btoj, the principle of the corporeal life. If the liver was called "133 because, according to Galen, de usu partium, vi. 17 (in Gesen. The*, p. 655), omnium vise erum et densissimum ct g 'mum est, then it may be regarded, instead of DW, as the chief bodily organ through which not merely lust, but also pain, is felt; and the pouring out of the liver on the earth may thus mean that the inner man is dissolved in pain and sorrow, — perishes, as it were, through pain. For it is evident from the context, and universally admitted, that it is the effect of pain in consuming the bodily organs that is here meant to be expressed. *©£, na "OP is a genuine Jeremianic expression (cf. Jer. vi. 14, viii. 11, 21, etc.), which again occurs in ver. 13, iii. 47, 48, and iv. 10. In what follows, some harrowing details are given regarding the destruction of the daughter of Zion. W3 for WVtt, while (or because) children and sucklings were pining away on the of the city. This figure of heartrending misery is further carried out in ver. L2, for the purpose of vividly Bettins forth the terrible distress. Gerlach is wrong in thinking that the writer brings forward such sad scenes as would be likely to present themselves in the period immediately after the destruction of the city. For, the fact that, in ver. 10, the i of the mourner is directed to the present, is far from being:i proof that vers, lie and 12 also treat of the present; and the imperfect ^P^%, ver. L2, is not parallel in time with ttB^, \ 12, but designates the repetition of the action in past time. "The children say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?" Give us bread and wine, or, Where can we eat and drink 1 Corn and must (as in Jer. xxxi. 12, etc.) are mentioned as the usual means of nourishment of tin* Israelites. |J^, "corn," is used poetically for bread (ef. Ps. Ixxviii. 24), — not pounded or roasted grain, which was used without further preparation (Thenius), and which is called 7J5, Lev. xxiii. 14, 1 Sam. xvii. 17, 2 Sam. xvii. '28. The sucklings poured out their soul, i.e. breathed out their life, into the bosom of their mothers, 1.6, hugging their mothers, although these could not <jive them nourishment; cf. iv. 4. — Ver. lo. Against such terrible misery, human power can give neither comfort nor help. " What shall I testify to you?" The Kethib TW* is a mistake in transcription for ^TV5*. (Q'->'0> because liy is not commonly used in the Kal. TP, to bear witness, is mostly construed with 3, against or for any one, but also with ace, 1 'Kings xxi. 10, 13, in malam, and Job xxix. 11, in bonam partem. Here it is used in the latter sense: " give testimony to thee " for the purpose of instruction and comfort, — not of a calamity that has happened elsewhere, as Calvin and Thenius explain, though against the construction of the verb with the accus.; still less " to make one swear" (Gesenius, Ewald). That the prophetic witness is meant here in the sense of encouragement by instruction, warning, and comfort, is evident from the mention of the testimony of the false prophets in ver. 14. "What shall I compare to thee?" i.e. what kind of misfortune shall I mention as similar to yours? This is required by the principle derived from experience: solamen miseris socios habuisse malorum. 3?[j3^, " tna^ ^ mav comf°rk thee." The reason assigned viz. "for thy destruction is great, like the sea" (i.e. immense) follows the answer, understood though not expressed,
-Ver 14. From her prophets, Jerusalem can expect neither comfort nor healing. For they have brought this calamity upon her through their careless and foolish prophesying* Those meant are the false prophets, whose conduct Jeremiah frequently denounced; cf. Jer. ii. 8, v. 12, vi. 13 f., viii. 10, xiv. 14 f., xxiii. 17, 32, xxvii. 10, 15. They prophesied vanity, — peace when there was no peace —and ten, " absurdity," = rfen Jer. xxiii. 13. They did not expose the Bin and guilt of the people with the view of their amendment and improvement, and thereby removing the misery into which they had fallen by their sin; nor did they endeavour to restore the people to their right relation towards the Lord, upon which their welfare depended, or to avert their being driven into exile. On rVQ^ ^y;n, cf. Jer. xxxii. 41. The meaning of this expression, as there unfolded, applies also to tli now before us;
bach), or to " ward off thy captivity'' (Luther, Thenius), is neither capable of vindication nor required by the context. Instead of healing the injuries of the people by discovering their sins, they have seen (prophesied) for them ntafeD, "burdens," Lc. utterances of threatening import (not tffaia; see on Jer. xxiii. 33), which contained w£ u emptiness," and ~~ " rejection." The combination of M emptiness" with " burdens'' does not prevent the latter word from bring applied to threatening oracles; for the threats of the false prophets did not re: to Judah, but were directed against the enemies of Israel, 1 instance, that they might promise the people speedy deliverance from exile, they placed the downfall of the Chaldean power in immediate prospect; cf. Jer. xxviii. 2-1, 11. D*rOTO is air. \ey. as a noun, and is also dependent on "burdens" (cf. Ewald, § 289, c): it signifies ejection from the land, not u persecution " (Rosenmuller, Gesenius, Ewald, etc.), for Jeremiah uses rn: (in Niph. and Hiph.) always in the sense of rejection, expulsion from the country; and the word has here an unmistakeable nee to Jer. xxvii. LO, L5: "They prophesy lies to you, that they may eject you from your country." — Ver. 15 P. and enemies have, for the misfortune of Jerusalem, only expressions of scorn and delight over her loss. u Th< who pass by the way" are strangerswho trawl past Jerusalem. 1 clap the hands together is not here a gesture betokening anger and disinclination (Num. wiv. LO), but of delight over the injury of others, as in Job xxvii. 23. ~~-\ to hiss, is an ion of scorn; see on Jer. xix. 8. The same is true as regards the shaking of the head: cf. Ps. x\ii. 8, cix. 25. etc.: the expression for this, in Jer. xviii. 16, is B^h? Tjn, The exclamation, "Is this the city which they call 'perfect in beauty' '. " is an expression of scornful astonishment. IB' n^kr is substantially the same as ^ s— '-\ Ps, I. l}, when' the expression is applied to Zion; in Ezek. xxvii o the same is said of Tyre. That Jeremiah had P8. I. 2 in his mind is shown by the apposition, ua joy of the whole earth/1 which is taken from l\s. xlviii. 3, — Ver. L6. The enemy in triumph expr their joy over the fall of Jerusalem. The opening of the mouth (as in Ps. xxxv. 21, Job xvi. 10), taken in connection with what follows, is also a gesture peculiar to scornful speech. The gnashing of the teeth (Ps. xxxv. 16, xxxvii. 12; Job xvi. 9) is here an expression of rage that has hurst out. The object of " we have swallowed" is to be derived from the context (''against thee"), viz. the city of Jerusalem. "Surely this" is a strong asseveration — "this is the very day." The asyndetic collection of the three verbs accords with the impassioned character of the enemy's speech. "To see" is here equivalent to living to see.
Vers. 17-19. In this calamity, which Jahveh has ordained, it is only He who can bring comfort and help; [and this He will do], if earnest and incessant complaint be made to Him regarding the misery. In order to turn the thoughts of the people in this direction, the prophet lays emphasis on the fact that God has now executed this destruction which He has threatened long before, and has prepared for the triumph of the enemy. " Jahveh hath done what He hath purposed," has now performed the word which He has commanded all along from the days of yore. Zechariah (i. 6) also lays this truth before the heart of his contemporaries. XWa, to cut off, is used metaphorically in the sense of finishing, completing, as in Isa. x. 12, Zech. iv. 9. To fulfil a word that has been ordered, signifies to execute it. nw does not mean to announce, but to command, order; the word has been chosen, not merely with reference to the fact that the threatened rejection of Israel was announced in the law, but also with regard to the circumstance that the threat of punishment for sins is an evidence of the moral government of the world, and the holiness of the Lord and Ruler of the world demands the punishment of every act of rebellion against the government and decrees of God. "The days of old" are the times of Moses; for Jeremiah has before his mind the threatenings of the law, Lev. xxvi. 23 ff., Dent, xxviii. 15 ff. " Without sparing," as Jeremiah (iv. 28) has announced to the people. In the following clause, "He hath made thine enemy rejoi over thee," thoughts are reproduced from Ps. lxxxix. 43. To " exalt the horn" means to grant power and victory; cf. 1 Sam. ii. 1, Ps. lxxv. 5. — Ver. lb. When it is Been that the Lord has appointed the terrible calamity, the people are driven to pray for mercy. Hence ver. 18 foil t not at once with the summons to prayer, but with the assertion of the fact that this actually takes place: u their heart cries out unto the Lord;" and it is not till after this that there follows the summons to entreat Him incessantly with tears. The perfect PJNf represents the crying as already began, and reaching on to the present (cf. Ewald, § 135, A), for which we use the present in German [and in English]. That the suffix in " their heart "does not point to the enemies mentioned at the close of ver. 17, but to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, is indubitably evident from what is substantially stated in the clause, viz. that crying to the Lord merely indicates the crying to God for help in distress. There is no sufficient reason for Ewald's change of D3> pyy into *J3& \?V>', " outcries of thine heart," i.e. let the cry of thine heart sound forth; still 1 ground is there for the conjecture of Thenius, that EZip should be changed into D3H, because this is opposed to the following summons to implore help: other more unnatural changes in the text -it were needless to mention. The following clauses,
• i> wall ii the daughter of Zion," etc., do not Btate lmw her ut lias cried tnd ^t i 1 1 criea to the Lord, but bid her cond implorinj. Several expositors have takeu objection to the direct address, uO wall of the daughter of Zion," and have sought to remove the difficulty by making con jectui Hence, rhenius ^ t i 1 1 holds that there is good ground for the objection, saying that there is a wide difference between the poetic expression, "the wall mourns" (ver. 8), and the summons, " 0 wall, let tears run dovi n." This difference cannot be denied, yet such personification is not without analogy. A similar summons is found in Isa. xiv.;>1: u Howl, () gate" Ha), It is self-evident that it is not the wall simply as such that is considered, hut everything besides connected with it, so that the wall is named instead of the city with its inhabitants, just as in Isa. xiv. 31 gate and city are synonymous. Hence, also, all the faculties of those residing within the wall (eyes, heart, hands) may be> ascribed to it, inasmuch as the idea of the wall easily and naturally glides over into that of the daughter of Zion. The expression, " Let tears run down like a stream," is a hyperbole used to indicate the exceeding greatness of the grief. u By day and night" is intensified by the clauses which follow: ''give not," i.e. grant not. SJ/ n:^ u torpidity (stagnation) to thyself." The noun nr.3 is air. Xey., like WW, iii. 49; the verb;=!», however, occurs in Gen. xxv. '26 and Ps, lxxvii. 3, where it is used of the torpidity of the vital spirits, stagnation of the heart. The expression in the text is a poetic one for SJTO*B: "do not permit thy numbness,".i.e. let not thy flood of tears dry up; cf. Ewald, § 289, b. T> rin is the eyeball, not the tears (Pareau); cf. Ps. xvii. 8. tflfi comes from DOT, to be still, as in Jer. xlvii. 6. On the thought here presented, cf. Jer. xiv. 17. — Ver. 19. |3") (prop, to raise a whining cry, but commonly "to shout for joy") here means to weep aloud, lament, nhpirs *C'N"ip, at the beginning of the night-watches (cf. Judg. vii. 19); not "in the first nightwatch' ' (Kalkschmidt, following Bochart and Niigelsbach), but at the beginning of each night-watch, i.e. throughout the night; cf. Ps. Ixiii. 7. " Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord," i.e. utter the sorrow of thine heart in tears to the Lord. The uplifting of the hands is a gesture indicative of prayer and entreaty (cf. Ps. xxviii. 2, lxiii. 5, etc.), not " of the deepest distress" (Thenius). ytyV VBp$ does not mean pro vita parvulorum tuorum, that God may at least preserve them (Rosenmuller, Gerlach), but "on account of the soul of thy children," which is more distinctly stated, in the following relative sentence, to mean that they have breathed out their soul through hunger. On this matter, cf. ver. 11 and the exposition of that verse. Ewald has placed the last member of the verse within parentheses, as an interpolation, on the ground that a fourth member offends against the law observed in these verses; on the other hand, Thenius is of opinion that the words do not form a member of the verse by themselves, but a mere prolongation of the third, "because the conclusion of the prophet's address, begun in ver. l\\ was certainly intended to be a complete finish." But the deviation from the rule is not thereby accounted for. Inasmuch as the wordfl are essential to the expression of the thought, wi must simply acknowledge the irregularity, and not arbitrarily cast suspicion on the genuineness of the words.
Vers. 20-22. In ver. 20 follows the prayer which the city has been commanded to make. The pray< before the mind of the Lord the tenable misery under which Jerusalem suffers. The question, u To whom hast Thou acted tin, does not mean, "What innocent and godly ones are bring sacrificed!" (Thenius), but u to what nation?" — not a heathen one, but the people of Thy choice, to whom all Thy blessed promises have been given (Nagelsbach). This It clear from the reasons given in the question, in which the murder of the priests and prophets in the sanctuary of the Lord is brought forward. But first there is mentioned a case of inhuman conduct, prom by necessity, viz. that women, in the extreme destitution of hunger, have been constrained to eat the fruit of their body, their beloved children. CN... cs* m this case, introduce a disjunctive epiestion, but merely an indirect question in two parts. In view of such inhuman cruelties and such d cration of His sanctuary, God cannot remain inactive. The meaning of the question is not: cstne hoc unquam fando auditurn, quod apud nos factum est, or, quod matret fame eo adacta fuerint, ut suos fains comedereni (C. B. Michaelis, Rosenmuller).
I. It! in"! whether something could happen in.1 certain way, while it is implied that it has actually curred already. ^'"^ baa the maac. instead of the fern, suffix, as prett [uently happ I Fruit of their bodies is meant, as the LXX. have rightly rendered; but tl no on for making this the ground of alterations in the t« The expression "their fruit," indefinite in itself, is immediately rendered definite by D^nno v The last word is ■ verbal noun from rtBQ (ver. 22), which again is a denominative from neo, and means to hoar on the hands, to care for tenderly. Both words occur only in this passage. The Israelites, more- r, had been threatened with this inhuman outrage as the moat extreme form of divine chastisement, Lev.xxvi. 26, Dent, wviii. 56: cf, Jer, \i\. 9. While this abomination is opposed the moral order of the world instituted by G I, the other the murder of the priests and prophets in the sanctuary) is a violation of the covenant-order which the Lord ba I given His people N ither of these arrangements can God consent to abolish. Therein is implicitly contained the request that He would put an end to the misery into which His people have fallen. This request, however, is not expressly stated; then merely complaint made to G irding the terrible misery.
From the massacre in the temple, the lamentation passes to the bloodshed on the streets of the city, in which neither age nor B x was spared; cf. Jer. vi. 11. nfofln is a local accus., "through the streets," along the streets. — Ver. 22. The imperf. KJpfl has perhaps been chosen merely for the sake of the alphabetic arrangement, because the description is still continued, and the idea of custom (wont) or repetition is not very suitable in the present instance. " Thou summonest, as for a feast-day (viz. for the enemy, cf. i. 15), all my terrors round about." HUO MDB is to be explained in conformity with the formula MOD "riJO, so frequent in Jeremiah (vi. 25, xx. 4, 10, etc.): *WD is therefore to be derived from ">UO, but not to be confined in its reference to the enemy (as in the Vulgate, qui terrent); it is rather to be understood as applying to all the terrible powers that had come upon Judah, — sword, famine, plagues (cf. i. 20). On the ground that D^UO elsewhere means wandering, pilgrimage, and that, moreover, the sing, "fao in Ps. lv. 16 signifies a dwelling, Ewald translates the expression in the* text, " my hamlets round about," understanding by that the inhabitants of the defenceless country towns and villages, which stand to the capital that gave them its protection in the relation of settlers in its neighbourhood (LXX. wdpoucoi). According to this view, the verse alludes to an important event which took place in those days of the siege, when all the inhabitants of the country towns fled to the capital, thinking that a great festival was going to be held there, as on former occasions; but this became at last for them the great festival of death, when the city was taken. But the translation of the LXX. is of no authority, since they have given a false rendering of y^P "fa? also; and the whole explanation is so artificial and unnatural, that it needs no farther refutation. Raachi, indeed, had previously explained TOO to mean WV, vicinoi but added improbos, \d sett congregarent a i ad per- dendum. Notwithstanding this, DTOD, « wandering" and w place of sojourn," cannot denote the country towns as distinguished from the capital; nor can the flight of the inhabitants of the low-lying regions into the capital be fitly called a summoning together^of them by the Lord, The combination TTfen D?! is used as in Jcr. xlii. 17, xliv. 11. For HID, see on vur. 20. With the complaint that no one could escape the judgment,— that the enemy dared to murder even the children whom she [Jerusalem] had carefully nourished and brought up, — the poem concludes, like the first, with deep sorrow, regarding which all attempts at comfort are quite unavailing (Gerlach).
7 He hath hedged me about, so that I cannot get out; He hath made
19 Remember my o 1 my j i reecation, wormwood and poison. My boo] remembereth [tln-m] indeed, and sinketh down in me.
It is a sign of] the mercies of Jahveh that wo arc not consumed, for His compassions fail o<
Hun. 26 It is good that [one] should wait, and that in silence, for the salvation of Jahveh. It is good for man that he should bear a yoke in his youth.
SO Let him give [his] cheek to him that smites him, let hiiu be filled with reproach.
31 Because the Lord will not cast off for ever:
37 Who hath spoken, and it was done, [which] the Lord commanded not? Doth not evil and good come out of the mouth of Jahveh?
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
51 Mine eye causeth pain to my soul, because of all the daughters of my
54 Waters overflowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
56 Thou hast heard my voice; hide not Thine ear at my sighing, at my
63 Behold their sitting down and their rising up: I am their satire.
The two preceding poems ended with sorrowful complaint. This third poem begins with the complaint of a man over grievous persona] suffering. Regarding the contents of this poem, and its relation to the two which precede, Ewald makes the following excellent remarks: uIn consequence of experiences most peculiarly his own, the individual may indeed at first make complaint, in such a way that, as here, still deeper despair for the third time begins (vers. 1-18); but, by the deepest meditation for himself on the eternal relation of God to men, he may also very readily come to the due acknowledgment of his own sins and the necessity for repentance, and thereby also to believing prayer. Who is this individual that complains, and thinks, and entreats in this fashion, whose I passes unobserved, but quite appropriately, into we? O man, it is the very image of thyself! Every one must now speak and think as he does. Thus it is just by this address, which commences in the most doleful tones, that sorrow for the first time, and imperceptibly, has passed into true prayer." This remark contains both the deepest truth and the key to the proper understanding of the contents of this poem, and its position in the middle of the Lamentations. Both of these points have been mistaken by expositors, who (e.g. V. 1>. Michaelis, Pareau, Maurer, Kalkschmidt, and Bleek in his Introduction) are of opinion that the writer here makes his personal sufferings the subject of complaint. This cannot be made out, either from ver. 14 or from the description given in ver. 53 ff.: the reverse rather is shown by the fact that, in vers. 22 and 40-47, we is used instead of I; from which it is evident that the prophet, in the remainder of the poem, is not speaking of himself, or bewailing his own personal sufferings. The confession found in ver. 42, "We have transgressed and rebelled, Thou hast not pardoned," etc., necessarily presupposes not only that the dealing of God towards the sinful and apostate nation, as described in ver. 42 ff., stands in the closest connection with the sufferings of which the prophet complains in vers. 1-18, but also that the chastisement, by means of God's wrath, which was experienced by the man who utters his complaint in vers. 1-18, is identical with the anger which, according to ver. 43, discharged itself on the people; hence the suffering of the individual, which is described in vers. 1-18, is to be regarded as the reflex of but a special instance of the suffering endured by the whole community. Perhaps this was the view of Aben Ezra, when he says that, in this lamentation it is individual Israelites who speak; and most expositors acknowledge that the prophet pours forth his lamentations and his prayers in the name of the godly.
The poem begins by setting forth the grievous soul-sufferings of the godly in their cheerless and hopeless misery (vers. 1-18); then it ascends, through' meditation upon the compassion and almighty providence of God, to hope (vers. 19-39), and thus attains to the recognition of God's justice in sending the punishment which, however, is so intensified through the malice of enemies, that the Lord cannot pass by the attempt to crush His people (vers. 40-54). This reliance on the justice of God impels to prayer, in which there is manifested confidence that God will send help, and take vengeance on the enemy (vers. 55-60).
Vers. 1—18. Lamentation over grievous sufferings. The author of these sufferings is not, indeed, expressly named in the whole section, but it is unmistakeably signified that God is meant; moreover, at the end of ver. 18 the name rw is mentioned. The view thus given of the sufferings shows, not merely that he who utters the complaint perceives in these sufferings a chastisement by God, but also that this chastisement has become for him a soul-strugule, in which he may not take the name of God into his mouth; and only after he has given vent in lamentations to the deep sorrow of his soul, does his spirit get peace to mention the name of the Lord, and make complaint to Him of his need. Nothing certain can be inferred from the lamentations themselves regarding the person who makes complaint. It does not follow from vers. 1-3 that he was burdened with sorrows more than every one else; nor from ver. 14 that he was a personage well known to all the people, so that one could recognise the prophet in him. As little are they sufferings which Jeremiah has endured alone, and for his own sake, but sufferings such as many godly people of his time have undergone and struggled through. Against the Jeremianic authorship of the poem, therefore, no argument can be drawn from the fact that the personality of him who utters the complaint is concealed.
Ver. 1 ff. In the complaint, " I am the man that saw (i.e. lived to see) misery," the misery is not specified; and we cannot, with RosenmUller, refer OJj (without the article) to the misery announced by the prophet long before. a The rod of
His wrath," as in Prov. xxii. 8, is the rod of God's anger; cf. Jub xxi. 9, ix. 84j I^a. x. 5, etc. The suffix in ^3$ is not to be referred, with Aben Ezra, to the enemy. — Ver. 2. " Me hath He (God) led and brought through darkness Olgfy local aceus.), and not light,'1* is a combination like that in Job xii. 25 and Amos v. 18. The path of Jeremiah's life certainly lay through darkness, but was not wholly devoid of light, because God had promised him His protection for the discharge of his official functions. The complaint applies to all the godly, to whom, at the fall of Jerusalem, no light appeared to cheer the darkness of life's pathway. — Ver. 3. " Only upon (against) me does He repeatedly turn His hand." 3W5^ is subordinated to the idea of?]brr in an adverbial sense; cf. Gesenius, § 142, 3, b. u His hand " is the smiting hand of God. 1JK, " only upon me," expresses the feeling which makes him on whom grievous sufferings have fallen to regard himself as one smitten in a special manner by God. " The whole day," i.e. continually; cf. i. 13. — From ver. 4 onwards this divine chastisement is more minutely set forth under various figures, and first of all as a wasting away of the vital force. H?3 means to wear out by rubbing, cause to fall away, from n?3? to be worn out, which is applied to clothes, and then transferred to bodies, Job xiii. 28, Ps. xlix. 15. " Flesh and skin" are the exterior and soft constituents of the body, while the bones are the firmer parts. Skin, flesh, and bones together, make up the substance of the human body. Prov. v. 11 forms the foundation of the first clause. " He hath broken my bones" is a reminiscence from the lamentation of Hezekiah in Isa. xxxviii. 13; cf. Ps. li. 10, Job xxx. 17. The meaning is thus excellently given by Pareau: indicantur animi, fortius irce divines malorumque sensu conquassati, angores. — The figure in ver. 5, " He builds round about and encircles me," is derived from the enclosing of a city by besieging it. vV is to be repeated after *|g3. The besieging forces, which encompass him so that he cannot go out and in, are mbm t$>*h. That the former of these two words cannot mean icefyakrjv fiov (LXX.), is abundantly evident. Wth or ty'Vi is a plant with a very bitter taste, hence a poisonous plant; see n^n, " toil," is remarkable, as a case in which a figurative is joined with a literal expression; this, however, does not justify the change of Hfc6jn into TO? (Castell, Schleussner, etc.). The combination is to be explained on the ground that Wlh had become so common a symbol of bitter suffering, that the figure was quite lost sight of behind the thing signified. — Ver. 6 is a verbatim reminiscence from Ps. cxliii. 3c. D*3KTO is the darkness of the grave and of Sheol; cf. Ps. Ixxxviii. 7, D^iy "TiD does not mean "the dead of antiquity" (Rosenmiiller, Maurer, Ewald, Thenius, etc.), but, as in Ps. cxliii. 3, those eternally dead, who lie in the long night of death, from which there is no return into this life. In opposition to the explanation dudum mortuiy Gerlach fittingly remarks, that " it makes no difference whether they have been dead long ago or only recently, inasmuch as those dead and buried a short time ago lie in darkness equally with those who have long been dead;" while it avails nothing to point to Ps. Ixxxviii. 5-7, as Niigelsbach does, since the special -subject there treated of is not those who have long been dead. — Ver. 7. God has hedged him round like a prisoner, cut off all communication from without, so that he cannot escape, and He has loaded him with heavy chains. This figure is based on Job xix. 8 and Hos. ii. 8. *"!Jja "n?, " He hath made an hedge round me," does not suggest prison walls, but merely seclusion within a confined space, where he is deprived of free exit. " I cannot go out," as in Ps. Ixxxviii. 9. The seclusion is increased by fetters which are placed on the prisoner. riBTD, " brass," for fetters, as in German [and English], " irons," for iron chains.— Ver. 8. This distress presses upon him all the more heavily, because, in addition to this, the Lord does not listen to his prayer and cries, but has rather closed His ear; cf. Jer. vii. 16, Ps. xviii. 42, etc. uny for BriD (oniv written here with p), to stop the prayer; i.e. not to prevent the prayer from issuing out of the breast, to restrain supplication, but to prevent the prayer from reaching His ear; cf. ver. 44 and Prov. i. 28. In ver. 9, the idea of prevention from freedom of action is further carried out on a new side. " He hath walled in my paths with hewn stones." rp?3 = JVU ♦pSK, 1 Kings v. 31, are hewn stones of considerable size, employed for making a very strong wall. The meaning is: He has raised up insurmountable obstacles in the pathway of my life. " My paths hath He turned)'1 ui* rendered snch that I cannot walk in them, njp is to turn, in the sense of destroying, as in Isa. xxiv. 1, not contortas i (MichaeliSj Rosenmiiller, Kalkschmidt), nor per clam tortuosam ire eogor (Kaschi); for the prophet does nut mean to Bay (as Nagelsbach imagines), u that he has been compelled to walk in wrong and tortuous ways," but he means that God has rendered it impossible for him to proceed further in his path; ef. Job xxx. 13. But we are not in this to think of the levelling of a raised road, as Thenius does; for 'ISTO does not mean a road formed by the deposition of rubbish, like a mound, but a footpath, formed by constant treading (Gerlach). — Ver. 10. Not merely, however, has God cut off every way of escape for him who here utters the complaint, but He pursues him in every possible way, that He may utterly destroy him. On the figure of a bear lying in wait, cf. Hos. xiii. 8, Amos v. 19. It is more usual to find enemies compared to lions in ambush; cf. Ps. x. 19, xvii. 12. The last-named passage seems to have been present to the writer's mind. The prophets frequently compare enemies to lions, e.g. Jer. v. 6, iv. 7, xlix. 19, 1. 44. — In ver. 11 the figure of the lion is discontinued; for ~niD Wl cannot be said of a beast. The verb here is not to be derived from "no, to be refractory, but is the Pilel of "viD, to go aside, deviate, make to draw back. To "make ways turn aside" may signify to make a person lose the right road, but not to drag back from the road (Thenius); it rather means to mislead, or evenfacere ut deficiant vice, to take away the road, so that one cannot escape. n'J'S is air. \e<y. in Hebrew; in Aramean it means to cut or tear in pieces: cf. [the Targum on] 1 Sam. xv. 33, " Samuel n^a Agag," hewed him in pieces; and on Ps. vii. 3, where the word is used for the Heb. P"}3, to tear in pieces (of a lion); here it signifies to tear away (limbs from the body, boughs from trees). This meaning is required by the context; for the following expression, DW ^pb, does not lead us to think of tearing in pieces, lacerating, but discerpere, plucking or pulling to pieces. For Dpi^, see on i. 13, 16.— Ver. 12. " He hath bent His bow," as in ii. 4. The second member, " He hath made me the mark for His arrows," is taken almost verbatim from Job xvi. 12. The arrows are the ills and sorrows appointed by God; cf. Deut. xxxii. 23, Ps. xxxviii. 3, Job vi. 4.— Ver. 14. " Abused in this way, he is the object of scoffing and mockery" (Gerlach). In the first clause, the complaint of Jeremiah in xx. 7 is reproduced. Kosenmuller, Ewald, and Thenius are inclined to take W as an abbreviated form of the plur. D^V, presuming that the subject of the complaint is the people of Israel. But in none of the three passages in which Ewald (Gram. § 177, a), following the Masoretes, is ready to recognise such a pluralending, does there seem any need or real foundation for the assumption. Besides this passage, the others are 2 Sam. xxii. 44 and Ps. cxliv. 2. In these last two cases *©? gives a suitable enough meaning as a singular (see the expositions of these passages); and in this verse, as Gerlach has already remarked, against Rosenmuller, neither the conjoined b'3 nor the plural suffix of Dro^a requires us to take *&$ as a plural, the former objection being removed on a comparison of Gen. xli. 10, and the latter when we consider the possibility of a constmctio ad sensum in the case of the collective By. But the assumption that here the people are speaking, or that the poet (prophet) is complaining of the sufferings of the people in their name, is opposed by the fact that 13jn stands at the beginning of this lamentation, ver. 1. If, however, the prophet complained in the name of each individual among God's people, he could not set up ^"^3 in opposition to them, because by that very expression the scoffing is limited to the great body of the people. The Chaldee, accordingly, is substantially correct in its paraphrase, omnibus protcrvis poptdi mei (following Dan. xi. 14). But that the mass of the people were not subdued by suffering, and that there was a great number of those who would not recognise the chastening hand of God in the fall of the* kingdom, and who scoffed at the warnings of the prophets, is evinced, not merely by the history of the period immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer. xli. ff.), and by the conduct of Ishmael and his followers (Jer. xli. 2 ff.), and of the insolent men who marched to Egypt in spite of Jeremiah's warning (xliii. 2), but also by the spirit that prevailed among the exiles, and against which Ezekiel had to contend; cf. e.g. Ezek. xii.
22. err:: is a reminiscence from Job xxx. 9; cf. Ps. Ixix. 1.'). — Ver. Lr>. u He fills mo with bitternesses" is a reminiscence from Job ix. 18, only D^tfTDD being exchanged for Dnhtt. Of these two forms, the first occurs only in Job, I.e.; the latter denotes, in Ex. xii. 8 and Num. ix. 11, " bitter herbs," but here u bitternesses." The reality (viz. bitter sorrow) is what Jeremiah threatens the people with in ix. 14, xxiii. 15. The figure employed in ver. 16 is still stronger. " He made my teeth be ground down on gravel." p»n means a gravel stone, gravel, Prov. xx. 17. D13 (which occurs only in Ps. cxix. 20 as well as here, and is allied to feH3, from which comes bnj}, something crushed, Lev. ii. 14, 16) signifies to be ground down, and in Hiphil to grind down, not to cause to grind; hence JWa cannot be taken as a second object, " He made my teeth grind gravel" (Ewald); but the words simply mean, "He ground my teeth on the gravel," i.e. He made them grind away on the gravel. As regards the application of the words, we cannot follow the older expositors in thinking of bread mixed with stones, but must view the giving of stones for bread as referring to cruel treatment. The LXX. have rendered W'son by iy\ru)fjLiakv fie cr7ro8oi>, the Vulgate by cibavit me cinere. This translation has not been lexically established, but is a mere conjecture from Ps. cii. 10. The air. \ey. PB3 is allied with B03, subigere, and means in Rabbinic, deprimere; cf. Buxtorf, Lex. Rabb. s.v. Similarly, the Chaldee had previously explained the words to mean humiliavit (1^3) me in cinere; and Raschi, hed inclinavit s. subegit me. Luther follows these in his rendering, " He rolls me in the ashes," which is a figure signifying the deepest disgrace and humiliation, or a hyperbolical expression for sprinkling with ashes (Ezek. xxvii. 30), as a token of descent into the depths of sorrow.
In vers. 17 and 18 the speaker, in his lamentation, gives expression to that disposition of his heart which has been produced by the misery that has befallen him to so fearful an extent. He has quite given up hopes of attaining safety and prosperity, and his hope in the Lord is gone. In ver. 17 it is a question whether HJjn is second or third pers. of the imperf. Following the LXX., who give the rendering air^aajo e£ elprjvr)? -tyvyr)v fxov, Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, De Wette, and Nagelsbach consider TOT transitive, as in ii. 7, and take WW as of the second pers.: "Thou didst reject ray soul (me) from peace." But to this view of the words there is the decided objection, that neither before nor after is there any direct address to Jahveh, and that the verbs which immediately follow stand in the first person, and succeed the first clause appropriately enough, provided we take *8?W as the subject to n:rn (third pers.). not has both a transitive and an intransitive meaning in Kal; cf. Hos. viii. 3 (trans.) and viii. 5 (intrans.) Nagelsbach has no ground for casting doubt on the intrans. meaning in Hos. viii. 5. Moreover, the objection that the passage now before us is a quotation from Ps. lxxxviii. 15 (Niigelsbach) does not prove that ^2) ruin is to be taken in the same sense here as in that passage: " O Jahveh, Thou despisest my soul." By adding DwD, Jeremiah has made an independent reproduction of that passage in the Psalms, if he had it before his mind. This addition does not permit of our attaching a transitive sense to ruin, for the verb means to despise, not to reject; hence we cannot render the words, " Thou didst reject my soul from peace." The meaning of the clause is not "my soul loathes prosperity," as it is rendered by Thenius, who further gives the sense as follows: " I had such a thorough disgust for life, that I had no longer the least desire for prosperity." As Gerlach has already remarked, this explanation neither harmonizes with the meaning of Ev£\ nor with the expression of doubt in the following verse, which implies a very lively u sense of the prosperous; " moreover, it has no good lexical basis. The fundamental meaning of n:r is to stink, be rancid, from which comes the metaphorical one of instilling disgust, — not, feeling disgust (Hos. viii. 5), — and further, that of despising. The meaning "to instil disgust" does not suit this passage, but only that of being despised. " My soul is despised of prosperity," i.e. so that it shares not in prosperity; with this accords the intransitive use of the Iliphil n*?;n with }», 2 Chron. xi. 14. The Vulgate, which does not catch the idea of nj? so exactly, renders the passage by expulsa est a pace anima mea. To this there are appropriately joined the words, " I have forgotten good " (good fortune), because I constantly experience nothing but misfortune; and not less appropriate is the expression of doubt, " I say (i.e. I think)
thing more to hope for from Jahveh. Starting from the fundamental idea of stability, permanence, n^, according to the traditional explanation, means vigor, strength; then, by l Sam. xv. 29, hut without sufficient reason; see Delitzsch on Isaiah, I.e. The complaint here attains its deepest and wont. The complainant in his thoughts has none far from!, and is on the very verge of despair. But here also begins the turning-point. When for the first time he utters the name of God in the expression "my hope from Jahveh,'' lie shows that.Jahveh is to him also still the ground of hope and trust. Hence also he not merely complains, "my Strength is gone," etc., but introduces this thought with the words "ION1, M I said,'1 80* in my heart, i.e. I thought, u my Strength is gone, and my hope from. I ah veil lost," i.e. vanished. The mention of the name Ja/nrh, i.e. the Covenant-God, keeps him from sinking into despair, and urges him not to let go his trust on the Lord, so that he can now (in wdiat follows) complain to the Lord of his state of distress, and beseech His help.
Vers. 19-39. Consideration of God's compassion and His omnipotence as displayed at critical junctures in the affairs of men. C. B. Michaelis has correctly perceived, and thu3 set forth, the transition from the complaint, bordering on despair, to hope, as given in ver. 19: luctatur hie contra desperationis aJfectum, quo tentatus fuerat, ver. 18, mox hide per fidem emersurus. In like manner it is said in the Berleburger Bibel, u In ver. 19 he struggles with despair, to which he had been tempted, and in the following verse soars up once more into the region of faith." By the resumption of "OP from ver. 1, and of TOp and trao from vers. 15 and 5, the contents of the whole preceding lamentation are given in a summary, and by ibT are presented to God in prayer. "Mine affliction" is intensified by the addition of " my persecution " (see on i. 7), and the contents of the lamentation thereby more plainly pointed out. This connection of the verse has been misunderstood in many ways. An old interpretation of the words, still maintained by
Bottcher and Thenius, makes "ty an infinitive; according to this view, ver. 19 would require to be conjoined with the preceding, and the inf. without ^ would stand for the ground, recordando, " while I think of,"— which is grammatically impossible.1 The same remark applies to the assumption that nbT is an infinitive which is resumed in ver. 20: "it thinks of my misery... yes, my soul thinks thereon " (Bottcher, Thenius). Gerlach very properly remarks concerning this view that such a construction is unexampled, and, as regards the change in the form of the infinitive (constr. and abs.), would be unintelligible. The objection of Thenius, however, that the imperative meaning usually attached to "»bT is against the whole context, and quite inappropriate here, is connected with the erroneous assumption that vers. 19 and 20 form a continuation of what precedes, and that the idea of the speaker's being completely overwhelmed by the thought of all that he had suffered and still suffers, forms the proper conclusion of the first part, after which, from ver. 21 onwards, there follows relief. Gerlach has rightly opposed to these arguments the following considerations: (1) That, after the outburst of despair in ver. 18, u my strength is gone, and my hope from Jahveh," the words u my soul is bowed down in me " form far too feeble a conclusion; (2) That it is undoubtedly more correct to make the relief begin with a prayer breathed out through sighs (ver. 19), than with such a reflection as is expressed in ver. 21 ff. Evvald also is right in taking "i3T as an imperative, but is mistaken in the notion that the speaker addresses any one who is ready to hear him; this view is shown to be erroneous by the simple fact that, in what precedes and succeeds, the thoughts of the speaker are directed to God only. — Ver. 20. The view taken of this verse will depend on the answer to the question whether "lSTfi is second or third pers. fem. Following
1 Seb. Miinster long since said: Secundum quosdam est -ftf injinit., ut sit sensus: periit spes mea, recordante me affiictioms mex. Calvin also gives
the preference to this view, with the remark: Videtur enim hie propheta
exprimere, quomodo fere a spe excidcrit, ut nihil reperiret amplius fortitudinis in Deo, quia scilicet oppressus erat malis; in support of which he affirms that it is valde absurdum, eos qui experti sunt aliquando Dei misericordiam, sic omnem spem abjicere, ut non statuant amplius sibi esse refugium ad Deum.
in the wake of Luther ("Thou wilt assuredly think thereon''). C. r>. Michaelia, Parean, Kosenmiiller, and Kalkschmidt take it U second pers.: "Think, yea, think wilt Thou, that my soul is bowed down in me," or "that my soul is at rest within me" (Nagelsbach), But it is impossible to maintain either of these views in the face of the language employed. To take the 1 before (Wfa in the meaning of quod is characterized by Navelsbach as an arbitrary procedure, unwarranted either by (Jen. \\x. 27 or Ezek. xiii. 11; but neither can the meaning of resting. being at ease, which is attributed to nv^ or TO by that writer, be established. The verb means to sink down, Prov. ii. 18, and metaphorically, to be bowed down, Ps. sliv. 26. The latter meaning is required in the present passage, from the simple fact that the sentence undeniably refers to Ps. xlii. 6.1 rp'JTn expresses the consequence of "OTfi "OT, which therefore can only be the third pers., and " my soul " the subject of both clauses; for there is no logical consecution of meaning given by such a rendering as, "If Thou wilt remember, my soul shall be bowed within me." The expression, "If my soul duly meditates thereon (on the deep suffering), it becomes depressed within me," forms the foundation of the request that God would think of his distress, his misery; and ver. 21, "I will lay this to heart," connects itself with the leading thought set forth in ver. 19, the reason for which is given in ver. 20, viz. that my soul is only bowed down within me over the thought of my distress, and must complain of it to God, that He may think of it and alleviate it: This will I lay to heart and set my hope upon. ]3~?V is a strong inferential expression: " therefore," because God alone can help, will I hope. This self-encouragement begins with ver. 22, inasmuch as the prophet strengthens his hope by a consideration of the infinite compassion of the Lord. (It is) mrv Hon, « the mercies of God," i.e. proofs of His mercy (cf. Ps. lxxxix. 2, cvii. 43, Isa. lxiii. 7), " that we are not utterly consumed," as Luther [and similarly our English translators] have excellently rendered ^pn. This form stands for Oten, as in Jer. xliv. 18, Num. xvii. 28, not for ran, third 1 Luther's translation, "for my soul tells me," is founded on the circumstance that the LXX. have mistaken rvty for rpjy: KUTccooMa^n tv?
pers., as Pareau, Thenius, Vaihinger, and Ewald, referring to his Grammar, § 84, b, would take it. The proofs of the grace of God have their foundation in His compassion, from which they flow. In ver. 23 we take JJ ^DH as the subject of ttenn - it is the proofs of the grace of God that are new every morning, not "His compassions," although the idea remains the same. Dnps£, every morning, as in Isa. xxxiii. 2, Ps. lxxiii. 14. Ubi sol et dies oritur, simul et radii hit jus inexhausttv bonitatis erumpunt (Tarnovius in Kosenmiiller). The consciousness of this constant renewal of the divine favour impels to the prayerful exclamation, " great is Thy faithfulness; " cf. Ps. xxxvi. 6. Ver. 24. "My portion is Jahveh: " this is a reminiscence from Ps. xvi. 5, lxxiii. 26, cxlii. 6; cf. Ps. cxix. 57 where the expression found here is repeated almost verbatim. The expression is based on Num. xviii. 20, where the Lord says to Aaron, " I am thy portion and thine inheritance; " i.e. Jahveh will be to the tribe of Levi what the other tribes receive in their territorial possessions in Canaan; Levi shall have his possession and enjoyment in Jahveh. The last clause, u therefore will I hope," etc., is a repetition of what is in ver. 21&, as if by way of refrain.
This hope cannot be frustrated, ver. 25. The fundamental idea of the section contained in vers. 25-33 is thus stated by Na>elsbach: " The Lord is well disposed towards the children of men under all circumstances; for even when He smites them, He seeks their highest interest: they ought so to conduct themselves in adversity, that it is possible for Him to carry out His designs." On ver. 25, cf. Ps. xxxiv. 9, lxxxvi. 5; and on the general meaning, also Ps. xxv. 3, lxix. 7. If the Lord is kind to those who hope in Him, then it is good for man to wait patiently for His help in suffering. Such is the mode in which ver. 26 is attached to ver. 25. 3JD, vers. 26 and 27, followed by? dat., means to be good for one, i.e. beneficial. Some expositors (Gesenius, Rosenmiiller, Maurer, Nagelsbach) take ^rp as a noun-form, substantive or adjective; EOT is then also taken in the same way, and 1 —) as correlative: " it is good both to wait and be silent." But although there are analogous cases to support the view that?*nj is a noun-form, the constant employment of EOT as an adverb quite prevents u< from taking it as an adjective. Moreover, "to be silent for the help oi the Lord," would be a strange expression, and we would rather expect " to be silent and wait for;" and finally, waiting and silence are so closely allied, that the disjunctive)—) ct — t't appears remarkable. We prefer, then, with Ewald ( Gram. § 235, a) and others, to take *W as a verbal form, and that, too, in spite of the i in the jussive form of the lliphil for PrTj from Sin, in the meaning of /TJJ, to wait, tarry. u It is good that he (man) should wait, and in silence too (i.e. without complaining), for the help of the Lord." On the thought presented here, cf. Ps. xxxviii. 7 and Isa. xxx. 15. Hence it is also good for man to bear a yoke in youth (ver. 27), that he may exercise himself in calm waiting on the help of the Lord. In the present context the yoke is that of sufferings, and the time of youth is mentioned as the time of freshness and vigour, which render the bearing of burdens more easv. He who has learned in youth to bear sufferings, will not sink into despair should they come on him in old age. Instead of vniy^ Theodotion has he veorrjro^ avrov, which is also the reading of the Aldinc edition of the LXX.: and some codices have V"nj?20.
But this reading is evidently a correction, prompted by the thought that Jeremiah, who composed the Lamentations in his old aire, had much suffering to endure from the time of his call to the prophetic office, in the earlier portion of his old age; nor is it much better than the inference of J. D. Michaelis, that Jeremiah composed this poem when a youth, on the occasion of King Josiah's death. — In vers. 28-30, the effect of experience by suffering is set forth, yet not in such a wray that the verses are to be taken as still dependent on *3 in ver. 27 (Luther, Pareau, De Wette, Maurer, and Thenius): " that he should sit alone and be silent/' etc. Such a combination is opposed to the independent character of each separate alphabetic strophe. Rather, the result of early experience in suffering and patience is developed in a cohortative form. The connection of thought is simply as follows: Since it is good for man that he should learn to endure suffering, let him sit still and bear it patiently, when God puts such a burden on him. Let him sit solitary, as becomes those in sorrow (see on i. 1), and be silent, without murmuring (cf. ver. 26), when He lays a burden on him. There is no object to i>BJ expressly mentioned, but it is easily understood from the notion of the verb (if He lays anything on him), or from b'V in ver. 27 (if He lays a yoke on him). We are forbidden to consider the verbs as indicatives ("he sits alone and is silent;" Gerlach, Nagelsbach) by the apocopated form \r\\ in vers. 29, 30, which shows that 3?* and D'T are also cohortatives. — Ver. 29. "Let him put his mouth in the dust," i.e. humbly bow beneath the mighty hand of God. The expression is derived from the Oriental custom of throwing oneself in the most reverential manner on the ground, and involves the idea of humble silence, because the mouth, placed in the dust, cannot speak. The clause, " perhaps there is hope," indicates the frame of mind to be observed in the submission. While the man is to show such resignation, he is not to give up the hope that God will deliver him from trouble; cf. Job xi. 18, Jer. xxxi. 17. — Ven 30. Let him also learn patiently to bear abuse and reviling from men. Let him present his cheek to him who smites him, as was done by Job (Job xvi. 10) and the servant of Jahveh (Isa. 1. G); cf. Matt. v. 39. On ver. 305, cf. Ps. lxxxviii. 4, cxxiii. 3, etc. There is a certain gradation in the three verses that is quite unmistakeable. The sitting alone and in silence is comparatively the easiest; it is harder to place the mouth in the dust, and yet cling to hope; it is most difficult of all to give the cheek to the smiter, and to satiate oneself with dishonour (Nagelsbach). In vers. 31-33 follow the grounds of comfort. The first is in ver. 31: the sorrow will come to an end; the Lord does not cast off for ever; cf. Jer. hi. 5, 12. The second is in ver. 32: when He has caused sorrow, He shows pity once more, according to the fulness of His grace. Compassion outweighs sorrow. On this subject, cf. Ps. xxx. 6, Job v. 18, Isa. liv. 8. The third ground of comfort is in ver. 33: God does not send affliction willingly, as if it brought Him joy (cf. Jer. xxxii. 41), but merely because chastisement is necessary to sinful man for the increase of his spiritual prosperity; cf. Acts xiv. 22, 2 Cor. iv. 17. TO is for n£1: cf. Ewald, § 232,/; Gesenius, § 69, 3, Rem. 6.
That he may bring home to the hearts of God's people the exhortation to bear suffering with patience and resignation, and that he may load them to Bee thai the weight of sorrow under which they are sighing lias been sent from the Lord as a chastisement for their sins, the prophet carries out the thought, in vers. 34-39, that every wrong committed upon earth is under the divine control (vei 36), and generally that nothing happens without God's permission; hence man ought not to mourn over the Buffering that befalls him, but rather over his sins (vers. 37 -39). — Verses 31-3(3 form one connected sentence: while the subject and predicate for the three infinitival clauses do not follow till the words nK"l |6 tflK, the infinitives with their objects depend on "N"}. If there were any foundation for the assertion of Bottcher in his Aehrenlese* that HN1 never occurs in construction with?, we could take the infinitives with? as the objects of "X"), in the sense, "As to the crushing of all the prisoners," etc. But the assertion is devoid
3D?p nsv. In the three infinitival clauses three modes of unjust dealing are set forth. The treading down to the earth of all prisoners under his (the treader's) feet, refers to cruel treatment of the Jews by the Chaldeans at the taking of Jerusalem and Judah, and generally to deeds of violence perpetrated by victors in war. This explains pX HypH?3, which Kalkschmidt and Thenius incorrectly render " all captives of the land (country)." Those intended are prisoners generally, who in time of war are trodden down to the earth, i.e. cruelly treated. The other two crimes mentioned, vers. 35 and 36, are among the sins of which Judah and Israel have been guilty, — the former being an offence against the proper administration of justice, and the latter falling under the category of unjust practices in the intercourse of ordinary life. "To pervert the right of a man before the face of the Most High " does not mean, in general, proterve^ et sine ulld numinis inspectantis reverentid (C. B. Michaelis. Rosenmiiller); but just as LE^;p nitsn is taken from the law (Ex. xxiii. 6; Num. xvi. 19, etc.), so also is tfyfl *33 1J3 to be explained in accordance with the directions given in the law (Ex. xxii. 7, 9), that certain causes were to be brought before D\"6xn where this word means the judge or judges pronouncing sentence in the name of God; cf. Ps. lxxxii. 6, where the judges, as God's representatives, are called W$* and DTOK *3f " Before the face of the Most Hitfh" thus means, before the tribunal which is held in the name of the Most High. "To turn aside a man in his cause " means to pervert his right in a dispute (cf. Job viii. 3 xxxiv. 12, etc.), which may also be done in contested matters that do not come before the public tribunal. The meaning of the three verses depends on the explanation given of nan & tfW|, which is a disputed point. Htn with p, " to look on something," may mean to care for it, be concerned about it, but not to select, choose, or to resolve upon, approve (Michaelis, Ewald, Thenius). Nor can the prophet mean to say, "The Lord does not look upon the treading down of the prisoners, the perversion of justice." If any one be still inclined, with Kosenmuller and others, to view the words as the expression of a fact, then he must consider them as an exception taken by those who murmur against God, but repelled in ver. 37. Moreover, he must, in some such way as the following, show the connection between vers. 33 and 34, by carrying out the idea presented in the exhortation to hope for compassion: " But will any one say that the Lord knows nothing of this — does not trouble Himself about such sufferings?" Whereupon, in ver. 37, the answer follows: " On the contrary, nothing happens without the will of God" (Gerlach). But there is no point of attachment that can possibly be found in the words of the text for showing such a connection; we must therefore reject this view as being artificial, and forced upon the text. The difficulty is solved in a simple manner, by taking the words nx*J N? tflN as a question, just as has been already done in the Chaldee paraphrase: Jierine potest ut in con*pectu Jovce non reveletur? The absence of the interrogative particle forms no objection to this, inasmuch as a question is pretty often indicated merely by the tone. Ver. 38 must also be taken interrogatively. Bottcher and Thenius, indeed, think that the perfect nan is incompatible with this; but the objection merely tells against the rendering, " Should not the Lord see it? " (De Wette, Maurer, Kalkschmidt), which of course would require HXT. But the idea rather is, " Hath not the Lord looked upon this?" The various acts of injustice mentioned in the three verses are do! sot forth merely m possible events, but as facts form: "Who hath spoken, and it came to pass, which the Lord hath not commanded?" The thought here presented reminds us of the word of the Creator in Gen. i. 3 ff. The form of the expression is an imitation of Ps. xxxiii. 9. Rosenmiiller gives the incorrect rendering, Quis est qui dixit: factum (i.e. quis (indent dicere fieri quicquarri), non prcecipiente Deo; although the similar but more free translation of Luther, k* Who dares to say that such a thing happens without the command of the Lord?" gives the sense in a general way. The meaning is as follows: Nothing takes place oil the earth which the Lord has not appointed; no man can give and execute a command against the will of God. From this it further follows (ver. 38), that evil and good will proceed from the mouth of the Lord, i.e. be wrought by Him; on this point, cf. Isa. xlv. 7, Amos iii. 6. NVT) fcO gives no adequate meaning unless it be taken interrogatively, and as indicating what is usual — wont to be. And then there is established from this, in ver. 39, the application of the general principle to the particular case in question, viz. the grievous suffering of individuals at the downfall of the Kingdom of Judah. " Why does a man sigh as long as he lives? Let every one [sigh] for his sins." Man is not to sigh over suffering and sorrow, but only over his sin. i-i^n occurs only here and in Num. xi. 1, and signifies to sigh, with the accessory notion of murmuring, complaining.,V1 appended to ^7? *s more of a predicate than a simple attributive: man, as long as he lives, i.e. while he is in this life. The verse is viewed in a different light by Pareau, Ewald, Neumann, and Gerlach, who combine both members into one sentence, and render it thus: " Why doth a man complain, so long as he lives, — a man over the punishment of his sins?" [Similar is the rendering of our "Authorized" Version.] Neumann translates: " A man in the face of [Ger. be(] his sins." But this latter rendering is lexically inadmissible, because *?% in this connection cannot mean a in view of." The other meaning assigned is improbable, though there is nothing against it, lexically considered. For though Ntpn, sin, may also signify the punishment of sin, the latter meaning does not Bait the present context, because in what precedes it is not said that the people suffer for their sins, but merely that their suffering has been appointed by God. If, then, in what follows, there is an exhortation to return to the Lord (ver. 40 f.), and in ver. 42 a confession of sins made; if, moreover, ver. 39 forms the transition from vers. 33-38 to the exhortation that succeeds (ver. 40 ff.); then it is not abstinence from murmuring or sighing over the punishment of sins that forms the true connecting link of the two lines of thought, but merely the refraining from complaint over sufferings, coupled with the exhortation to sigh over their own sins. Tarnov also has viewed the verse in this way, when he deduces from it the advice to every soul labouring under a weight of sorrows: est igitur optimus ex mails emergendi modus Deum excusare et se ipsum accusare.
Vers. 40-54. Confession of sins, and complaint against the cruelty of enemies, as well as over the deep misery into which all the people have sunk. Vers. 40-42. The acknowledgment of guilt impels to prayer, to which also there is a summons in vers. 40, 41. The transitional idea is not, "Instead of grumbling in a sinful spirit, let us rather examine our conduct" (Thenius); for the summons to examine one's conduct is thereby placed in contrast with ver. 39, and the thought, u let every one mourn over his own sins," transformed into a prohibition of sinful complaint. The real transition link is given by Rosenmuller: quum mala nostra a peccatis nostris oriantur^ culpas nostras et scrutemur et corrigamus. The searching of our ways, i.e. of our conduct, if it be entered on in an earnest spirit, must end in a return to the Lord, from whom we have departed. It is self-evident that HVP iy does not stand for *;N, but means as far as (even to) Jahveh, and indicates thorough conversion — no standing half-way. The lifting up of the heart to the hands, also, — not merely of the hands to God, — expresses earnest prayer, that comes from the heart. DW^K, to the hands (that are raised towards heaven). u To God in heaven," where His almighty throne is placed (Ps. ii. 4), that He may look down from thence (ver. 59) and send help. With ver. 42 begins the prayer, as is shown by the direct address to God in the second member. There is no need, however, on this account, for supplying "iv-N? before the first member; the command to pray is immediately followed by prayer, beginning with the confession of sins, and the recognition of Q Ts chastisement; cf. Ps. cvi. (>, Dan. ix. 5. 01T3 is contracted with n^s*. uThou hast not pardoned/1 because Thy justice must inflict punishment. — Vers. 43-45. God lias not pardoned, but positively punished, the people for their misdeeds. "Thou hast covered with anger,1' ver. 43, corresponds to " Thou hast covered with B cloud," ver. 44; hence " Thou hast covered" is plainly used both times in the same meaning, in spite of the fact that tj? is wanting in ver. 43. "H^D m^ans to " cover," here to " make a cover." " Thou didst make a cover with anger," i.e. Thou didst hide Thyself iu wrath; there is no necessity for taking "H^D as m itself reflexive. This mode of viewing it agrees also with what follows. The objection of J. D. MichaeliSj qui se obtojlt non persequitur alios, ut statim additur, which Bottcher and Thenius have repeated, does not hold good in every respect, but chiefly applies to material covering. And the explanation of Thenius, " Thou hast covered us with wrath, and persecuted us," is shown to be wrong by the fact that:J?D signifies to cover for protection, concealment, etc., but not to cover in the sense of heaping upon, pouring upon (as Luther translates it); nor, again, can the word be taken here in a sense different from that assigned to it in ver. 44. " The covering of wrath, which the Lord draws around Him, conceals under it the lightnings of His wrath, which are spoken of immediately afterwards" (Niigelsbach). The anger vents itself in the persecution of the people, in killing them unsparingly. For, that these two are connected, is shown not merely in ver. 66, but still more plainly by the threatening in Jer. xxix. 18: "I will pursue them with sword, and famine, and pestilence, and give them for maltreatment to all the kingdoms of the earth." On " Thou hast slain, Thou hast not spared," cf. ii. 21. In ver. 44, ^ is further appended to nni^D; " Thou makest a cover with clouds for Thyself," round about Thee, so that no prayer can penetrate to Thee; cf. Ps. lv. 2. These words form the expression of the painful conclusion drawn by God's people from their experience, that God answered no cry for help that came to Him, i.e. granted no help. Israel was