How doth the city sit solitary [that] was full of people! She that was great among the nations is become as a widow; the princess among the provinces is become tributary!
The book opens with a cry over a city that has lost everything. Jerusalem was once crowded and honoured. Now she sits alone like a widow, and a princess has become a slave. How did this happen? Where was God in it? Is there anything beyond the tears?
The opening lines set the past against the present. Babylon's armies have taken the city, and the losses pile up.
Her independence is gone. The Chaldeans have thrown down her gates, which the boastful king of Assyria never entered. Zion's roads, once crowded with people, are now in mourning, because no one comes to the appointed feasts. Friendless, bereaved, deserted — how changed she is!
What does "widow" stand for here? One writer traces the image through the prophets.
Widowhood means the loss of God's ownership, protection, and supporting care. The Holy Spirit uses this picture in the prophecies to show the religious and moral poverty of the people of Israel. They had openly joined themselves to the false gods of the nations. So one of the earliest prophets records that the LORD gave up all relationship with His people because they were unfaithful to Him. He said, "She is not my wife, and I am not her husband" (Hosea 2:2).
The ruin had a cause. One writer sets the city's present against what it once was.
To a faithful Israelite it was a sorrowful sight. What joy and gladness had once filled that now deserted city! Those were happy, festive days, when people honoured the law of the land and lifted up His name. How dreadful the change — the terrible result of turning away from God, shown in pride, self-will, and idolatry! How could Jerusalem stay the acknowledged wife of the LORD, when she was so unfaithful and shameless? Sadly, she is left to sit alone in her widow's clothes until the day when God grants repentance.
The blow came from God. Yet God is not distant from the pain.
The affliction of His people does not escape the eye of God. He is afflicted in their affliction. His Spirit takes notice of it. He works in the hearts of those whose mouth He uses, and gives voice to the feelings He has produced there... Nothing moves the heart more than the certainty that God loves the one who suffers. He loves what He must strike, and He must strike what He loves.
Prophecy had already announced the disaster. This book adds something prediction alone could not.
It was good that we should have more than predictions of the deep trouble coming on the house of David and Jerusalem. We also have the outpouring of a godly heart broken with anguish for the people of God — all the more because they deserved everything that fell on them through their enemies at God's hand. We little think what a man like Jeremiah must have felt. He saw the temple destroyed and the holy service stopped. He saw the king and priests and most of Judah carried off by their idolatrous conqueror... These songs of grief were no empty complaints, as we shall see. They spread out the woes of the city and people before a God whose compassion and faithfulness are both infinite.
The same lesson reaches far beyond ancient Judah.
One course, and one alone, would have saved Judah. It was genuine self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before the Lord, which would make the people "tremble at His Word." That is what is needed everywhere today. What blesses and delivers the saints of God is not so much looking for and learning new truth. It is testing our ways by the truth already given to us, and seeking to walk in the reality of it.
The lament is not God's last word to this people.
To this day they remain bereaved and without comfort. But we see from Isaiah, Zechariah and other Scriptures that God has good and comforting words in view for them. Their day of salvation (Isaiah 49) will come, brought by the beautiful feet of Him who announces salvation (Isaiah 52). Then they will break forth into joy, singing that the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.
- Empty. A crowded city now sits alone. Her gates are thrown down, her feasts unattended, and a princess has become a slave.
- Why. The loss came from turning away from God — pride, self-will and idolatry. One thing would have saved Judah: honest self-judgment and trembling at His Word.
- Widow. The picture means more than loneliness. It marks the loss of God's ownership, protection and care, as when God said through Hosea that she is not His wife.
- Wept. God did not stand far off. Their affliction does not escape His eye, and He loves what He must strike.
- Hope. She sits alone until the day God grants repentance. Then His people will sing that the LORD has comforted them.
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath no comforter; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
Jerusalem weeps through the night, and the friends she counted on have turned on her. The allies she chose over God now stand among her enemies. So where can comfort come from?
The prophet tells us not only that she weeps, but when. The timing matters, and so does what her ruin now proves.
She weeps bitterly, and this in the night. Darkness and sleep bring relief to others. To her the night brings only a fresh return of grief, less held back, which covers her cheeks with tears. Now her folly is proved, as well as her sin in forsaking Jehovah for others. But among her lovers she has no comforter. All her friends, the allies she counted on, deal treacherously with her, and are but enemies.
Who were these "lovers"? They were the gods and the powers she trusted instead of God.
The false gods she trusted when she broke faith with the covenant of Jehovah cannot ease her present sorrows in any way. The powers she tried to lean on when she forsook the Word of her God are all indifferent to her plight. He, the "eternal Lover" whom she has despised, is the only One who loves her still.
Her loneliness was not bad luck. It came from what she had done.
Then in the next verse we hear her weeping. She weeps all night long. There is no one to comfort her. Her friends have turned against her; they have become her enemies. She was disobedient to her Lord. She rejected His Word. She gave up her holy place as His separated people, and now "she finds no rest." The Lord's hand is upon her because of the multitude of her transgressions.
Knowing that Jerusalem had brought this on herself did not dry the prophet's tears. Two things were true for him at once.
Nothing moves the heart more than this conviction: the one who is suffering is loved by God. He loves what He must strike, and He must strike what He loves. The prophet, while laying open the affliction of Jerusalem, acknowledges that the sin of the people had caused it. Could that lessen the sorrow of his heart? If on one side it was a consolation, on the other it humbled him and made him hide his face.
Her lovers cannot comfort her. So where could comfort be found at all?
The prophet, in chapter 2, asks, "What shall I compare to you?" and still there is no easing of her distress. Where could she find any? Who would comfort her? God, against whom she had sinned, had provided for this. She had treated His messenger badly, yet it is from his experience that comfort and hope can be drawn.
That comfortless state has lasted a long time. But it is not God's last word to this city.
The history of God's earthly people shows very plainly the forlorn and comfortless condition they came into by turning their backs on God. "How lonely sits the city that was full of people! … she has none to comfort her." "A comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit." To this day they remain bereft and comfortless. But we see from Isaiah, Zechariah and other Scriptures that God has good and comforting words in view for them. Their day of salvation will come, brought by the beautiful feet of the One who announces salvation. Then they will break out into joy, singing, "The LORD has comforted His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem."
- Choice. She left God for other lovers: false gods and foreign powers.
- Comfortless. Those lovers cannot ease her sorrow. They are indifferent, treacherous, and now her enemies.
- Constant. The One she despised is the only One who still loves her — and He loves what He must strike.
- Concealed. God had already provided comfort. It came through the messenger she had mistreated, not through the lovers she chose.
- Coming. Her comfortless state is real and long, but God has comforting words still in view for her.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest all her pursuers have overtaken her within the straits.
Jeremiah's lament turns from the empty city to the road out of it. Judah is in exile, and the verse raises two questions. What brought God's chosen people to this? And where was God while it happened?
Some have read the sorrow of this chapter as a picture of the cross. One writer answers by looking at the names the chapter keeps repeating.
Even the slightest look at the chapter, and at how often the names Judah, Zion, and Jerusalem come back, will show what the Spirit of God had in view when He spoke through Jeremiah. It was not the cross. It was the ruinous judgments about to fall on the holy city through Nebuchadnezzar. God had borne the grievous sins and rebellion of His people with much patience. But, as the last chapter of Jeremiah shows, wrath without remedy was their portion in the end. Lamentations 1 shows the effect of this... Once that meaning is held fast, the passage may often be applied in other directions, and with profit. There was no sorrow, and never could be any sorrow, like the sorrow of our blessed Lord and Saviour, both in Gethsemane and on the cross. So there is no difficulty in using this passage as an illustration of our Lord's sufferings.
William Kelly weighs what this captivity cost, group by group.
The last hope of the nation was gone. Israel had long been prey to the Assyrian. But now Judah is in captivity, and mourning covers Zion, where crowds once came to the feasts. And no one escapes the affliction: her priests sigh, her young women suffer, and she herself is wholly in bitterness. Her enemies, on the other hand, hold the power and give the orders.
Why can Judah find no resting place? One writer points to the company she kept long before the exile.
In this Judah becomes a warning beacon for God's people of all time. She did not keep the separate place God had called her to. She mixed freely with her neighbours who worshipped idols. So she soon proved, as all do who follow her steps, that "bad company ruins good morals." Walking with idol-worshippers, she learned their ways. As a result God gave her up to wander among the nations until she grew sick of their practices.
Another writer lists what came before that restlessness.
She was disobedient to her Lord. She rejected His Word. She gave up her holy place as His separated people, and now "she finds no resting place." The Lord's hand is upon her for her many sins.
Ironside does not leave the warning with Judah. He traces the same drift through the history of the Church.
Has this not been the repeated history of every group God separated from the world and owned as His people? How soon the Church of the apostles corrupted itself... The movement that began in the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century was spoiled by conformity to the world in even less time. So someone has well asked, "Where is the Church?" and replied, "In the world!" Again, "Where is the world?" and answered, "In the Church."
God brought this judgment. But that is not the whole of His part in it.
Lamentations shows the same blessed fact: Jehovah takes a loving and deep interest in the afflictions His people pass through because of their sins. He who had to discipline His people is still moved with compassion for them. Yes, in their affliction He Himself is afflicted, and He yearns over them.
Kelly draws out what this means for anyone who watches God's people fall.
Grief over God's people is no less because they have dishonoured God and God justly disciplines them.
One writer reads this sorrow forward, to a trouble still to come.
As in the Psalms, we may also see in Lamentations a prophetic preview of the sufferings of the Jewish remnant in the last time of trouble before Christ appears. Jeremiah identified himself with the sad state of the people under God's judgment. In the same way the Lord Jesus will have compassion on Israel's grief.
- Cause. Judah lost her separation first and her land second. She mixed with the nations, and God gave her up to them.
- Loss. The captivity closed the nation's last hope. The affliction spared no one — priests, young women, the city itself.
- Restlessness. She lives among the nations and finds no resting place. She gave up the place God had given her as His separated people.
- Warning. Every group God has separated to Himself has repeated this history. The verse is a warning beacon, not old news.
- Compassion. The God who had to strike is afflicted in their affliction. That same sorrow points ahead to a people still to pass through trouble.
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are in grief; and as for her, she is in bitterness.
Jerusalem has fallen. The prophet walks through a city where silence is the loudest sound. The roads that once carried crowds to the feasts are empty. The question is not who broke the walls. It is why the place of Israel's greatest joy became the place of its deepest grief.
The verse works by contrast. Joy has turned to mourning, the sorrow spares no one, and it cut deepest in the godly.
The last hope of the nation was gone. Assyria had preyed on Israel for a long time. But now, in the captivity of Judah, mourning spreads over Zion where the feasts were once crowded. And there is no exception to the rule of affliction: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she as a whole is in bitterness. On the other hand, her adversaries are in power and command over her. How bitter all this was to a Jew! And it was most bitter where the Jew was godly. Besides the grief of nature he might share with his countrymen, he carried an added and sharp sorrow: God's normal witnesses on earth had proved false. He could not see how God would gain glory in spite of Israel's unfaithfulness, and even through it.
One writer sets Jerusalem's old standing beside her state now, then points to the reason behind the change.
Jerusalem once held an enviable position: full of people, great among the nations, princess among the provinces. Now she has become tributary, her independence is gone, and her gates have been thrown down by the Babylonians. Friendless, bereaved, desolate — how changed is her state! Besides all this, her enemies mocked her sabbaths. Really they mocked the ending of all her prosperity and glory. Was this not enough to call out the lament of anyone who loved her? Yet all this had not happened without reason.
Israel's place was unlike any other nation's. One writer sets out the terms God had given His people, and who broke them.
We must keep in mind the special place of Israel and Jerusalem. Otherwise we can never appreciate a book like this... God had set up a direct government in His own land and people, changed from Samuel's days onward by the power of a king, and He guaranteed blessing on obedience. But who could guarantee the obedience? Israel pledged it, but in vain. The people disobeyed, the priests disobeyed, the kings disobeyed.
One writer applies the verse to the days of Jesus.
The gold had become dim. The ways to Zion were still solitary; no one was really coming to the appointed feasts. In spirit the prophet was still weeping... The Lord goes up, it is true, but not in His glory.
Some readers take this chapter as a description of Christ's sufferings on the cross. One writer answers that question, and then leaves room for application.
Look at the chapter, and at how often the names Judah, Zion and Jerusalem come up. It will show what the Spirit of God had in view when He spoke through Jeremiah. It was not the cross, but the devastating judgments God was about to pour out on the holy city through Nebuchadnezzar... In our judgment this is what the scripture means. Hold that firmly, and we may often apply it in other directions, with profit.
Another writer makes such an application, and finds the Spirit of Christ in the prophet's tears:
We see the Spirit of Christ in the prophet of Lamentations. He enters into all the afflictions of Jerusalem, of the temple, and of the people of God. The One who wept over Jerusalem endured such suffering perfectly. He would have gathered them and governed them rightly, but they would not.
One writer names the one thing that would have saved Judah, and turns it into a warning for God's people today.
You cannot avoid such a sad result by whitewashing the problem. That means trying to heal divisions by glossing over the evils that led to them, and so failing to hear the voice of God in them. One course, and one alone, would have saved Judah. That was genuine self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before the Lord, which made the people "tremble at His Word." This is what we need everywhere today. What will bless and deliver the saints of God is not so much looking for and learning new truth. It is testing our ways by the truth already entrusted to us, and seeking to walk in the reality of it.
- Cause. The roads did not empty by accident. All this had not happened without reason.
- Reach. Affliction spares no one — priests, virgins, the whole city — while her enemies hold the upper hand.
- Weight. The grief cut deepest in the godly. God guaranteed blessing on obedience, and people, priests and kings alike broke it.
- Echo. The words still fit in the days of Jesus: the ways to Zion were solitary, and no one was really coming to the feasts.
- Remedy. One thing alone would have saved Judah: genuine self-judgment and brokenness before the Lord. Not new truth, but living out the truth already given.
Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions her children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
This verse shows Jerusalem's fall in three strokes. Her enemies now rule her. The LORD Himself struck her. Her children are marched away as captives. The verse does not treat the disaster as bad luck. It traces the ruin back to sin. That raises a hard question: how can anyone grieve over people who deserved what came?
The opening line reports a role swap. Those who once served Jerusalem now give her orders. One writer says the affliction spared no one, and hit the godly Jew hardest of all.
No one escapes the affliction. Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and the city as a whole is in bitterness. On the other hand, her adversaries are in power and command over her. How bitter all this was to a Jew! And in a sense it was most bitter where the Jew was godly. Besides the grief of nature he might share with his countrymen, there was an added and sharp sorrow. The normal witnesses of the Lord on earth had proved false. And he could not see how God would still get glory despite Israel's unfaithfulness and through it.
That reversal was never God's plan. One writer traces the long era of rule by the nations back to the same cause this verse names.
God's plan and intention is not that the Gentile should be supreme. We know well all through Scripture that Israel shall be the head and the Gentiles the tail. And in fact it is this alone which enables us to understand the history of the world... God characterises it as a season — a mere interval of time — that has only come in because of the rebellious, apostate sin of Israel.
The middle line looks past the invading army to the God who sent it. One writer weighs what it does to a heart to know that God strikes the people He loves.
Nothing moves the heart more than the conviction that God loves the one who is suffering. He loves what He must strike, and He must strike what He loves. The prophet, while laying open the affliction of Jerusalem, acknowledges that the sin of the people had caused it. Could that lessen the sorrow of his heart? If on one hand it was a consolation, on the other it humbled him and made him hide his face. The enemy is proud, and glad to see the affliction of the one God loves. That gives occasion to plead for compassion on the afflicted, and for judgment on the malice of the enemy.
Some would say that a people who deserved their punishment have no claim on our tears. One writer answers that their sin is a reason for deeper grief, not less.
God might raise up a fresh testimony, as we know He has done. But even while bowing to His sovereign will, every godly, God-fearing Israelite rightly felt unceasing sorrow at the utter ruin of the old witness. And no less so "because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions." Grief is not less over God's people because they have dishonoured God and are righteously chastened.
Judah had a remedy the whole time, and never took it.
One course, and one alone, would have saved Judah. That was genuine self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before the Lord, causing the people to "tremble at His Word." This is what is needed everywhere today. Learning new truth is not the main thing that will bless and deliver the saints of God. What matters more is testing our ways by the truth already given to us, and seeking to walk in the reality of it.
The children carried off before the enemy are not written off. One writer reads the whole book as a grief that still fits the city today, but with a promise attached.
The city still sits alone. The mountain of Zion is still desolate. The crown has fallen, and the joy of the heart is gone... But the Lord will not cast off for ever (Lam. 3:31), and Rachel has been told this: "Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy." Jer. 31:16.
- Cause — The enemies' rise is not their own doing. The verse names the LORD as the one who afflicted her, and sin as the reason.
- Reversal — Rule by enemies is the opposite of the place God intended. It lasts only as an interval, brought in by rebellion.
- Sorrow — Deserved punishment deepens the grief instead of excusing us from it. The writer weeps because the chastening is just.
- Remedy — Only honest self-judgment and trembling at God's Word would have spared Judah. Testing our ways by truth we already have matters more than finding new truth.
- Return — The children go into captivity. But the Lord does not cast off for ever, and they will come back from the land of the enemy.
And from the daughter of Zion all her splendour is departed her princes are become like harts that find no pasture; and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
Zion has lost her glory, and the men who once led her have lost their strength. Two questions follow: who brought this about, and how should God's people feel about it?
The verse names two losses at once: Zion's beauty and her princes' power. One writer insists the sorrow was right, even though the punishment was deserved:
God might raise up a fresh testimony, as we know He has done. Yet the utter ruin of the old witness rightly filled every God-fearing Israelite with unending sorrow, even while he bowed to His sovereign will. He grieved no less "because Jehovah has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions." Grief is not less over God's people because they have dishonoured God and He chastises them righteously.
The blow came from God Himself. That is what makes this grief so deep:
Nothing touches the heart more deeply than being sure that the one God afflicts is the one God loves. He loves what He must strike, and He must strike what He loves. The prophet, while laying open the affliction of Jerusalem, acknowledges that the sin of the people had caused it. Could that lessen the sorrow of his heart? If on one hand it was a comfort, on the other it humbled him and made him hide his face.
Anyone in Judah could mourn a ruined city. A godly Jew felt a second wound: the witnesses God appointed had failed.
How bitter all this was to a Jew! And in a sense most bitter where the Jew was godly. For besides the natural grief he might share with his countrymen, he carried a sharper sorrow: the appointed witnesses of Jehovah on earth had proved false. He could not see how God would gain glory despite Israel's unfaithfulness, and through it.
Another writer turns the verse into a question for any group that claims to belong to God:
Shall it be said of us as of Judah in the past… "From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer"? … One course, and one alone, would have saved Judah. That was genuine self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before the Lord, making the people "tremble at His Word." This is the need everywhere today. Looking for and learning new truth will not bless and deliver the saints of God so much as testing our ways by the truth already given to us, and seeking to walk in the reality of it.
One writer looks ahead. These laments also fit a future generation, and their closing prayer will be answered:
As prophecy, we may see these lamentations as expressing what the godly remnant of God's earthly people will go through in their souls. In a future day they will pass through the great tribulation. That beautiful prayer in the last chapter — "renew our days of old" — will then be answered. God will then fulfil all the glorious promises He gave to Israel.
Another writer points to the heart behind the whole book — one that clings to God when everything outward is gone:
The book has a place quite unique. It comes from a heart that answered to the love of Jehovah for His people. They were most justly in the depths because of their sins and His chastisement… Here is thorough self-judgment, a heart standing with them, and clinging to Him in the face of everything. Can we not see what a gap there would be in the Bible if we had no Lamentations? What will it not be to the godly in their last tribulation?
- Cause. Zion's beauty did not just fade. The Lord took it away, afflicting her for the multitude of her transgressions.
- Love. The hand that strikes is a loving hand. He must strike what He loves, and that makes the sorrow sharp.
- Grief. Chastening they deserved is no reason for a cold heart. Grief over God's people is no less because they have dishonoured Him.
- Cure. Self-judgment and brokenness would have saved Judah. Testing our ways by truth we already hold is still the need today.
- Future. These laments also belong to the godly still to come. They end in a prayer God will yet answer: renew our days of old.
In the days of her affliction and of her wanderings, since her people fell into the hand of an adversary, and none did help her, Jerusalem remembereth all her precious things which she had in the days of old the adversaries have seen her, they mock at her ruin.
Jerusalem lies in ruins. In the middle of her misery she remembers all the good she once had, while her enemies laugh at what is left. Two hard questions follow. Why does God let a city He loves fall this far? What good is remembering when the loss is already done?
To feel this verse you have to know what Jerusalem was. William Kelly ties a Jew's love of country to the honour of God, and points to the One who felt that grief most perfectly:
We have to keep in mind the special place of Israel and Jerusalem. Otherwise we can never appreciate a book like this, or many of the Psalms, or much of the Prophets. A Jew's love of his country was tied to the honour of Jehovah as no other people's love of country ever was... The blessed Lord Jesus Himself is the perfect pattern of the same grief over Jerusalem. In Him it was completely unselfish and pure in every way, and so He felt it all the more deeply.
The precious things she remembers were real. That is what makes the memory hurt. One writer also reads the quiet that now hangs over the city:
It is sad to look back at blessings you once enjoyed, when all that is left is a memory... A quiet like the rest of the Sabbath lay over the whole city, but it was the quiet of desolation and death. Nothing was left to interrupt her rest. The work of the Lord had often been a burden. Now she was free of it all — but at what a terrible cost! Set aside as a vessel no one takes pleasure in, Jerusalem was left in undisturbed rest.
The enemies mock more than a religious custom. They mock a collapse. One writer counts this taunting as one more layer of grief, then names the reason behind it all, quoting Lamentations 1:8 in an older translation:
On top of all this, the enemies mocked her sabbaths — or rather, they mocked the end of all her prosperity and glory. (Lam. 1:7.) Was that not enough to draw a lament from anyone who loved her? Yet none of this happened without reason. "Jerusalem has sinned grievously, therefore she is removed." (Lam. 1:8.)
Owning that the ruin was deserved does not soften the sorrow; it deepens it. One writer describes the strange double effect this has on the heart that watches:
Nothing moves the heart more than being sure that the one who suffers is loved by God — that He loves what He has to strike, and has to strike what He loves. The prophet lays open the affliction of Jerusalem, and he admits that the sin of the people had caused it. Could that make his sorrow any less? On one side it was a comfort; on the other it humbled him and made him hide his face. The pride of the enemy, and their joy at seeing the beloved of God afflicted, give occasion to plead for compassion on the afflicted, and for judgment on the malice of the enemy.
"There was none to help her" is the low point of the verse. Every human help is gone. Yet faith carries that emptiness to God. Looking at this verse and the ones that follow, Kelly sees the loss reach back to what the city once was under her King, and then turn into an appeal:
One bitter grief was always there: all that the city of the great King had lost. When He came and was refused, He poured it out in His broken words of weeping over the city... Faith, however, sees the guilty city laid low under a merciless enemy, and finds in that a plea for Jehovah to show compassion and step in on her behalf.
- Remember what it cost. She once enjoyed these blessings. Now they are only a memory, and remembering them hurts.
- Remember what was lost. The quiet lying over the city is not rest but desolation — a city set aside like a vessel no longer wanted.
- Remember why. The enemies mock the end of her prosperity and glory. The reason is plain: Jerusalem had sinned grievously.
- Remember who still loves. God strikes what He loves and loves what He must strike. Admitting the sin comforts the watcher and humbles him.
- Remember to appeal. With no one to help, faith treats the ruin itself as a reason to ask God for compassion and action.
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore is she removed as an impurity all that honoured her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; and she sigheth, and turneth backward.
The whole chapter mourns Jerusalem's collapse; here the prophet stops describing it and names the cause — her own sin. Grief becomes confession, and a hard question opens: what does it mean for God to set aside a people He once honoured?
The chapter has already piled up loss after loss. This verse says none of it fell on her by accident.
Friendless, bereaved, desolate, how changed is her state! Was this not enough to make anyone who loved her mourn? Yet not without reason had all this happened. "Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she is removed." This the prophet owns.
Older translations read "therefore she is removed"; the ESV has "therefore she became filthy." One word holds both ideas — unclean, and so put out of use.
Jerusalem had grievously sinned. It is because of this that she "is removed," or "has become as an unclean thing," unfit to be used of God any more. Because of this, those who once honoured her now despise her. Her nakedness had been openly shown. Her filthiness is plain to all.
A deserved judgment raises a question. May those who love God's people grieve less once they know the blow was earned?
God might raise up a fresh testimony, as we know He has done. But the utter ruin of the old witness rightly filled the heart of every God-fearing Israelite with unceasing sorrow, even while he bowed to God's sovereign will. And that sorrow was surely no less "because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions." Grief is not less over God's people because they have dishonoured God and are righteously chastised.
The prophet knows why the blow fell. Does knowing make it easier to watch?
Nothing moves the heart more than being sure that the one who suffers is loved by God. He loves what He is forced to strike, and He is forced to strike what He loves. The prophet lays open Jerusalem's affliction, and he admits that the people's sin had caused it. Could that lessen the sorrow of his heart? If on the one hand it was a comfort, on the other it humbled him and made him hide his face.
This sounds like the lowest point of the chapter. One writer calls these verses something else entirely.
The hopeful note we find in verses 8-11. Here is confession of her guilt and shame; here is humiliation and appeal to the Lord because of the enemy. "See, O LORD, and behold; for I am become vile." Such humiliation and self-judgment is pleasing in the Lord's sight.
His quotation reads "I am despised" in the ESV. Kelly finds the same turn in the low position itself:
Faith, however, looks at the guilty city lying crushed under a relentless enemy, and sees in it a plea for the LORD's compassion — a reason for Him to step in on her behalf.
Commentators differ here. One warns that owning your sin does not by itself open a better future:
Admitting your guilt, and admitting that the Lord is just in dealing with you, cannot by itself give hope of better times ahead. To own your sin while you are being chastened for it is simply to agree that God is just. But that can never fill the heart with the brightness of hope.
Does this belong only to ancient Jerusalem? One writer applies it to any people trusted with something from God.
The people do not try to make their guilt look smaller. Instead they acknowledge before the nations that they are under God's judgment… Their subjection to the nations was the chastisement of their sin. Does this attitude not also suit the guilty Church, responsible for what God entrusted to her? Today, as then, if the testimony of His servants is to be effective, God asks that it be above all a testimony to their own ruin.
Why would God let His people lose what He gave them?
It is always like this. If God's people do not value what He entrusts to them, He will teach them its worth by taking it from them, even by making it the sport of their enemies.
- Cause. The ruin was not bad luck or a strong enemy. Jerusalem sinned grievously, and the prophet owns that nothing here happened "without reason."
- Consequence. "Removed" means treated as an unclean thing, no longer fit for God's use. Those who once honoured her now see her filth, and she turns her face away.
- Cost. A ruined witness is a real grief. Deserved chastisement does not make the sorrow any smaller.
- Confession. Verses 8-11 turn the corner: humiliation and self-judgment please the Lord. Owning sin alone promises no better days, but faith turns the ruin into a plea for God's compassion.
- Carry-over. Any people trusted with much can end up here. If God's people stop valuing what He gives, He teaches its worth by taking it away — and honest testimony then admits the ruin instead of defending it.
Her impurity was in her skirts, she remembered not her latter end; and she came down wonderfully she hath no comforter. Jehovah, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.
The verse pictures Jerusalem as a woman publicly shamed: her defilement on show, her fall staggering, no friend left to comfort her. Then, mid-verse, she stops describing her ruin and speaks straight to God.
The opening line is not a new charge. It exposes an old one: what she carried in private is now on public view, and the writer calls the whole scene deserved.
Jerusalem had grievously sinned. It is because of this that she "is removed," or "has become as an unclean thing," no longer fit for God's use. Because of this, those who once honoured her now despise her. Her nakedness had been openly shown. Her filthiness is clear to all. She forgot how things would end for her — she forgot God's purpose in bringing her out of slavery in Egypt.
"She took no thought of her future" names a failure of foresight, not only of morals. One writer treats that failure as a simple matter of wisdom.
It should make a deep impression on us to consider how an obedient path will end, compared with how a disobedient life ends. It is only wisdom to consider the end, rather than selfish indulgence of sinful desires right now.
An older translation of the middle clause reads "she came down wonderfully" — a fall so steep it stuns the onlooker. One writer links that phrase to what Jesus felt as He watched the same city sink.
All the beautiful feelings of His holy soul stayed as quick and sensitive as ever. Sin had not blunted or twisted them, as it does in others. So how constantly they must have been wounded as He watched the city's decline and thought of its downfall! "She came down wonderfully." (Lam. 1:9.) What sharp pain to know and feel that now there was no hope!
Her search for comfort comes up empty. One writer asks where she could possibly find any — and answers with the man she had wronged.
Still there is no relief for her distress. Where could she find any? Who would comfort her? God, against whom she had sinned, had provided for this, and the man she had treated so badly as God's messenger to her is the one whose experience supplies comfort and hope.
Shame did not silence everyone in the city.
Yet, in her time of terrible shame and distress, some faithful hearts are still left to cry, "O LORD, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!"
The prayer assumes God is still watching. One writer explains why that assumption is safe.
The affliction of His people does not escape the eye of God. He is afflicted in their affliction. His Spirit takes notice of it. Working in the hearts of those whose mouth He uses, He gives expression to the feelings He has produced there… Nothing moves the heart more than being sure that the one who is afflicted is loved by God — that He loves what He must strike, and must strike what He loves.
Faith reads the same wreckage differently.
The guilty city lies crushed under a relentless enemy. Faith sees even that as a plea for the LORD's compassion and His intervention on her behalf.
One writer applies this far beyond ancient Judah. The remedy he names is not new knowledge but honest self-judgment.
One course, and one alone, would have saved Judah. That was genuine self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before the Lord, causing the people to "tremble at His Word." This is what is needed everywhere today. What will bless and deliver the saints of God is not so much looking for and learning new truth. It is testing our ways by the truth already given to us, and seeking to walk in the reality of it.
- Exposed. What was hidden became public. The city once honoured is now despised, and no longer fit for God's use.
- Heedless. She never asked where her road would end. Wisdom weighs the end against what feels good now.
- Fallen. Her fall was staggering — and one writer hears in it the pain Christ felt over the same city.
- Comfortless. No one was left to console her. Comfort came only through the messenger she had wronged.
- Heard. Even in deserved ruin she prays. God is afflicted in her affliction, and faith turns her ruin into a plea for His compassion.
The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her precious things; for she hath seen the nations enter into her sanctuary, concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
Jerusalem has fallen to the Chaldeans, the armies of Babylon. The worst of the loss is not the stolen treasure. It is the sight of foreign soldiers standing inside the temple courts. So the verse raises a hard question. God's people have lost the one place where He met with them. Is there anything left to say to Him?
This is not a general misfortune but one specific outrage. A commentator ties the whole book to it:
Jerusalem had fallen to the Chaldeans. Foreign nations had entered those sacred courts and enclosures, which the feet of uncircumcised invaders never needed to defile… Jerusalem's desolate condition drew out the prophet's lamentations.
That is the sting. None of it had to happen.
God Himself had barred the uncircumcised nations from His congregation. Who then was meant to keep that command? One writer answers, and draws out a wider principle:
Her adversary had triumphed over her, and had even defiled her sanctuary. God had put that sanctuary in Judah's care when He commanded that no uncircumcised person should enter the congregation of the Lord. They failed to guard her precious things, and those things were handed over to the unclean among the nations. It is always like this. If God's people do not value what He entrusts to them, He will teach them its worth by taking it from them, and even letting it become the sport of their enemies.
One commentator points to the King of this city, who came to it Himself and wept over it:
There was the bitter, ever-present pain of what the city of the great King had lost. When He came to it and they refused Him, He poured that grief out in His broken words of weeping over it.
The verse does not blame the Chaldeans and stop there. It speaks to God, and it sits in a paragraph that admits guilt. One commentator finds the hopeful note of the chapter right here:
We find the hopeful note in verses 8-11. Here is confession of her guilt and shame. Here is humiliation, and an appeal to the Lord because of the enemy: "Look, O LORD, and see, for I am despised" (older translations read, "for I am become vile"). Such humiliation and self-judgment is pleasing in the Lord's sight.
That cry is not only a sob. It is an argument. One commentator says what faith sees in the ruin:
Yet faith looks at the guilty city laid low under a relentless enemy, and sees there a plea for the LORD's compassion, and for Him to step in on her behalf.
The very thing that proves the sin becomes the ground of the appeal.
Why does the prophet weep, if Jerusalem deserved the punishment? One writer points to the love behind the blow:
Nothing moves the heart more than being sure that the one God is afflicting is the one God loves. He loves what He must strike, and He must strike what He loves… The pride of the enemy, and their joy at seeing the affliction of the one God loves, give reason to plead for compassion on the afflicted, and for judgment on the malice of the enemy.
Judah's failure was letting into God's house the people God had shut out. One writer applies that to the Christian world today:
Is this not the crime of the professing Christian world in the worship of our God? Do not the uncircumcised — those who do not believe — share in the service of holy things? How humiliating for the people of God to mix the holy with what is not holy… What a dishonour to Him! Scripture says of Him: "Holiness befits Your house, O LORD."
- Trust. God put His sanctuary in His people's care, and told them who must never enter it.
- Neglect. They did not guard what was precious, so God took it away and let their enemies make sport of it.
- Confession. Verses 8–11 are not self-pity but self-judgment, and that humbling is pleasing to God.
- Plea. Faith takes the very depth of the ruin and turns it into an argument for God to step in.
- Love. He must strike what He loves, which is why the prophet's tears and God's justice belong in the same book.
All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to revive [their] soul. See, Jehovah, and consider, for I am become vile.
Jerusalem is starving under a relentless enemy. Her people trade their treasures for a mouthful of food, and then the city herself breaks in and asks God to look at her shame.
Up to this point in the chapter the prophet has been describing the city from the outside. Commentators note that the last line of this verse is where the voice shifts, and the city begins to speak for herself:
The prophet admits that her sin has brought this on her, and he is not the only one. From the words in Lamentations 1:11, "See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile," Jerusalem breaks in. She goes on speaking, apart from verse 17, to the end of the poem and chapter. She acknowledges her sin before the Lord, and what it has brought on her. It was right for her to do this.
The treasures being bartered for bread were not random valuables. They were the good things God had given her, and losing them was part of the lesson:
Jerusalem had grievously sinned. It is because of this that she "is removed," or "has become as an unclean thing," unfit to be used by God any more. Because of this, those who once honoured her now despise her… Having failed to guard her precious things, they were given up to the unclean of the nations. It is always like this. If God's people do not value what He entrusts them with, He will teach them its worth by taking it from them, even to making it the sport of their enemies.
Hunger often produces nothing but complaint. Here it produces something else:
The hopeful note we find in verses 8-11. Here is confession of her guilt and shame; here is humiliation and an appeal to the Lord because of the enemy. "See, O LORD, and behold; for I am become vile." Such humiliation and self-judgment is pleasing in the Lord's sight.
Commentators differ on how much hope this cry carries. One marks its limit plainly:
She speaks here of the past. But what about the future? Admitting your guilt, and admitting that the Lord is just in the way He deals with a soul, cannot by itself give any hope of better times and new prosperity ahead. To own your sin while God is disciplining you for it is simply to agree that God is just. But agreeing that God is right in His dealings with us can never light up the heart with the brightness of hope.
A ruined city flat on the ground before a stronger enemy looks like the end of the story. One commentator, having quoted the whole passage from verse 7 to verse 11, draws the opposite conclusion:
Faith, however, looks at the guilty city lying flat under her relentless enemy. It sees in that a plea for Jehovah's compassion, and for Him to step in on her behalf.
Her lowest point becomes her plea.
The same writer turns her cry on his own readers:
Left without bread, sighing for food to refresh the soul, the remnant cry, "See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile." These are precious and needful exercises. If only these exercises had marked them in the days of grace now gone by! May the spirit of humiliation and confession before God be found in us also. The Holy Spirit will join Himself to this, and still comfort and bless such people.
There is also a hunger that is not for literal bread. One writer sends the hungry to Christ, the true Joseph:
Many of God's children seem lean and barely existing, with no power to step out in the ways of faith. There is no hope of reviving in their souls except by having to do with Christ personally, where He is… So what should we do but go to the true Joseph and say, "Give us bread"? Let us go hungry, faint, and needy, and He will not send us away empty. It is still true that "He fills the hungry with good things," and "exalts those of low degree."
- Sin empties. Jerusalem lost her treasures because she had sinned. God teaches the worth of His gifts by taking them away.
- Emptiness speaks. From the last line of this verse on, the city takes over the poem. The prophet stops describing her; she confesses for herself.
- Confession pleases. Her cry is humiliation and self-judgment, and that is pleasing in the Lord's sight. But owning your sin only settles the past; by itself it gives no hope for the future.
- Lowness pleads. Faith reads the city's collapse not as the end but as a reason for God to act in compassion on her behalf.
- Hunger is fed. The same exercise still belongs to God's people. The Holy Spirit joins Himself to it, and those who come to Christ hungry and needy are not sent away empty.
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, whom Jehovah hath afflicted in the day of his fierce anger.
Jerusalem lies in ruins, and the ruined city speaks. She calls out to travellers on the road to stop and look at her. Two questions sit inside that cry: whose sorrow is this, and whose hand caused it?
Who is speaking here? It is not Jeremiah in his own voice.
Then the prophet personifies the downtrodden Zion turning to the passing strangers for their pity.
The plea for pity is not a claim of innocence. It sits inside a book about God's compassion for the people He Himself is striking.
This book shows the compassion and interest God has in the sufferings of His people. That compassion does not grow less even when He Himself brought the suffering on them because of their sins. It is said of the Lord that "in all their affliction He was afflicted" (Isaiah 63:9), and this showed when the Lord was on earth and wept over Jerusalem... Jeremiah appealed to those passing by: could they see such sorrow — an affliction Jehovah sent in His fierce wrath — and stay unmoved? Then he adds that Jehovah was righteous in all this, because they had rebelled against His commandments.
The ruins are not God's last word about Zion.
The verse asks the passer-by who sees the ruins of Zion to look at the desolation. Then he must consider this: the Lord in His righteous anger struck her, and she is still His beloved.
Many readers hear these words as the voice of Christ on the cross. One writer weighs that, and divides what the verse means from what it can illustrate.
People ask whether this scripture describes the Lord's sufferings on the cross. Look even briefly at the chapter, and at the repeated names Judah, Zion, and Jerusalem. They show what the Spirit of God had in view when He spoke through Jeremiah. It was not the cross. It was the devastating judgment He was about to pour out on the holy city through Nebuchadnezzar... This, in our judgment, is the interpretation of this scripture. But once you hold that fast, you may often apply the words in other directions too, and with profit. So it is true that no sorrow ever was, or ever could be, like the sorrow of our blessed Lord and Saviour, both in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.
When writers move from Jerusalem to Christ, the point they press is not the size of the grief but the reason for it.
The sins of Judah drew that fierce anger down on their heads. It was the just repayment for their turning away from the Lord. But He, the holy Sufferer of Calvary, bowed His head under the overwhelming flood of God's wrath for sins that were not His own. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jerusalem asked strangers to look and understand. When the same words speak of Christ, even the people closest to Him could not.
Though a few clung to Him, in the depths of His sorrow He was truly alone. They little knew the sorrow that was breaking His heart. Even when told of the inevitable cross (through His grace), they could not receive it. The sources of His sorrow were beyond their knowing, although the prophet had declared it.
The verse speaks to people who are only passing through. One preacher turns its question on the reader.
How many times have you heard this story of the cross of Jesus? In His wonderful love He went there and died for you. He suffered all these insults from men, and He bore the judgment of a righteous and holy God. How many times have you heard it? Let me ask you, have you got used to it? Have you got so used to listening to this story that it means nothing to you?
- Who speaks — Zion herself. The ruined city turns to strangers on the road and begs for pity.
- Who struck — Zion traces her ruin to God's own hand, and admits He was righteous in it, because she had rebelled.
- Still loved — the anger was real and just, yet the city under it is still His beloved. His compassion does not shrink because He sent the blow.
- Two readings — the plain sense is Jerusalem's fall to Babylon. Reading the verse of Christ's sorrow is an application, not the interpretation — though writers differ on where to put the weight.
- The unequalled sorrow — Judah suffered for her own sins. Christ suffered for sins that were not His own, and He suffered alone, in a grief those closest to Him could not measure. So the question "is it nothing to you?" still lands on anyone who has grown used to the story.
From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them; he hath spread a net for my feet; he hath turned me back; he hath made me desolate [and] faint all the day.
Here Zion speaks for herself, and she names God — not Babylon — as the one who sent the fire, spread the net, and left her faint. Two questions follow: whose hand lies behind such ruin, and whose voice can say these words?
One writer describes that appeal, and then says where the whole sorrow is traced:
Then the prophet personifies the downtrodden Zion turning to the passing strangers for their pity… Still all is traced to Jehovah's dealing because of Jerusalem's rebellious sins; and so He is morally vindicated.
She does not protest her innocence. Another writer sums up her posture:
Forsaken, uncomforted, distressed, humiliated, sighing and crying, owning her rebellion, vindicating Jehovah and His righteousness, Jerusalem sits in the dust.
The fire comes from on high, so the hand behind it is not an enemy's. One writer shows what that does both to God and to the prophet:
He who had to chastise His people is still moved with compassion for them. In their affliction He Himself is afflicted, and He yearns over them. Nothing moves the heart more deeply than the certainty that God loves the one He is afflicting. He loves what He must strike, and He must strike what He loves. The prophet lays open the affliction of Jerusalem, and he admits that the people's own sin caused it. Could that lessen the sorrow of his heart? If on one hand it was a consolation, on the other it humbled him and made him hide his face.
That knowledge does not dry the tears:
Grief is no less over God's people because they have dishonoured God and He justly chastens them.
Readers have long asked whether this lament describes the cross. One writer answers by pointing to the names that fill the chapter:
Some ask whether this scripture describes the Lord's sufferings on the cross. Even a quick look at the chapter, and at the repeated names Judah, Zion, and Jerusalem, will show the answer. What the Spirit of God had in view in speaking through Jeremiah was not the cross. It was the devastating judgments God was about to pour out on the holy city through Nebuchadnezzar… That, in our judgment, is the interpretation of this scripture. But once we hold that fast, we may often apply it in other directions, and with profit.
Other writers take up that application. One of them looks at Christ and speaks for the redeemed:
In the joy of assured redemption we can look up into His face, once marred more than any man's, and cry from full hearts, "Yes, Lord, it is something, it is everything to me, that You suffered and died!"
The same writer draws out what that suffering secured for others:
"Fire from above" came down on Him so that we might find a refuge where the fire has already been, and so be forever safe from the eternal fire to come for all who reject His matchless grace.
But the application has a limit, and it begins with the very next verse:
Not in the same sense could the next two verses be applied to the Lord Jesus. Those verses carry the consciousness of guilt, and He was the guiltless One. But the words were entirely fitting in the mouth of the people of Judah.
A cry like this is not the end of the book:
In Lamentations we get the sympathy and entering in of the Spirit of Christ into the sorrows of Israel, especially of the remnant; and so the hope of restoration.
The same writer shows what the sufferer learns from the striking hand:
He begins to feel that, after all, it is better to deal with Jehovah… He feels that it is good to be afflicted, and to wait on Jehovah who strikes. For He will not cast off for ever. He does not afflict willingly, but because He must.
- Whose hand. Zion does not blame Babylon. She traces every blow to God's own dealing, and that honesty vindicates Him.
- Whose love. The hand that strikes is the hand that loves. He must strike what He loves, and that is what makes the wound so deep.
- Whose ruin. The verse first means the ruin of Jerusalem for her sins. Writers hold to that meaning, and then allow other applications on top of it.
- Whose voice. Applied to Christ, the fire falls on Him, so sinners can shelter where the fire has already been. But the guilt confessed in the next verses is Judah's, never His.
- Whose future. The lament ends in hope. It is good to be afflicted, and to wait for the One who strikes. He does not afflict willingly, and He will not cast off for ever.