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.