The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

This chapter contains a complaint of the miseries of the city of Jerusalem, and the nation of the Jews; first by the Prophet Jeremiah, then by the Jewish people; and is concluded with a prayer of theirs. The prophet deplores the state of the city, now depopulated and become tributary, which had been full of people, and ruled over others; but now in a very mournful condition, and forsaken and ill used by her lovers and friends, turned her enemies, Lamentations 1:1; and next the state of the whole nation; being carried captive for their sins among the Heathens; having no rest, being overtaken by their persecutors, Lamentations 1:3; but what most of all afflicted him was the state of Zion; her ways mourning; her solemn feasts neglected; her gates desolate; her priests sighing, and virgins afflicted; her adversaries prosperous; her beauty departed; her sabbaths mocked; her nakedness seen; and all her pleasant things in the sanctuary seized on by the adversary; and all this because of her many transgressions, grievous sins, and great pollution and vileness, which are confessed, Lamentations 1:4; then the people themselves, or the prophet representing them, lament their case, and call upon others to sympathize with them, Lamentations 1:12; observing the sad desolation made by the hand of the Lord upon them for their iniquities, Lamentations 1:13; on account of which great sorrow is expressed; and their case is represented as the more distressing, that they had no comforter, Lamentations 1:16; then follows a prayer to God, in which his righteousness in doing or suffering all this is acknowledged, and mercy is entreated for themselves, and judgments on their enemies, Lamentations 1:18.

(Lamentations 1:1-11) The miserable state of Jerusalem, the just consequences of its sins.

(Lamentations 1:12-22) Jerusalem represented as a captive female, lamenting, and seeking the mercy of God.

Sorrow and Wailing over the Fall of Jerusalem and Judah

(Note: Keil has attempted, in his German translation of this and the next three chapters, to reproduce something of the alphabetic acrosticism of the original (see above, p. 466); but he has frequently been compelled, in consequence, to give something else than a faithful reproduction of the Hebrew. It will be observed that his example has not been followed here; but his peculiar renderings have generally been given, except where these peculiarities were evidently caused by the self-imposed restraint now mentioned. He himself confesses, in two passages omitted from the present translation (pp. 591 and 600 of the German original), that for the sake of reproducing the alphabeticism, he has been forced to deviate from a strict translation of the ideas presented in the Hebrew. - Tr.)

1 Alas! how she sits alone, the city that was full of people!

She has become like a widow, that was great among the nations;

The princess among provinces has become a vassal.

2 She weeps bitterly through the night, and her tears are upon her cheek;

She has no comforter out of all her lovers:

All her friends have deceived her; they have become enemies to her.

3 Judah is taken captive out of affliction, and out of much servitude;

She sitteth among the nations, she hath found no rest;

All those who pursued her overtook her in the midst of her distresses.

4 The ways of Zion mourn, for want of those who went up to the appointed feast;

All her gates are waste; her priests sigh;

Her virgins are sad, and she herself is in bitterness.

5 Her enemies have become supreme; those who hate her are at ease;

For Jahveh hath afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions:

Her young children have gone into captivity before the oppressor.

6 And from the daughter of Zion all her honour has departed;

Her princes have become like harts [that] have found no pasture,

And have gone without strength before the pursuer.

7 In the days of her affliction and her persecutions,

Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things which have been from the days of old:

When her people fell by the hand of the oppressor, and there was none to help her,

Her oppressors saw her, - they laughed at her times of rest.

8 Jerusalem hath sinned grievously, therefore she hath become an abomination:

All those who honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness;

And she herself sighs, and turns backward.

9 Her filth is on her flowing skirts; she remembered not her latter end;

And so she sank wonderfully: she has no comforter.

"O Jahveh, behold my misery!" for the enemy hath boasted.

10 The oppressor hath spread out his hand upon all her precious things;

For she hath seen [how] the heathen have come into her sanctuary,

[Concerning] whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy community.

11 All her people [have been] sighing, seeking bread;

They have given their precious things for bread, to revive their soul.

See, O Jahveh, and consider that I am become despised.

12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass along the way?

Consider, and see if there be sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me,

Whom Jahveh hath afflicted in the day of the burning of His anger.

13 From above He sent fire in my bones, so that it mastered them;

He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me back;

He hath made me desolate and ever languishing.

14 The yoke of my transgressions hath been fastened to by His hand;

They have interwoven themselves, they have come up on my neck; it hath made my strength fail:

The Lord hath put me into the hands of [those against whom] I cannot rise up.

15 The Lord hath removed all my strong ones in my midst;

He hath proclaimed a festival against me, to break my young men in pieces:

The Lord hath trodden the wine-press for the virgin daughter of Judah.

16 Because of these things I weep; my eye, my eye runneth down [with] water,

Because a comforter is far from me, one to refresh my soul;

My children are destroyed, because the enemy hath prevailed.

17 Zion stretcheth forth her hands, [yet] there is none to comfort her;

Jahveh hath commanded concerning Jacob; his oppressors are round about him:

Jerusalem hath become an abomination among them.

18 Jahveh is righteous, for I have rebelled against His mouth.

Hear now, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow;

My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

19 I called for my lovers, [but] they have deceived me;

My priests and my elders expired in the city,

When they were seeking bread for themselves, that they might revive their spirit.

20 Behold, O Jahveh, how distressed I am! my bowels are moved;

My heart is turned within me, for I was very rebellious:

Without, the sword bereaveth [me]; within, [it is] like death.

21 They have heard that I sigh, I have no comforter:

All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad because Thou hast done it.

Thou bringest the day [that] Thou hast proclaimed, that they may be like me.

22 Let all their wickedness come before Thee,

And do to them as Thou hast done to me because of all my transgressions;

For my sighs are many and my heart is faint.

Lamentations 1:1-22

The poem begins with a doleful meditation on the deeply degraded state into which Jerusalem has fallen; and in the first half (Lamentations 1:1-11), lament is made over the sad condition of the unhappy city, which, forsaken by all her friends, and persecuted by enemies, has lost all her glory, and, finding no comforter in her misery, pines in want and disesteem. In the second half (Lamentations 1:12-22), the city herself is introduced, weeping, and giving expression to her sorrow over the evil determined against her because of her sins. Both portions are closely connected. On the one hand, we find, even in Lamentations 1:9 and Lamentations 1:11, tones of lamentation, like signs from the city, coming into the description of her misery, and preparing the way for the introduction of her lamentation in Lamentations 1:12-22; on the other hand, her sin is mentioned even so early as in Lamentations 1:5 and Lamentations 1:8 as the cause of her misfortune, and the transition thus indicated from complaint to the confession of guilt found in the second part. This transition is made in Lamentations 1:17 by means of a kind of meditation on the cheerless and helpless condition of the city. The second half of the poem is thereby divided into two equal portions, and in such a manner that, while in the former of these (Lamentations 1:12-16) it is complaint that prevails, and the thought of guilt comes forward only in Lamentations 1:14, in the latter (Lamentations 1:18-22) the confession of God's justice and of sin in the speaker becomes most prominent; and the repeated mention of misery and oppression rises into an entreaty for deliverance from the misery, and the hope that the Lord will requite all evil on the enemy.