Matthew Henry on Lamentations 4:1-12
The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamentation of the very sad and doleful change which the judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The city that was formerly as gold, as the most fine gold, so rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth, has become dim, and is changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value, is not what it was; it has become dross. Alas! what an alteration is here!
I. The temple was laid waste, which was the glory of Jerusalem and its protection. it is given up into the hands of the enemy. And some understand the gold spoken of (Lam 4:1) to be the gold of the temple, the fine gold with which it was overlaid (Kg1 6:22); when the temple was bu…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Lamentations 4:11
fire . . . devoured . . . foundations-- (Deu 32:22; Jer 21:14). A most rare event. Fire usually consumes only the surface; but this reached even to the foundation, cutting off all hope of restoration.
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 4:10
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children - See on Lam 2:20 (note). But here there is a reference to mothers eating their own children; and this was done, not by mothers cruel and brutal, but by נשים רחמניות nashim rachmaniyoth, the compassionate, the tender-hearted mothers. From these horrible scenes it is well to pass with as hasty a step as possible.
John Gill on Lamentations 4:11
The Lord hath accomplished his fury,.... Which rose up in his mind, and which he purposed in himself to bring upon the sinful people of the Jews:
he hath poured out his fierce anger; the vials of his wrath in great abundance, even all he meant to pour out upon them:
and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof: not in the strong hold of Zion only, but in the whole city of Jerusalem, which was set on fire by the Chaldeans, as instruments, according to the will of God; and which not only consumed the houses of it, but even the foundations of them; so that it looked as if there was no hope of its ever being rebuilt. Aben Ezra interprets this fire of the famine…
