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 4:9
The speedy death by the sword is better than the lingering death by famine.
pine away--literally, "flow out"; referring to the flow of blood. This expression, and "stricken through," are drawn from death by "the sword."
want of . . . fruits--The words in italics have to be supplied in the original (Gen 18:28; Psa 109:24).
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 4:7
Her Nazarites were purer than snow - נזיר nazir does not always signify a person separated under a religious vow; it sometimes denotes what is chief or eminent. It is applied to Joseph, Gen 49:26.
Blayney therefore translates here, Her Nobles.
"Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;
They were ruddier on the bone than rubies; their veining was the sapphires."
On which he remarks: - "In the first line the whiteness of their skin is described, and in the second, their flesh;" and as גזר gazar signifies to divide and intersect, as the blue veins do on the surface of the body, these are without doubt intended.
Milk will most certainly well apply to the whiteness of the skin;…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Lamentations 4:9
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger,.... Not that they are better with respect to their state after death, but with respect to their manner of dying. They that were slain by the sword of the Chaldeans, as many were, either upon the walls, or in sallies out against the enemy, these felt less pain, and had less terror of mind in dying, than those did who perished by famine; they died a lingering death, as it were by inches, and were in continual pain of body and uneasiness of mind:
for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field: that is, those that died by famine gradually wasted or "flowed" away, their fluid parts by deg…
