Matthew Henry on Lamentations 5:1-16
Is any afflicted? let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God, and make known before him his trouble. The people of God do so here; being overwhelmed with grief, they give vent to their sorrows at the footstool of the throne of grace, and so give themselves ease. They complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt: "Remember what has come upon us, Lam 5:1. What was of old threatened against us, and was long in the coming, has now at length come upon us, and we are ready to sink under it. Remember what is past, consider and behold what is present, and let not all the trouble we are in seem little to thee, and not worth taking notice of," Neh 9:32. Note, As it is a great…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Lamentations 5:3
fatherless--Our whole land is full of orphans [CALVIN]. Or, "we are fatherless," being abandoned by Thee our "Father" (Jer 3:19), [GROTIUS].
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 5:2
Our inheritance is turned to strangers - The greater part of the Jews were either slain or carried away captive; and even those who were left under Gedaliah were not free, for they were vassals to the Chaldeans.
John Gill on Lamentations 5:3
We are orphans and fatherless,.... In every sense; in a natural sense, their fathers having been cut off by the sword, famine, or pestilence; in a civil sense, their king being taken from them; and in a religious sense, God having forsaken them for their sins:
our mothers are as widows; either really so, their husbands being dead; or were as if they had no husbands, they not being able to provide for them, protect and deferred them. The Targum adds,
"whose husbands are gone to the cities of the sea, and it is doubtful whether they are alive.''
Some understand this politically, of their cities being desolate and defenceless.
John Calvin on Lamentations 5:3
