Lamentations 1, Lady Zion Weeps

In this acrostic poem, Lady Zion, representing Jerusalem, weeps in the streets. There is only pain and shame. There is none of Jeremiah's hope for a future Day of the Lord. This chapter carries no hope, just pain and sadness.

It is likely that this lament was written about the same time as Psalm 79, by one walking through Jerusalem and seeing the devastation after its sack.

This psalm is an acrostic: each verse begins with a different Hebrew letter. 

Lamentations 1:1, The queen a widow

How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! 

How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! 

She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave. 

The beautiful queen city has become a despondent widow.

The English word "How" is a translation of ’ê·ḵāh, which begins with the letter aleph (denoted by the apostrophe ( ’ ).) This word also begins the second and fourth chapters and gives echoes of David's "How long, O Lord" beginnings for some psalms.

Lamentations 1:2, Bitter weeping

Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are on her cheeks. 

Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. 

All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies. 

The abandoned widow weeps bitterly -- both friends and lovers have betrayed her, indeed, they have become enemies.

Lamentations 1:3, No peace

After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile. 

She dwells among the nations; she finds no resting place. 

All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress. 

The country of Judah is isolated and defeated. Her people have no place of peace among the nations of the ancient Near East.

Lamentations 1:4, Priests groan

The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed festivals. 

All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan, 

her young women grieve, and she is in bitter anguish. 

There is no longer joy in Jerusalem; everyone grieves. (The young women in this passage may be women who, like the priests, serve in the sanctuary, says Ellison. An example occurs in Psalm 68:24-25, in which the women play timbrels as they approach the temple.)

Lamentations 1:5, Enemies at ease

Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. 

The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins. 

Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe. 

Judah has no peace, but her enemies do. The grief of Jerusalem is due to her sins and judgment.

Lamentations 1:6, Princes flee

All the splendor has departed from Daughter Zion. 

Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; 

in weakness they have fled before the pursuer. 

The author laments that the splendor of Jerusalem is gone; even her princes have fled. (The account of the flight of Zedekiah and his court is in 2 Kings 25:4-7.)

Lamentations 1:7, Laughter

In the days of her affliction and wandering 

Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. 

When her people fell into enemy hands, there was no one to help her. 

Her enemies looked at her and laughed at her destruction. 

Jerusalem remembers past treasures and beauties. She laments at the current affliction and the mocking laughter of her enemies.

Ellison (p. 697) says that chapters 1-4 are in the Qinah metre, a lament meter that is a long line of five beats, in a 3+2 pattern. Many of these verses consist of three lines in that meter, with loose parallelism. The only exceptions are this verse, with four lines, and 2:19, also with four lines. Is this an error in manuscript copying, with a line accidentally added? Or is this a deliberate, dramatic change by the author, much like changing the scale in a song?

Lamentations 1:8-9. Filthy garments

Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. 

All who honored her despise her, for they have all seen her naked; 

she herself groans and turns away. 

Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. 

Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. 

“Look, LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.” 

Jerusalem is portrayed as a dirty woman on the streets, with her menstrual blood ("filthiness") on her skirts. She in unprepared for this dramatic reversal in fortune. At the end of these six lines, the city asks for God to remember the her pain and the triumph of their enemy.

Lamentations 1:9b-10, Pagans in the sanctuary

The enemy laid hands on all her treasures; 

she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary— 

those you had forbidden to enter your assembly. 

Not only has Jerusalem sinned, with idolatry and oppression, she is punished by having pagans enter her sanctuary, to the places where people used to worship YHWH.

Lamentations 1:11a, Starvation

All her people groan as they search for bread; 

they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. 

The people trade treasures for food, so as to avoid starvation. This result of Nebuchadnezzar's siege is described briefly in 2 Kings 25:2-3. Some commentators suggest that the "treasures" here are children, as everything else would have been taken earlier. (A particularly brutal image of such a siege occurs in Deuteronomy 28:53-57.)

Lamentations 1:11b-12, Despised

“Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.” 

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. 

Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, 

that the LORD brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?

The text changes from third person to first person. Now Jerusalem, Lady Zion, speaks. No one else suffers as she does. YHWH's fierce anger is terrible. 

Lamentations 1:13-15, Fire, Yoke, Winepress

“From on high he sent fire, sent it down into my bones. 

He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. 

He made me desolate, faint all the day long. 

“My sins have been bound into a yoke; by his hands they were woven together. 

They have been hung on my neck, and the Lord has sapped my strength. 

He has given me into the hands of those I cannot withstand. 

“The Lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst; 

he has summoned an army against me to crush my young men. 

In his winepress the Lord has trampled Virgin Daughter Judah. 

Three metaphors carry these three verses. In the first there is fire (while caught in a net), then there is the yoke one might place on the necks of oxen, finally there is the red wine pouring out of a winepress, as the people, like grapes, are trampled down.

Lamentations 1:16-17, No one to comfort me

“This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. 

No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. 

My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.” 

Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. 

The LORD has decreed for Jacob that his neighbors become his foes; 

Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them. 

Lonely Jerusalem weeps. No one is there to comfort her, even her children are destitute. Jerusalem is unclean and abandoned.

Lamentations 1:18-19, I rebelled

The LORD is righteous, yet I rebelled against his command. 

Listen, all you peoples; look on my suffering. 

My young men and young women have gone into exile. 

,

“I called to my allies but they betrayed me. 

My priests and my elders perished in the city 

while they searched for food to keep themselves alive. 

Jerusalem knows why she suffers. She rebelled against God. And so her young men and women are taken away to Babylon and her priest and elders die in the city ruins.

Lamentations 1:20-22a, Continued confession

“See, LORD, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, 

and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious.

 Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death. 

“People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. 

All my enemies have heard of my distress; they rejoice at what you have done. 

Lady Zion continues her confession. She has been rebellious. Now she suffers. No one comforts her and her enemies rejoice.

Lamentations 1:21b-22, Please, deal with them too!

May you bring the day you have announced so they may become like me. 

“Let all their wickedness come before you; 

deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my sins. 

My groans are many and my heart is faint.”

In these last lines there is a Jeremaic suggestion that her enemies may some day suffer like she has. But this is only a request for vengeance; there is not Jeremiah's confidence that a future judgment day will come.