Lamentations 1:1

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!.... These are the words of Jeremiah; so the Targum introduces them, "Jeremiah the prophet and high priest said;'' and began thus, "how"; not

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

CHAPTER 1 Jeremiah lamenteth the former excellency and present misery of Jerusalem for her sin, Lamentations 1:1-11. She complaineth of her grief, Lamentations 1:12-17; confesseth God's judgments to be righteous; and prayeth unto him, Lamentations 1:18-22. The interrogative particle how, once expressed and twice more understood in this verse, doth not so much inquire the cause or reason of the effect, as express admiration or lamentation. The prophet admires the miserable state of the city, which was full of people beyond the proportion of other cities, and now was solitary, so thin of people that scarce any could be seen in her streets. She that had a king, or rather a god, that was a husband to her, now was forsaken of God, her king taken from her, and she like a poor widow. She that was like a princess amongst the nations, that sometimes (as in David's time) had the Moabites, Ammonites, &c. tributaries to her, was now a tributary herself.

Lamentations 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the nations, [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she become tributary!Ver. 1. How doth the city sit solitary.] Some tell us of Jeremiah’ s cave, near to Aceldama, where he sat in sight of the city now destroyed, and made her this epitaph - not altogether unlike that which David once made for his dear Jonathan. There he hath his Echa admirantis et commiserantis, his wondering and condoling. How once, and again, and a third time. And our prophet hath the self-same, in sense at least, three different times in this one verse; whence the Hebrews call the whole book by the name of Echa (How), which is the first word in it, and beginneth with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. For it must be observed here that, for memory’ s sake especially, this piece of Holy Writ is most of it made up in order of alphabet, viz., the four first chapters, and all of it with singular artifice in a poetic strain. Take that one passage for a taste, Lamentations 5:16 : Oi na lanu, chi chattanu, which soundeth rhythmically, i.e., woe to us that we have sinned. And whereas other poetry is the luxury of such learning as is in words restrained, in matter usually loose, here it is altogether otherwise; for the prophet or poet, whether id sibi negotii credidit solum dari, maketh it his whole business to set forth his people’ s misery in the cause thereof, their sins and excesses, pressing therefore to patience, to repentance, to earnest prayer, and to a confident expectation of a gracious issue, together with a sanctified use of all their sufferings. He had himself been a man of many sorrows all along; and now had his share as deep as any in the common calamity. Besides which he could truly say with Cyprian, Cum singulis pectus meum copulo, maeroris et funeris pondera luctuosa participo: cum plangentibus plango, cum deflentibus defleo, i.e., in St Paul’ s words, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? grieved, and I grieve not? offended, and I burn not?" And this he expresseth in a stately style and figurative terms, full of passion and compassion, as to show his love to his country, so to work upon his hard hearted countrymen, and to excite them to repentance and better obedience. How doth the city.] Lately a city, yea, the city, the most famous of all the cities of the East, saith Pliny; but now, alas! of a city become a heap. So true is that of Seneca, speaking of a great city burned to ashes, Una dies interest inter magnam civitatem et nullam, There was but one day between a city and no city.

I.(1) How doth the city . . .—The poem of twenty-two verses divides itself into two symmetrical halves, (1) Lamentations 1:1-11, in which the prophet laments over Jerusalem; and (2) Lamentations 1:12-22, more dramatic in its form, in which the daughter of Zion bewails her own miseries. Each verse is divided into three lines, each line beginning, in the Hebrew, with the same letter. The opening picture reminds us of the well-known Judœa capta, a woman sitting under a palm-tree, on the Roman medals struck after the destruction of Jerusalem. How is she become.—Better, making one sentence instead of two, She is become a widow that was great among the nations, and so with the clause that follows. Provinces.—The word, used in Esther 1:1; Esther 1:22, and elsewhere, of the countries subject to Persia and Assyria and so in Ezra 2:1; Nehemiah 7:6, of Judah itself, here indicates the neighbouring countries that had once, as in the reign of Hezekiah, been subject to Judah. “Tributary,” as used here, implies, as in Joshua 16:10, personal servitude, rather than the money payment, for which, at a later period, as in Esther 10:1, it was commuted.

THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH Chronological notes relative to the Book of the Lamentations - Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3416. - Year of the Jewish era of the world, 3173. - Year from the Deluge, 1760. - First year of the forty-eighth Olympiad. - Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian account, 166. - Year before the birth of Christ, 584. - Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 588. - Year of the Julian Period, 4126. - Year of the era of Nabonassar, 160. - Cycle of the Sun, 10. - Cycle of the Moon, 3. - Second year after the fourth Sabbatic year after the seventeenth Jewish jubilee, according to Helvicus. - Twenty-ninth year of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of the Romans: this was the seventy-ninth year before the commencement of the consular government. - Thirty-eighth year of Cyaxares or Cyaraxes, the fourth king of Media. - Eighteenth year of Agasicles, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae. - Twentieth year of Leon, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae. - Thirty-second year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia. This was the father of the celebrated Croesus. - Fifteenth year of AEropas, the seventh king of Macedon. - Nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. - Eleventh year of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. CHAPTER I The prophet begins with lamenting the dismal reverse of fortune that befell his country, confessing at the same time that her calamities were the just consequence of her sins, 1-6. Jerusalem herself is then personified and brought forward to continue the sad complaint, and to solicit the mercy of God, 7-22. In all copies of the Septuagint, whether of the Roman or Alexandrian editions, the following words are found as a part of the text: ΚαιεγενετομετατοαιχμαλωτισθηναιτονΙσραηλ, καιΙερουσαλημερημωθηναι, εκαθισενΙερεμιαςκλαιων, καιεθρηνησεντονθρηνοντουτονεπιΙερουσαλημ, καιειπεν· - "And it came to pass after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping: and he lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem; and he said." The Vulgate has the same, with some variations: - "Et factum est, postquam in captivitatem redactus est Israel, et Jerusalem deserta est, sedit Jeremias propheta fiens, et planxit lamentations hac in Jerusalem, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans, digit." The translation of this, as given in the first translation of the Bible into English, may be found at the end of Jeremiah, taken from an ancient MS. in my own possession. I subjoin another taken from the first PRINTED edition of the English Bible, that by Coverdale, 1535.

1, 2. Löhr points out as special characteristics of this ch. the writer’s yearning for revenge, and also his full recognition of the sin of his own time as well as of earlier generations. Lamentations 1:1 for metrical considerations should be arranged in three approximately equal lines; “she … nations” forming the second part of the second line.

In these two verses is the same sad image as appears in the well-known medal of Titus, struck to celebrate his triumph over Jerusalem.

THE , Lamentations 1:1-11.1. As a widow — Jerusalem is personified as a desolate woman, deprived of children and husband, neglected by her lovers and betrayed by her friends.