19 I called for my lovers, [but] they have deceived me;
My priests and my elders expired in the city,
When they were seeking bread for themselves, that they might revive their spirit. 20 Behold, O Jahveh, how distressed I am! my bowels are moved;
My heart is turned within me, for I was very rebellious:
Without, the sword bereaveth [me]; within, [it is] like death. 21 They have heard that I sigh, I have no comforter:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad because Thou hast done it.
Thou bringest the day [that] Thou hast proclaimed, that they may be like me. 22 Let all their wickedness come before Thee,
And do to them as Thou hast done to me because of all my transgressions;
For my sighs are many and my heart is faint.
Chap. 1
Lamentations 1:1-22
The poem begins with a doleful meditation on the deeply degraded state into which Jerusalem has fallen; and in the first half (Lam 1:1-11), lament is made over the sad condition of the unhappy city, which, forsaken by all her friends, and persecuted by enemies, has lost all her glory, and, finding no comforter in her misery, pines in want and disesteem. In the second half (Lam 1:12-22), the city herself is introduced, weeping, and giving expression to her sorrow over the evil determined against her because of her sins. Both portions are closely connected. On the one hand, we find, even in Lam 1:9 and Lam 1:11, tones of lamentation, like signs from the city, coming into the description of her misery, and preparing the way for the introduction of her lamentation in Lam 1:12-22; on the other hand, her sin is mentioned even so early as in Lam 1:5 and Lam 1:8 as the cause of her misfortune, and the transition thus indicated from complaint to the confession of guilt found in the second part. This transition is made in Lam 1:17 by means of a kind of meditation on the cheerless and helpless condition of the city. The second half of the poem is thereby divided into two equal portions, and in such a manner that, while in the former of these (Lam 1:12-16) it is complaint that prevails, and the thought of guilt comes forward only in Lam 1:14, in the latter (Lam 1:18-22) the confession of God's justice and of sin in the speaker becomes most prominent; and the repeated mention of misery and oppression rises into an entreaty for deliverance from the misery,
