jugi considerantur (C. B. Michaelis). עלה is used of the imposition of the yoke, as in Num 19:2; 1Sa 6:7. The effect of the imposition of this yoke is: "it hath made my strength to stumble (fail)." Pareau, Thenius, Vaihinger, and Nägelsbach assume God as the subject of the verb הכשׁיל; but this neither accords with the current of the description, nor with the emphatic mention of the subject אדני in the clause succeeding this. Inasmuch as, in the first member of the verse, God is not the subject, but the address takes a passive turn, it is only the leading word על that can be the subject of הכשׁיל: the yoke of sins which, twined together, have come on the neck, has made the strength stumble, i.e., broken it. This effect of the yoke of sins is stated, in the last member, in simple and unfigurative speech: "the Lord hath given me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand," i.e., before whom I cannot maintain my ground. On the construction בּידי לא אוּכל, cf. Ewald, §333, b; Gesenius, §116, 3. קוּם is here viewed in the sense of standing fast, maintaining ground, as in Psa 18:39; and, construed with the accusative, it signifies, to withstand any one; its meaning is not surgere, which Thenius, following the Vulgate, would prefer: the construction here requires the active meaning of the verb.
Verse 15
In Lam 1:15 this thought is further carried out. סלּה and סלה, "to lift up," is only used in poetry; in Psa 119:118 it takes the Aramaic meaning vilipendere, as if in reference to things that can be lifted easily; here it means tollere, to lift up, take away (lxx ἐξῇρε, Vulgateabstulit), tear away forcibly, just as both meanings are combined in נשׂא: it does not mean to outweigh, or raise with a jerk, - the warriors being regarded as weighty things, that speedily were raised when the Chaldean power was thrown into the scale (Thenius, and Böttcher in his Aehrenl. S. 94). This meaning is not confirmed for the Piel by Job 28:16, Job 28:19. קתא מועד does not mean to summon an assembly, i.e., the multitude of foes (Raschi, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Neumann), but to proclaim a festival (cf. Lam 2:22), because in Lam 1:4 and Lam 2:6 (cf. Lev 23:4) מועד denotes the feast-day, and in Lam 1:21 קתא יום means to proclaim a day. עלי means "against me;" for those invited to the feast are the nations that God has invited to destroy the youths, i.e., the young troops of Jerusalem. These celebrate a feast like
