what is added: "before the sword of the wilderness." By this expression are meant the predatory Bedouins of the desert, who, falling upon those that were bringing in the bread, plundered, and probably even killed them. The bringing of the bread is not, however, to be referred (with Rosenmüller, Maurer, and Kalkschmidt) to the attempts made to procure bread from the neighbouring countries; still less is it to be referred (with Thenius, Ewald, and Nägelsbach) to the need for "wringing the bread from the desert and its plunderers;" but it refers to the ingathering of the scanty harvest in the country devastated by war and by the visitations of predatory Bedouins: הביא is the word constantly employed in this connection; cf. 2Sa 9:10; Hag 1:6.
Verse 10
The bread which we are thus obliged to struggle for, at the risk of our life, is not even sufficient to allay hunger, which consumes our bodies. נכמר does not mean to be blackened (Chaldee, Kimchi, C. B. Michaelis, Maurer), but in Gen 43:30; 1Ki 3:26, and Hos 11:8, to be stirred up (of the bowels, compassion), hence to kindle, glow. This last meaning is required by the comparison with תּנּוּר, oven, furnace. This comparison does not mean cutis nostra tanquam fornace adusta est (Gesenius in Thes., Kalkschmidt), still less "black as an oven" (Dietrich in Ges. Lex.), because תּנּוּר does not mean the oven viewed in respect of its blackness, but (from נוּר) in respect of the fire burning in it. The meaning is, "our skin glows like a baker's oven" (Vaihinger, Thenius, Nägelsbach, Gerlach), - a strong expression for the fever-heat produced by hunger. As to זלעפות, glowing heat, see on Psa 11:6.
Verses 11-12
With this must further be considered the maltreatment which persons of every station, sex, and age have to endure. Lam 5:11. Women and virgins are dishonoured in Jerusalem, and in the other cities of the land. Lam 5:12. Princes are suspended by the hand of the enemy (Ewald, contrary to the use of language, renders "along with" them). To hang those who had been put to death was something superadded to the simple punishment by death (Deu 21:22.), and so far as a shameful kind of execution. "The old men are not honoured," i.e., dishonoured; cf. Lam 4:16; Lev 19:32. The words are not to be restricted to the events mentioned in Jer 39:6, but also apply to the present condition
