Lamentations 1:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

From above hath he sent fire into my bones Calamities as consuming and as afflictive as fire in the bones. He hath spread a net for my feet Hath brought me into a most miserable condition, in which I am so entangled that I cannot extricate myself nor escape from it. Thus the prophet teaches Jerusalem to look beyond the Babylonians, and to see the sin-avenging hand of God in her sufferings. As if he had said, It is God himself that hath sent these evils upon me; he hath stirred up my enemies against me, and they are no more than the rod of his anger. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand, &c. He has, as it were, gathered my iniquities and the iniquities of my people together, and made a yoke of them to put upon me, so that I am weighed down by them, and by the judgments inflicted on account of them. They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck My punishments are twisted with my sins as cords to make them strong: I have a complication of judgments upon me, sword, famine, pestilence, captivity; and they are not only prepared for my neck, but are already put upon it. He hath made my strength to fall, &c. All my valiant men, the strength of my nation, is broken, and I am so fallen that I am not able to rise again. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men, &c. The destruction which is made by war is frequently expressed by treading under foot: see note on Jeremiah 50:26. He hath called an assembly against me to crush, &c. Instead of those solemn assemblies that were wont to be called together in the midst of me by the sound of trumpet, to celebrate my solemn feasts, God hath called an assembly of Chaldeans to lay me in ruins, and crush my people. The Lord hath trodden the daughter of Judah as in a wine-press That people, which was formerly chosen by Jehovah, and secured against all violent attempts by his immediate and almighty protection, he has now given up to the fury of their enemies, to afflict them with such severity that their blood has been shed in the streets of Jerusalem as wine from the wine-press. For these things I weep, &c. For these sore afflictions, and for my sins which have caused them, and for these tokens of divine wrath which I see in them I weep so plentifully, and am in such distress, that mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul Namely, God; is far from me Hath withdrawn himself, is departed from me in displeasure, and beholds me afar off. My children are desolate The other cities of Judah, under Jerusalem, the mother city, or my people, are wasted, destroyed, and made desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed And effected his purpose.