EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
Lamentations 5:6. Judæa was on the verge of famine through the foragings of the invaders, and, under the ominous shadow of starvation, To Egypt we have given the hand, i.e., imploring supplies of food, as is signified by the parallel clause, to Assyria to be satisfied with bread. The people appealed to a supposed friendly and to an openly hostile government; for the Babylonian empire, even in the height of its power, was occasionally spoken of as Assyria (Jeremiah 2:18), into whose dominion it had entered.
Lamentations 5:7. Our fathers have sinned; they are not in the land of the living. The hour of punishment had not come in their time. The measure of iniquity was not yet full; but the consequences of their doings, which were not good, had not been buried with them. The disruption of civil and religious order, by which we have so fearfully suffered, results from the guilt which was incurred by preceding generations. We have borne their iniquities. This truth is stated again and again in the Old Testament Scriptures (Exodus 20:5; Numbers 14:18; 2 Kings 23:25-26); it is, however, only half a truth, and becomes an error if understood to say that the descendants were not also guilty. This other half was beginning to dawn upon Israel. It is noted in Lamentations 5:16, and was boldly announced by the prophets of this period, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:29-30) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18). Yet God strikes the sins of forefathers with penal judgments on their children only when the children persist in sin, as their predecessors did. But such vicarious suffering placed them in a position like sin-bearers, and becomes ground of appeal for the exercise of Divine compassion.
Lamentations 5:8. Servants have ruled over us. Who they were may be uncertain. It is a farfetched supposition that they were the conquering chiefs, because “the Babylonians in general might be called slaves in comparison with the kingdom of priests and sons of Jehovah.” The suggestion rather is that the galling yoke was made doubly galling by the insolence and brutality of menials, “dressed in the brief authority of office,” slaves in Oriental countries often rising to places of power. A parallel is mentioned by Nehemiah, who says (chap. Lamentations 5:5), Even their (i.e., the governor’s) servants bare rule over them; there was no deliverer from their hands.
Lamentations 5:9. With our lives we get our bread—they jeopardised their lives when going to gather a scanty harvest, or to take from provisions which had been stowed away—because of the sword of the desert, wielded by the predatory Bedawin, who would plunder and even kill those who were in possession of food. So Gideon had to get his wheat in secret, lest the Midianites should seize it (Judges 6:11); and the ten men who bought their lives from the robbers and murderers of Gedaliah (Jeremiah 41:8) drew from concealed stores of victuals.
HOMILETICS
HUMILIATING SUBJECTION
I. Personal liberty is surrendered for a livelihood. “We have given the hand to the Egyptian and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread” (Lamentations 5:6). Absolutely it was Babylon that had just destroyed their national existence, but Jeremiah means that all feelings of patriotism were crushed, and the sole care that remained was the selfish desire for personal preservation. To secure this the people would readily have submitted to the yoke either of Egypt or Assyria, the great powers from which in their past history they had so often suffered (Speaker’s Commentary). Life is sweet, and it is appalling to think how many there are ready to sell their conscience, their souls, their friends, their country for bread! The sting of want demoralises the soul. It is matter for unspeakable thankfulness when men are lifted above the degrading temptations of poverty.
II. The penalty of continuance in sin. “Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities” (Lamentations 5:7). It is a frequent practice of the unfortunate to blame the past. Here the sufferers complain that their predecessors, who commenced the national apostasy, had died before the punishment began, and that they are left to bear alone the fatal consequences which previous transgressors had escaped. It was some time before the truth dawned upon their minds that they had adopted and continued with aggravated obstinacy the sins of their forefathers, and that there was quite sufficient guilt in their own iniquity to merit the chastisement they suffered. The course of sin is downward, ever downward, and plunges its victims into the most humiliating subjection.
III. A painful experience to a high-spirited people when domineered over by inferiors. “Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hands” (Lamentations 5:8). Among the things for which “the earth is disquieted and which it cannot bear,” the proverb saith, “For a servant when he reigneth” (Proverbs 30:21-22). In Oriental countries slaves often rose to high office, and there were no doubt such in the Chaldean army. The rule of such is often maintained with unnecessary rigour. They seem to think that they can gain respect and reverence only by severity. The Jews fretted and chafed under the petty tyranny of men whom they regarded as in every respect their inferiors except in their cruel bondage. Virgil has said—
“Since slaves so insolent are grown,
What may not masters do?”
The Jews had rebelled against the wise and gentle rule of Jehovah and His servants the prophets. Now they are ruled by the tyranny of their enemies and of their slaves. The sinner cannot escape the operation of law. He only exchanges rulers.
IV. The victims are compelled to snatch their food at the peril of their lives. “We gat our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness” (Lamentations 5:9). Though they were willing to surrender their liberty for food, its supply was very uncertain and precarious. “This verse apparently refers to those who were left as delvers and vine-dressers in the land, and who, in gathering in such fruits as remained, were exposed to incursions of the Bedaween, here called the sword of the desert.” Every morsel of food they ate was snatched as from the mouths of wild beasts. The next forage for food may cost them, not only their independence, but their lives. They had indeed to eat their bread with quaking and carefulness, as it had been predicted (Ezekiel 12:18-19). There is no advantage in selling our souls for bread; it is a bad bargain. Honour is more precious than food, or than life itself.
LESSONS.—
1. War imposes great degradations on the conquered.
2. Sin is at the root of all humiliation and suffering.
3. Subjection is intolerable to those who have tasted the sweets of freedom.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lamentations 5:6; Lamentations 5:8-9. The intense love of freedom for food (Lamentations 5:6).
2. Subjects life:
1. Tempts men to barter their to the oppressive tyranny of inferiors (Lamentations 5:8).
3. Will run great risks in the struggle for maintenance (Lamentations 5:9).
Lamentations 5:7. Sin and punishment:
1. Are closely linked together.
2. The sins, like the virtues, of one generation pass on in their consequence to the next.
3. Suffering on account of others is taken into account in God’s dealing with individuals and with nations.
4. Every offender is punished only according to his own sin.
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Mistaken views of life. Two old men, amateur naturalists, who had devoted their whole lives, one to ferns and the other to orchids, travelled together for many hours. At the end of their journey he who had cultivated ferns said to his companion with a sigh, “I have wasted my life: if I had it to live over again, I should devote it to orchids.”
Life divinely ordered. Our life is a web woven by the hand of God, the thread reaching from our birth to our death. The woof is trouble, but still runs with it a weft of interwoven comforts.—Adams.
Sin in man. In man there will be a layer of fierce hyena or of timid deer running through the nature in the most uncertain and tortuous manner. Nero is sensitive to poetry and music, but not to human suffering. Marcus Aurelius is tolerant and good to all men but Christians. The Tlascalans of Mexico loved, and even worshipped flowers, but they were cruel to excess, and sacrificed human victims with savage delight. The good and the evil lie close together, the virtues and the vices alternate, so is human power accumulated; alternately the metal and the rags, a terrible voltaic pile. In the well-bred animal the claw is nicely cushioned; the old Adam is presentable.—A. F. Russell.
Humiliation. It is with us as with the reeds which grow by the river-side; when the waters overflow, the reed bows its head and bends down, and the flood passes over without breaking it; after which it uplifts its head and stands erect in all its vigour, rejoicing in renewed life. So is it with us; we also must sometimes be bowed down to the earth and humbled, and then arise with renewed joy and trust.
Submission. Let us not charge God over-hastily with the untoward incidents of life. In the main we are the manufacturers of our own life-material. If you give the weaver none but dark threads, he can only fashion a sombre pattern.—Halsey.