Lamentations 5:9 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives - i:e., those of us left in the city after its capture by the Chaldeans. Because of the sword of the wilderness - because of the liability to attack by the robber-Arabs of the wilderness, through which the Jews had to pass to get "bread" from Egypt (cf. Lamentations 5:6).