gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS would have been absurd to say, that the Jews had migrated into exile on account of affliction, and had migrated willingly; for we know that they were violently driven by the Chaldeans. They did not, then, willingly migrate. When these two things could not be connected, they thought that the cruelty of the Jews is what is referred to, which they had exercised towards their own brethren. But the migration of which the Prophet speaks is improperly applied, as I have said, to the captivity; but on the contrary, he means those who had removed into different parts of the world, because this was more tolerable than their condition in their own country. And we hence learn how severely they had been harassed by the Chaldeans, for they had willingly fled away, though, as we know, exile is hard. We then conclude that it was a barbarous and a violent oppression, since the Prophet says, that the Jews thus went into exile of their own accord, and sought hiding-places either in Egypt or in the land of Moab, or among other neighboring nations. 484
He afterwards adds another evil, that they never found rest; and lastly, that they had been taken by their enemies between straits, so that no escape was possible. It must have been a sad condition for the people to live in a foreign land; for we know that such a precarious life differs but little from death; and there were no contiguous nations by whom the Jews were not hated. When they then fled to such people, it was no small evil. But when they had nowhere a quiet abode, the indignity was still greater, and this is what the Prophet now refers to. But when we flee and tremblingly turn here and there, it is one of the greatest of evils to fall into the hands of enemies, and to be taken by them when we are enclosed as it were between two walls, or in a narrow passage, as some explain the word. It follows, ---
Lamentations 1:4
4. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
4. Viae Sion lugentes a non venientibus (ad verbum; quia non sint qui veniant) ad solennitatem; omnes portae ejus solitariae (vastatae, {);}שוממיןsacerdotes ejus plorantes, virgines ejus afflictae, et ipsa amaritudo ei (hoc est, ipsa in amaritudine, ut vertit Hieronymus
Jeremiah refers here to another cause of sorrow, that the worship of God had ceased, it having been interrupted; nay, it seemed to have become extinct for ever.
He then says that the ways of Sion mourned, because none came to the feasts.
The words are figurative, for we know that feelings belong not to ways; but the
Prophet ascribes feeling to what is inanimate. And this sort of personification is
484Blayney and Horsley agree in this view; but Gataker, Henry, and Henderson take the previous view, that is, that Judah went to exile on account of the oppression they practiced, and the multiplied servitude they exacted, especially the servitude or slavery to which servants were subjected, as recorded in Jeremiah 34. What confirms this view is the word "Judah," which, as it implies the greater part, could not be applied to the comparatively few who voluntarily migrated. 3. Removed is Judah for oppression and for much servitude; She dwells among nations without finding rest; All her pursuers seized her in the straits. The Targum paraphrases "oppression" by mentioning orphans and widows, and "servitude," by referring to what servants were subjected to, as related in Jeremiah 34. These were sins for which the Jews had often been threatened with banishment. "Pursuers" rather than "persecutors;" and to be "seized in (or, between) the straits," is, as Lowth says, a metaphor taken from hunters, who drive the game to narrow places, from which there is no escape. Houbiqant proposes to connect "oppression and servitude" with the following words, and not with the preceding, — Removed is Judah; for oppression and for much servitude, She dwells among the nations without finding rest. — Ed.