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1 REmember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider and behold our re∣proach a.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens b.
3 We are orphans and fatherless, c our mo∣thers are as widows d.
4 We have drunken our water for mony, our wood † is sold to us e.
5 † Our necks are under persecution, we labour and have no rest f.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread g.
7 Our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have born their iniquities h.
8 Servants have ruled over us i: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hands k.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness l.
10 Our skin was black like an oven, be∣cause of the ‖ terrible famine m.
11 They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah n.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand w: the faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood x.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick y.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased, our dance is turned into mourning.z
16 † The crown is fallen from our head a: wo unto us that we have sinned b.
17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim c.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it d.
19 Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever: thy throne from generation to generation e.
20 Wherefore doest thou forget us for ever, and forsake us † so long time f?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned g: renew our days as of old h.
22 ‖ But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us i.
It hath been before observed that it is very frequent in Scripture to express those acts which are reasonably consequent to the exercise of our exterior or interior senses, by terms which signifie the exercise of those senses. That which the Prophet here prayeth for is Gods freeing the Jews from those calamities which oppressed them, this he prayeth for under the notion of Gods remembring them, and beholding their reproach.
What our Fathers inherited as given them by thee, and we as left to us by them, is come into the hands of the Chal∣deans.
We are all of us without a King (who is the common Fa∣ther of the Countrey) we are deprived of thy fatherly care and protection, many young Children amongst us are left without an earthly Parent.
Either our great Cities are like Widows wanting Magistrates. Or our Women that were married are left Widows.
Heb. cometh for price.
This seemeth to refer to the state of the Jews in Babylon where it is probable their adversaries made them buy both Wa∣ter and Wood, which in the Land of Canaan they had plentifully and without any further charge to them, then fetching the one, and cutting down and bringing home the other.
Heb. on our necks we are persecuted.
As the generality of Prisoners of War, are made slaves and put to hard and incessant labour, so in probability the most of the Jews were at first at least.
The ten Tribes were all carried Captives into Assyria, ma∣ny of the Kingdom of Iudah, as we have heard, fled into Egypt after the taking of Ierusalem. Giving the hand may either signifie working with their hands, and labouring for them. Or yielding up themselves to their power, or lifting up the hands as sup∣plicants to them, or striking hands and making Covenants with them, or lending them their hands to help them, and all to get any thing to live upon.
Jer. 31.29.
We must not understand this in the same sense as Ezek. 18.2. where God reflecteth upon them for using a Proverb to this sense. It is the Prophet who here speaketh, and in the name of the Godly Iews who would not excuse themselves, as if they suffered meerly for their forefathers sins. But the Pro∣phet confes••eth and bewaileth that God had punished their iniquities and the iniquities of their forefathers together, and it was better with their forefathers who had sinned, and were dead and gone, than with them upon whom the punishment of their iniquity did abide, and was like so to do a long time.
Either those who sometimes were our servants, tributary to us, or the posterity of Cham, condemned of old to be Servants to our forefather Sem, Gen. 9.26. Or the servants of those masters whom we serve in Babylon.
And none will help us and give us more liberty.
The Enemies lay incamped in all the plains, so as they could stir out no way but the sword of the Chaldeans was upon them, and what Victuals they gat they adventured their lives for, during the time of the siege.
Job. 30.30. Psal. 119.83.
Or, Terrors or stormes.
The want of bread caused leanness, and paleness, and ill colours in their faces.
Usual outrages of barbarous Souldiers. The Heb. is, They humbled, a modest term to express those actions by.
Most probably by the Enemies hands, though some would have it by their hands intimating a more sharp and lingring death. Hanging was an ancient way in the Eastern Countries of putting malefactors to death, Gen. 40.19.
Isa. 47.6.
Their base servile condition is expressed by the labour they were put to, which was either grinding in the Mill (an ordinary employment of Slaves in those Countries) or carrying Mill∣stones, and the younger Children, in carrying great burdens of wood under which they fell, as being not able to stand under the burdens laid upon them.
Our grave men were wont to sit and execute judgment in the gates, but now there is no such thing. Our young men were wont to play on Musick, and to have their merry meetings, but they are also ceased.
Either our rejoycing at our solemn Festivals, and dancings there, which were usual as appeareth from many Scriptures. Or all our joy and dancings as well at other times as in our So∣lemn Festivals.
Heb. the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of our head is fallen.
Or, the crown of our head is fallen, by which is not onely to be understood the cessation of their Kingdom, but all their honour, splendour and dignity, (Crown being taken in a meta∣phorical Notion).
We must thank our selves for all this, this wo is come upon us because of our sins.
Psal. 6.7.
Either for our sins these miseries are befallen us: or for these miseries our Spirits fail us, and we are almost blinded with weeping.
Foxes and other wild beasts, which fly from places inha∣bited for fear of men inhabiting, and are much in desolate places. The Mountain of Zion, where the temple once stood, and people met to worship God, was now a desolate unfrequented place, so as wild beasts ran up and down there.
Psal. 9.••.•• 10.16. & •••• 10. & 1••2.•••• 27. & 145.1•• Hab. 1.12
That is, Lord though for our sins thou sufferest these things to be done unto us, and our throne be through thy righteous Providence thrown down, and thy throne in thy Sanctuary a∣mongst us be thrown down; yet thou art still the same God, thy power is not diminished, nor thy goodness abated. Thou rulest the world, and shalt rule it for ever and for ever.
Heb. for 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of dayes.
Wherefore dost thou in the dispensations of thy Providence carry thy self as if thou hadst forgotten us, and forsaken us, and that for a long time.
Psal. 80.•••• 19.
See the like expression Ier. 31.18. Turn thou us unto thee by giving us Repentance, and then our condition will be altered, or receive us into thy favour, and then it shall be well with us.
Restore us to our former estate, that it may be with us as it hath formerly been.
Or, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 thou ••••••••ject us.
Our Translators have here so rendered the particle 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that the words seem to express some diffidence in the Prophet of Gods Mercy in restoring the people to their former state, some expressions of which nature we find falling from the most emi∣nent Servants of God in an hour of great Temptation: but where such a sense is not necessary, it is hard to put it upon a Text. Some therefore expound 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in this place by But if. O∣thers translate them, Although thou hast, &c. Mr. Calvin prefer∣eth the translation of them by Nisi, unless thou hast utterly rejected us, and thinks that by this expression the Prophet confirmeth himself against Temptations of diffidence, because it was impos∣sible God should utterly cast off his People, Rom. 11.2. Others read it Interrogatively, Hast thou utterly rejected us? which doth not suppose that the Prophet believed he had, though his pre∣sent Providence shewed him very angry with them.