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Lamentations 1:20

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Abroad the sword bereaveth - War is through the country; and at home death; the pestilence and famine rage in the city; calamity in every shape is fallen upon me.

Virgil represents the calamities of Troy under the same image: -

- Nec soli poenas dant sanguine Teucri:

Quondam etiam victis redit in praecordia virtus;

Victoresque cadunt Danai. Crudelis ubique

Luctus, ubique Pavor, et plurima mortis imago.

Aeneid. lib. 2:366.

"Not only Trojans fall; but, in their turn,

The vanquished triumph, and the victors mourn.

Ours take new courage from despair and night;

Confused the fortune is, confused the fight.

All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears;

And grisly death in sundry shapes appears."

Dryden.

So Milton -

" - Despair

Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;

And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook."

Par. Lost, B. 11:489.

Jeremiah, Jeremiah 9:21, uses the same image: -

Death is come up into our windows:

He hath entered our palaces,

To cut off the infants without,

And the young men in our streets.

So Silius Italicus, II. 548: -

Mors graditur, vasto pandens cava guttura rletu,

Casuroque inhians populo.

"Death stalks along, and opens his hideous

throat to gulp down the people."

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Troubled - Or, inflamed with sorrow.

Turned within me - Agitated violently.

At home there is as death - i. e. “in the house” there are pale pining forms, wasting with hunger, and presenting the appearance of death.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
Jerusalem, sitting dejected on the ground, calls on those that passed by, to consider whether her example did not concern them. Her outward sufferings were great, but her inward sufferings were harder to bear, through the sense of guilt. Sorrow for sin must be great sorrow, and must affect the soul. Here we see the evil of sin, and may take warning to flee from the wrath to come. Whatever may be learned from the sufferings of Jerusalem, far more may be learned from the sufferings of Christ. Does he not from the cross speak to every one of us? Does he not say, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Let all our sorrows lead us to the cross of Christ, lead us to mark his example, and cheerfully to follow him.