Morning Bible Study: Lamentations 5:1-16

5:1 Remember, Lord, what has happened to us;

    look, and see our disgrace.

2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

    our homes to foreigners.

3 We have become fatherless,

    our mothers are widows.

4 We must buy the water we drink;

    our wood can be had only at a price.

5 Those who pursue us are at our heels;

    we are weary and find no rest.

6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria

    to get enough bread.

7 Our ancestors sinned and are no more,

    and we bear their punishment.

8 Slaves rule over us,

    and there is no one to free us from their hands.

9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives

    because of the sword in the desert.

10 Our skin is hot as an oven,

    feverish from hunger.

11 Women have been violated in Zion,

    and virgins in the towns of Judah.

12 Princes have been hung up by their hands;

    elders are shown no respect.

13 Young men toil at the millstones;

    boys stagger under loads of wood.

14 The elders are gone from the city gate;

    the young men have stopped their music.

15 Joy is gone from our hearts;

    our dancing has turned to mourning.

16 The crown has fallen from our head.

    Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Commentary

(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary -- www.christianity.com)

"Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him who bare our sins in his own body on the tree."