Jerusalem’s past glory and present sad state
4
📚How the gold has become dim! How the most fine gold
has changed! The stones of the sanctuary
are scattered at the head of every street.
2 📚The precious sons of Zion,
worth their weight in fine gold,
how they are regarded like
earthenware pitchers,
the work of the potter’s hands!
4:2 The people of Judah and Jerusalem were God’s special treasure – Ex 19:5. But all their beauty and splendor had vanished.⚜
3 📚Even jackals offer the breast,
they give suck to their young ones,
but the daughter of my people
has become cruel,
like the ostriches 📖 in the desert.
4:3 The people had become harsher than animals toward their children (Lam 2:20).⚜
4 📚The tongue of the sucking child clings
to the roof of his mouth for thirst.
The young children ask for bread,
and no one breaks it
for them.
4:4 Verse 10; Lam 2:11-12.⚜
5 📚Those who ate delicacies are desolate
in the streets.
Those who were brought up in scarlet
embrace ash heaps.
4:5 Neither wealthy people nor those of the royal family were able to escape (scarlet here probably indicates royalty).⚜
6 📚For the punishment of the wickedness
of the daughter of my people is greater
than the punishment of the sin of Sodom
that was overthrown in a moment,
with no hand turned to help her.
4:6 Sodom was destroyed immediately by fire from heaven, but Jerusalem had to endure a siege of a year and a half, and then fell into the hands of savage enemies who destroyed her.⚜
7 📚Her Nazirites were purer than snow;
they were whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than rubies;
their appearance was like sapphire.
4:7 Verse 5.⚜
8 📚Now their faces are blacker than coal;
they are not recognized in the streets.
Their skin clings to their bones; it is withered;
it has become like a stick.
4:8 This was the result of the famine that came to them.⚜
9 📚Those slain by the sword are better off
than those slain by hunger;
for these pine away,
stricken by the lack of the fruits
of the field.
10 📚The hands of compassionate women
have boiled their own children;
they were their food in the destruction
of the daughter of my people.
11 📚The LORD has brought his fury to bear;
he has poured out his fierce anger,
and has kindled a fire in Zion;
and it has devoured its foundations.
4:11 Sin not confessed and forsaken brings God’s anger, and that anger brings terrible punishment.⚜
12 📚The kings of the earth,
and all the inhabitants of the world,
would not have believed that the adversary
and the enemy could enter the gates
of Jerusalem.
4:12 Jer 21:13. Before this event Jerusalem had sometimes fallen into the hands of its enemies. But afterwards the kings of Judah had greatly strengthened the walls and defensive fortifications of the city (2 Chron 26:9; 2 Chron 33:14). Jerusalem withstood even a siege of one and a half years at the hands of the mighty Babylonian army. Perhaps the kings and peoples of the earth remembered how the armies of Sennacherib had perished outside Jerusalem’s walls (Isa 36:1-2; 37:36-37), and thought the same thing might happen to the Babylonians.⚜
13 📚Because of the sins of her prophets,
and the evil deeds of her priests
who shed the blood of the just in the midst
of her,
14 📚They have wandered like blind men
in the streets;
they have polluted themselves
with blood,
so that men could not touch
their garments.
15 📚They cried out to them,
“Go away,
unclean! Go away,
go away! Do not touch!”
When they ran away and wandered,
people among the nations said,
“They will not settle there again”.
4:15 The priests had changed their holy consecration and the glory of their priesthood into something abominable and evil.⚜
16 📚The anger of the LORD has scattered them;
he no longer regards them.
They did not respect the person of the priests;
they did not show favour to the elders.
17 📚As for us,
our eyes failed,
vainly looking for our help.
In our watching we looked for a nation
that could not save us.
18 📚They hunt our steps,
so that we cannot go into our streets.
Our end is near;
our days are finished, for our end has come.
19 📚Our pursuers are swifter than
the eagles of the sky.
They pursued us on the mountains.
They lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20 📚The breath of our nostrils,
the anointed of the LORD,
was caught in their pits;
we had said of him,
“Under his shadow we will live
among the nations”.
4:20 This refers to King Zedekiah – Jer 39:4-5.⚜
21 📚Rejoice and be glad,
O daughter of Edom,
you who live in the land of Uz 📖;
but the cup will also pass to you.
You will get drunk,
and make yourself naked.
4:21 Esau’s descendants rejoiced when they saw the fall of Judah and Jerusalem (Ezek 35:15; Oba 12). But the time of their destruction was near (Jer 25:15, 21).⚜
22 📚The punishment of your guilt
is completed,
O daughter of Zion.
He will no longer lead you away
into captivity.
He will punish your guilt,
O daughter of Edom;
he will expose your sins.