cessation of the religious feasts. The virgins are here considered as those who enlivened the national festivals by playing, singing, and dancing (Ps. lxviii. 26; Jer. xxxi. 13)" (Keil). And she is in bitterness herself, as if all was lost religiously as well as politically.

() Ver. 5. Her adversaries are become the head, as was threatened if unfaithful to the Lord (Deut. xxviii. 44); her enemies prosper, are in peace, and rest secure, knowing that all resistance is over, so completely has she been crushed. This was brought about not by their might, but because Jehovah has afflicted her for the greatness of her transgressions; and the sufferings befall the most innocent also; her young children have gone captives, the most ominous of all her disasters, driven like a band of the enslaved in Africa, before the adversary. (1) Ver. 6. She has not only been harried of her most precious and tender charges, also from the daughter of Zion is departed all her beauty. God Himself, whose Shechinah made Zion the perfection of beauty, no longer shined there; no longer was there a worship of Him in the beauty of holiness, and even her princes are become like harts that do not find pasture; enfeebled by the scanty diet of the close siege, they have lost vigour, and go without strength when chased before the pursuer, so as to be easily caught. This is in evident allusion to the flight and capture of the King and his men of war, within a few miles from Jerusalem, when it was besieged by the Chaldean army (2 Kings xxv. 3-5).

(1) Ver. 7. Again a change of aspect is presented. Already the city ruined, the people exiled, the holy mountain desecrated have been regarded. Now the poet gives the name of the city, which he shrank from pronouncing before, and uses it as a generic, all-embracing term, Jerusalem remembers, adding an item of pungency to her deep sufferings, in the days of her affliction and a probable meaning of the following word is wanderings, as in margin of Revised Version here. In chap. iii. 19, where the same word is again employed, the margin gives outcast state as a fresh rendering. That of the Speaker's Commentary is to be preferred-homelessness, describing the state of the Jews cast out of their homes and driven into banishment; all her pleasant things which were from the days of old. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. "Sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and there is no helper to her; the adversaries see her, they sneer at her cessations (desolations in Revised Version). This last Hebrew word occurs only here. Its root means to cease, and so this derivative is applied, as by Plumptre, to "the enforced Sabbaths of untilled land, and the Sabbaths conspicuous for the absence of any religious rites." This seems far-fetched, except as to the latter part, and this should be considered as but a portion of the Jewish customs which had been discontinued. If Romans derided the Jews for cessation from work on the seventh day of the week, Babylonians would not. They may have mocked at the faith of Israel in the supremacy of Jehovah, seeing they regarded Him as a subjugated national deity; but "it was no subject of wonder to the Babylonians that the Jews celebrated a weekly day of rest, as they had one of their own (sabbatu)”—(Cheyne).

() Ver. 8. Jerusalem has sinned a sin, has broken the law of her God with determinate will, and bears the natural penalty; therefore she is become as an unclean one; not as one who has been removed (Authorised Version) as a captive from her native place, but as one set aside because of impurity. All who honoured her despise her, for they see her nakedness; her evil is laid bare; the very peoples who had respected her, and who had far less knowledge of what was right and true than she, are now alive to the real character of her procedure, and count it shamefully bad. Even Nebuzar-adan, captain of the Babylonian guard, could say, after her overthrow, Because ye have sinned against Jehovah and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come upon you (Jer. xl. 3). There was still a sensitiveness of conscience in the ideal Jerusalem; Yea, she sighs and turns backward, moaning, as if conscious of spectators and mortified by her open shame, she is fain to screen herself, "as those in such case would do that have any shamefacedness or spark of ingenuity at all in them."

(D) Ver. 9. Her evil very obvious, her defilement is in her skirts, not below, but manifest on her long flowing robe; she remembers not her latter end; as she continued sinning, she paid no regard to the issue of it all, and, in consequence of this want of forethought, she is come down wonderfully, down to the lowest depth of misery, an astonishment to herself, and to all around her; there is no comforter for her. Her conviction of sin, and shame, and sorrow impels her to go to her God, and she cries, See, O Jehovah, my affliction, for the enemy doth magnify himself, the appeal is supported on two bases: (1) Her humiliation; and, (2) The arrogant pretensions of her foes; surely with some vague hope like that of the Psalm-writer, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of thine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me (cxxxviii. 7).

() Ver. 10. His hand the adversary stretches out upon all her pleasant things, treasures of all sorts, thus described by Isaiah (lxiv. 11, 12), Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion is become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste. The plundering of the Temple was the most aggravating of all, for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly; heathens, who were not admissible even into the congregation of the Lord-into religious communion with Israel--had trod the courts which were most holy to Jewish worshippers, and

where only priests could legitimately go, and they had pillaged the pleasant vessels of the house of Jehovah, therewith to adorn the shrines of their idol deities.

() Ver. 11. In ver. 4 the priests sigh; in ver. 8 Jerusalem sighs, and here one and all, because in addition to the religious collapse, a terrible bodily hunger is universally felt, so all her people are sighing, are seeking bread. This use of participles signifies that both the past and present condition of the people is regarded by the writer. He saw that the scanty meals to which they were reduced when beleaguered by the Chaldean army had not ended after the Temple had been desecrated and despoiled; they had parted and were parting with ornaments, jewellery, every one of their valuables, merely to keep body and soul together; they give their pleasant things for food; after a close siege of eighteen months, preceded by the overrunning of the country, food-supplies must have been all but exhausted; to restore their soul, to bring back life, to those who are drawn unto death (1 Kings xvii. 21), and spiritually to restore the soul (Ps. xix. 8). There is bread of which if any man eat he shall live for ever, given by Him who gave His flesh for the life of the world. Was there any undefinable longing for such bread in the following appeal, similar to that of ver. 9, but somewhat intensified? See, O Jehovah, and behold, for I am become despised! Would He take away her reproach? Thus a transition is made to the lamentation and supplication of Jerusalem herself in the following half of this elegy.

Vers. 12-22. These verses form the second section of the poem. The city is represented as complaining of its harassed condition, 12-16, and then as acknowledging her persistent sin in sight of her righteous Lord, who will deal out justice to all transgressors, 17-22.

() Ver. 12. The curtness of the opening Hebrew phrase causes doubt as to its proper explanation. Hence by some it is taken as an address to the wayfarers, and is paraphrased in words like, "I pray all you," or "Oh, that my cry might reach all you.' By others it is taken as a question, and more reasonably; so they explain it by words like, "Does not my misery come to you?" or "Do you not observe what has befallen me?" In either case it conveys a call, as from the weeping, solitary woman, sitting on the ground, to all travellers to consider her deplorable state, and our English Versions have caught the right tone. Is it nothing to you, all ye passers by the way? Is there nothing in my condition to produce seriousness in you instead of indifference or levity? Nothing to warn you? Nothing to call forth your sympathy? Behold and see if there is sorrow like my sorrow. The feeling of a troubled present tends to make it loom before the sufferer as if there never was the like before, which is done to me whom Jehovah has afflicted in the day of the heat of his anger.

The ascription, in religious addresses, which has been often made of this verse to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, is far from commendable. In a very real sense His sorrows were unparalleled, but innocent of sin though He was, He made no attempt to call attention to Himself as peculiarly afflicted. His thought was for others' sufferings. Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

(D) Ver. 13. Here begin references to various events which had contributed to her unequalled sorrow. Fire, a net, sickness and a yoke are set forth. The figure presented in the last clause of the preceding verse is now more fully traced. From on high he sent fire, Upon the wicked He shall rain fire (Ps. xi. 6), into my bones, where pain is supposed to be most keenly felt. She recognises that the cause, which is behind all visible causes, of her pain is in the spiritual realm, and that in the face of the Eternal Righteousness her bones must be shrivelled up; and it overpowered them. The next figure is, He spread a net for my feet; he turned me back. So entangled, she could not go away and escape capture. The third figure is sickness. He made me desolate, all the day faint. The light of her life was quenched, and she was constantly exhausted.

() Ver. 14. There follows a figure from agricultural pursuits. A yoke [formed] of my transgressions is bound by his hand. The Hebrew verb here is of uncertain meaning, and there is no rendering preferable to that which is given. She has made thongs or cords for the yoke with her sins; they are twisted together. Her misdoings have acted and reacted that they are knit together, so as to constitute a thraldom which cannot be thrown off; so intertwined they have come up upon my neck. A consequence of this enthralment by the knotted yoke is, it has made my strength to fail, literally to stumble, i.e., to stagger from the weakness and exhaustion incident to such a fearful yoke. The yoke of transgression is hard; the yoke of Christ is easy. The conviction is now expressed that the Divine Ruler is at work, and a new phase rises in the lamentation. The Lord has given me into the hands [of those that are against me]. I am not able to stand up. She can do nothing but yield. Consciousness of transgression paralyses body and mind. Note that it is the general, not the covenant name of her God which she utters. This title occurs fourteen times by itself in this book, while in the Prophecies of Jeremiah only along with the covenant name. The reason for this usage of Lord, and of refraining from Jehovah has yet to be found. To say that the people, in their punishment, felt the Lordship of the Deity more, and His covenant love to them less, is a statement which is not confirmed by an examination of the passages in the Lamentations where each name is found.

(D) Ver. 15. Inability to resist is associated with other fatal experiences. He has set at naught all my strong ones; not on an open battlefield, not in a struggle to hold an important post, is it that hor able-bodied men are counted for nothing before the Chaldean host; losses

they might have had, "the bubble reputation" attached to them, but not when cooped up in the city, in the midst of me. He has convoked a solemn assembly against me; it is the word used of the annual and other religious festivals, as in ver. 4, and intimates that to the enemies of Jerusalem a call had been issued to gather at an appointed time and have such joy as might be found in the ability to crush my young men, those who promised to be the strength of the nation in the generation following. And, to make the overthrow complete, the maidens, who had been carefully guarded from violence, the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. The treading of the grapes in a wine-press, as illustra tive of the execution of divine judgment, is not unusual in the Scriptures (Isa. lxiii. 5; Rev. xiv. 19), and signifies both suffering and good results from suffering rightly borne

"Still hope and trust, it sang; the rod

Must fall, the wine-press must be trod."

(V) Ver. 16. Having shown by the events how terrible her sorrow could not but be, Jerusalem reiterates her complaint with a flood of tears, Because of these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runs down with water, so great is her trouble and so unalleviated, for far from me is the comforter, the restorer of my soul. My children are become desolate, and cannot cheer me, for the enemy has prevailed.

(D) Ver. 17. The sobs of the weeper stifle her utterance. In the pause the poet himself seems to take up the word, something like the part of the chorus in Greek tragedies, and describes the state of the three personified objects-the Temple, the people, the city. He sees that Zion, representing the house of prayer for all nations, stretches out her hands, as praying in a land where no water is, but in suspense; there is no comforter for her. He sees that Jehovah, her covenant God, has commanded concerning Jacob, representing the people whom He chose for His heritage, that those round about him, the neighbouring nations, should be his adversaries. He sees that Jerusalem, representing the government and national aspirations, has become as an unclean one among them (ver. 8).

() Ver. 18. During her pause the weeper has received new thoughts. Like the younger son when feeding on husks, she has come to herself so far that she is ready to own the justice of Jehovah in her sufferings. He is righteous, Jehovah, for I have disobeyed his voice, rejected the words of His mouth. Yet she sorely wants human pity, and cries to them, Hear, I pray; all ye peoples, and see my sorrow; the flower of her youth has gone into captivity.

(D) Ver. 19. She addresses Jehovah, and tells how her appeals to the friends of her prosperous days have proved futile; I called to my lovers; they have deceived me, disappointed my hopes; and not only they have failed; my priests and my elders have expired in the city, where they had been high in position, the medium between God and His worshippers, and leaders in the state, when they sought food for themselves to restore their souls, they were starving, like the common people in the closely invested city, and made a strenuous quest for some means to keep themselves alive in famine.

() Ver. 20. Again she refers to Jehovah as to her forlornness and aggravated sin. See, O Jehovah, for I am in distress, and this distress is felt: (1) Internally. My bowels are troubled, my heart is turned within me; agitation and anguish excite her, even her vital parts, as it were, change their position. The reason therefor is not ascribed to man's neglect and inhumanity to her, but, (2) to her disregard of God, for, she confesses, I have grievously disobeyed. The penalty she undergoes is calamitous indeed; abroad the sword bereaveth, she is rendered a mourner because of slaughter in the open country and in the streets; at home is like death, as if nothing but the dead were in the houses-so overpowering was the exhaustion from starvation and diseases. This somewhat halting explanation may be compared with the free rendering of the Septuagint translator-at least there is no extant authority in the Hebrew for an equivalent reading-Outside the sword made me childless as death in the house.

() Ver. 21. A transition is made from unfaithful friends to open enemies, and they too are denounced. The sounds of her grief have echoed far off among persons unnamed, they have heard that I sigh; again the refrain of this chapter is repeated, there is no comforter for me. The frequent allusions to a personal comforter, vers. 2, 9, 16, 17, 21, are worthy of consideration, as if there was a feeling after a higher gift not yet distinctly perceived. All my enemies have heard of my evil, and understand something of the unseen influences which produced it; they rejoice that thou hast done it. From Jer. xl. 2, 3, it appears that even foes recognised that the calamitous state of the Jews proceeded from their disobedience to Jehovah, though their joy may have been more because of her fall than for the confirmation given to the truth of the Lord. Nevertheless, vengeance for their misdeeds was coming on. The Lord has announced a day of judgment on the heathen as well as on Judah, and the cup of wrath shall be drunk from; thou bringest the day thou hast announced, and they shall become like me in suffering their penalties.

() Ver. 22. Jerusalem further formulates the wish that the retribution due to their guilty actions should not be put aside; Let all their evil come before thee, and do unto them as thou hast done unto me, for all my transgressions. The first natural cry of those that are punished is for justice all round. "If I suffer for every wrong, make every other wrongdoer

suffer equally with me!" In this desire there appears the consciousness that Jehovah must pass judgment upon every form of sin, and rightly, for He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; and also a grim expectation of revenge, under which Edom, Moab, Babylon, &c., disappeared. We may say that confession of her own transgressions should have been accompanied with sympathy and pity for other sinners; but the time for that love of enemies did not arrive for many a day. Her own sad state again moves her, For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. So Jeremiah felt (viii. 18). "With these words the sound of this lamentation dies away."

HOMILETICS.

GRIEF FOR A RUINED CITY.

(Verses 1, 2.)

There is a fine piece of statuary representing the figure of a Hebrew female in a sitting posture, the head and shoulders slightly bent forward, the hair escaping in disordered tresses from the neatly plaited fillets, the arms, carelessly crossed over each other, resting helplessly in her lap, the eyes, moistened with tears, gazing wistfully on the ground, and the face expressing in every feature the tenderest pathos of sorrow. The whole figure seems to quiver with irrepressible emotion. Every part is moulded with voluptuous grace, and is susceptible of the deepest passion, but it is the passion of an inconsolable grief! The genius of the artist has thus sought to idealise unhappy Judah weeping amid the scattered fragments of national ruin. It is a reproduction, by the art of the nineteenth century, of the same sad image that appeared on the well-known medal of Titus, struck to celebrate his triumph over Jerusalem-a woman sitting weeping beneath a palmtree, and below is inscribed the legend Judea capta. It is startling to observe how exactly the heathen conqueror copied the poetic description by Jeremiah of the forlorn condition to which his beloved country was reduced. These words describe a pathetic picture of grief for a ruined city.

1. Because of its utter desolation. "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people" (ver. 1) There is a tradition that Jeremiah wrote these elegies in a grotto that is still shown, situated in the face of a rocky hill on the western side of Jerusalem; and there is a freshness and versatility in the images employed, as if every time he glanced at the ruins of the ill-fated city, full in his view, he was unable to repress a new outburst of grief. He had seen Jerusalem in prosperity, its Temple thronged with worshippers, its commerce flourishing, its people content and joyous; but now all is changed; the market-place is empty, the streets silent, the princes and people in exile, and the Temple, which the Jew fondly dreamed invulnerable, was a heap of ruins. Such desolation was unparalleled in the history of the nation and in the experience of the prophet, and his heart was riven with anguish. We may read about the decay of great cities without emotion; but to witness the demolition of our own city is a different matter.

II. Because of the loss of its beloved chief. "How is she become as a widow!" (ver. 1). A city is often described as the mother of its inhabitants, the king as husband, the princes as children. When the king is gone, and not even a representative is left, the city is widowed and orphaned indeed. The condition of an Eastern widow is pitiable. Her hair is cut short, she strips off all her ornaments, eats the coarsest food, fasts often, and is all but an outcast in the family of her late husband. The image employed by the prophet would therefore be painfully suggestive to the Jewish mind.

III. Because of its humiliating subjection. "She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary?" (ver. 1). The older meaning of the word tributary refers not to a money-payment, but to personal labour (Josh. xvi. 10). The city that ruled from the Nile to the Euphrates is now reduced to slavery, and the few inhabitants who are left must render bond-service to a heathen potentate. It is galling to a once proud and

prosperous people to be thus humiliated. They who will not serve God faithfully must be compelled to serve their enemies.

IV. Because of its being cruelly betrayed. "Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies " (ver. 2). Her allies, who made great protestations of attachment when all was prosperous, not only forsake her when adversity comes, but unite with her enemies in completing her destruction. It is a bitter irony of human professions when love turns to enmity and friendship to treachery. "A loose tooth and a fickle friend are two evils." The sooner we are clear of them the better; but who likes the wrench? If we lose the comfort of God, we are not likely to find help in man. We can trust in no one if we cannot trust in God.

V. Is expressed with irresistible pathos. "She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks" (ver. 2). It was a fine touch of poetic genius when the prophet selected a sorrowful woman as an emblem of a disconsolate city. Woman is never so fascinating, so tender, so bewitchingly irresistible in commanding sympathy as when she is in tears! The hardest heart is melted, the sternest enemy subdued. The sorrow of Judah was overwhelming because the ruin was so unexpected and unparalleled. No city has been wept over like Jerusalem. The melancholy wail has been prolonged through the centuries, and is reproduced to-day. The Lamentations are still read yearly by the Jews to commemorate the burning of the Temple. Every Friday, Israelites young and old, of both sexes, gather at the wailing place in Jerusalem, where a few of the old stones of the Temple still remain in the wall, and, amid tears, recite these sad verses and suitable psalms, as they fervently kiss the stones. On the 9th of the month Ab, nearly our July, this dirge, composed about 600 years before Christ, is read aloud in every synagogue over the world. Weeping is not repentance; but the tears of the contrite do not flow in vain. They are noted in heaven, and God will help.

LESSONS.-1. The ruin of a once prosperous city is a sad and suggestive spectacle. 2. The miseries of others should rouse our compassion. 3. The greatest grief finds relief in tears.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.

reverses of fortune. 1. The ruler becomes the ruled. 2. The free are the conquered. 3. Wealth exchanged for poverty. 4. Life dependent on abject submission to those who were once our inferiors.

Ver. 2. "She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks." The pathos of tears. 1. A sublime spectacle in the ideal woman. 2. An evidence of profound sorrow. 3. Gathers its significance from the character of the calamity it bewails. 4. A merciful relief to an intensely sensitive nature.

"All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies." The fickleness of human friendships. I. Genuine friends are

rare.

They may usually be counted on a thumb and finger; the one is the wife or husband, the other is the mother,