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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Lamentations 1:19 - 1:19
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Lam 1:19 is not a continuation of the direct address to the nations, to whom she complains of her distress, but merely a complaint to God regarding the sorrow she endures. The perfects קָרָאתִי, רִמּוּנִי, are not preterites, and thus are not to be referred to the past, as if complaint were made that, in the time of need, the lovers of Jerusalem forsook her; they rather indicate accomplished facts, whose consequences reach down to the present time. It was not merely in former times, during the siege, that Jerusalem called to her friends for help; but even now she still calls, that she may be comforted by them, yet all in vain. Her friends have deceived her, i.e., shamefully disappointed her expectations. From those who are connected with her, too, she can expect neither comfort nor counsel. The priests and the elders, as the helpers and advisers of the city, - the former as representing the community before God, and being the medium of His grace, the latter as being leaders in civil matters, - pined away ( ,גָּוַעexspirare; here, to pine away through hunger, and expire). כִּי is a temporal particle: "when they were seeking for bread" to prolong their life ('הֵשִׁיב נ as in Lam 1:11). The lxx have added καὶ οὐχ ευ{ron, which Thenius is inclined to regard as a portion of the original text; but it is very evidently a mere conjecture from the context, and becomes superfluous when כִּי ne is taken as a particle of time.