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Lam_1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the nations, [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she become tributary!
Ver. 1. How doth the city sit solitary.] Some {a} tell us of Jeremiah’s cave, near to Aceldama, where he sat in sight of the city now destroyed, and made her this epitaph - not altogether unlike that which David once made for his dear Jonathan. {2Sa_1:17} There he hath his Echa admirantis et commiserantis, his wondering and condoling. How once, and again, and a third time. {2Sa_1:19; 2Sa_1:25; 2Sa_1:27} And our prophet hath the self-same, in sense at least, three different times in this one verse; whence the Hebrews call the whole book by the name of Echa (How), which is the first word in it, and beginneth with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. For it must be observed here that, for memory’s sake especially, this piece of Holy Writ is most of it made up in order of alphabet, viz., the four first chapters, and all of it with singular artifice in a poetic strain. Take that one passage for a taste, Lam_5:16 : Oi na lanu, chi chattanu, which soundeth rhythmically, i.e., woe to us that we have sinned. And whereas other poetry is the luxury of such learning as is in words restrained, in matter usually loose, here it is altogether otherwise; for the prophet or poet, whether id sibi negotii credidit solum dari, maketh it his whole business to set forth his people’s misery in the cause thereof, their sins and excesses, pressing therefore to patience, to repentance, to earnest prayer, and to a confident expectation of a gracious issue, together with a sanctified use of all their sufferings. He had himself been a man of many sorrows all along; and now had his share as deep as any in the common calamity. Besides which he could truly say with Cyprian, Cum singulis pectus meum copulo, maeroris et funeris pondera luctuosa participo: cum plangentibus plango, cum deflentibus defleo, i.e., in St Paul’s words, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? grieved, and I grieve not? offended, and I burn not?" {2Co_11:29} And this he expresseth in a stately style and figurative terms, full of passion and compassion, as to show his love to his country, so to work upon his hard hearted countrymen, and to excite them to repentance and better obedience.
How doth the city.] Lately a city, yea, the city, the most famous of all the cities of the East, saith Pliny; but now, alas! of a city become a heap. So true is that of Seneca, speaking of a great city burned to ashes, Una dies interest inter magnam civitatem et nullam, There was but one day between a city and no city.
Sit solitary.] Sit on the ground in a mourning posture, as Job did among the ashes, and as Vespasian, after the last destruction of Jerusalem by his son Titus, caused money to be coined, whereon was stamped the picture of Judea in form of a captive woman, sitting sorrowfully under a palm tree.
“How sits this city, late most populous,
Thus solitary! like a widow thus!
Empress of nations, queen of provinces
She was, that now thus tributary is.”
That was full of people.] Full indeed, at the three solemn anniversary feasts especially. Josephus testifieth that at the last destruction of this city by the Romans there were more than eleven hundred thousand people in it. And although Judea was not over two hundred miles long and fifty miles broad, nothing nearly as large as England, yet what huge armies brought they into the field in the days of David, Asa, Jehoshaphat, &c.! Augustine saith there were three million present at that passover, whereof one million one hundred thousand perished by the sword and famine, one hundred thousand were led to Rome in triumph. {b}
How is she become as a widow] Having lost her king, if not her God. Happy if in this last respect she be but quasi vidua, as a widow only, and no more. See 2Co_6:8. {See Trapp on "2Co_6:8"} If God at any time should say unto her, as Zec_10:6, "She shall be as if I had not cast her off, and I will hear her." Or if she could say of herself as that good widow in the story did, Sola relicta solum Deum sequor, Being left alone, I will follow after God alone.
She that was great among the nations.] So was Athens, once the glory of Greece, for both arts and arms, now a dog hole in comparison. Sparta also, that other eye of Greece, is now a small burrow called Misithra, having nothing to boast of but the fame and thoughts of its former greatness.
And princess among the provinces.] In David’s and Solomon’s days especially, when that state was in the flourish - i.e., the praise of the whole earth, and terror to all nations.
How is she become tributary!] And by that means melted and exhausted, as the Hebrew word importeth. So was England once, when the Pope’s ass. Oh the huge sums that he sucked hence, to the wasting and impoverishing of the land! Of one of his agents here it is recorded, that at his departure he left not so much money in the whole kingdom as he either carried with him or sent to Rome before him. Some of them derive their mass from the Hebrew word mas in the text, signifying tribute; and in some respects well they may - Per eam scilicet pietas omnis liquefacta est et dissoluta, saith Rivet - for it is the bane of men’s souls, and a purge to their purses
{a} Adrichom. ex Niceph.
{b} Serm. de Tempore, 204.