Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Lamentations · About this commentary
Pour Out Your Heart Like Water
Lamentations 2:11-22
11 My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My bile is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city. · WEB
The poet's own body gives way at the sight of starving children, and the only counsel he can find is to keep crying and put the case to God.
Verse 11 stops describing the city and describes the man watching it. His eyes fail with tears, his heart is troubled, his bile is poured on the earth — a physical collapse, and the cause is named: children and infants fainting in the streets.
Verse 12 is the detail that undoes the chapter. They ask their mothers where is grain and wine, and their life pours out into their mothers' bosom. The children do not know what is happening; they ask an ordinary question.
Verse 13 admits the failure of comparison itself. What shall I liken to you? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you? A poet whose trade is comparison reports that nothing is available, and the reason given is scale: your breach is as big as the sea.
Then the blame is placed. Verse 14 charges the prophets — false and foolish visions, and the specific failure that they did not uncover your iniquity. The people were not warned by the men whose office was warning.
Verses 18 and 19 give the only instruction the chapter contains, and it is not consolation. Let tears run down like a river, day and night, give yourself no relief — and then pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Grief is directed rather than relieved.
And the reason to lift the hands is stated: for the life of your young children. Verse 20 delivers the horror the law had foreseen Deuteronomy 28:53, and puts it to God as a question rather than a report.
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