Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Lamentations · About this commentary
The Breath of Our Nostrils
Lamentations 4:12-22
12 The kings of the earth didn’t believe, neither did all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem. · WEB
The blame is laid on prophets and priests, the failed alliance is named, and the captured king is described in a phrase that means something like the air they breathed.
Verse 12 records the disbelief of outsiders. The kings of the earth did not believe an enemy could enter Jerusalem's gates — the city's reputation for invulnerability was international, and its fall was a surprise to people who had no stake in it.
Verse 13 assigns the cause, and it is internal: because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests. The men charged are the ones whose office was to prevent exactly this, and the second chapter had already said the prophets failed to uncover the people's guilt Lamentations 2:14.
Verses 14 and 15 describe them afterward, wandering blind in the streets, polluted with blood, and driven off with the cry used for a leper — unclean, go away, do not touch. The vocabulary of ritual defilement is turned on the men who administered it.
Verse 17 names the political failure in one clause: we watched for a nation that could not save. The last chapter will identify the partners as Egypt and Assyria Lamentations 5:6.
Then verse 20, and it is the most tender line about the monarchy in Scripture: the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits. The king is described as the air the nation breathed, and the hope attached to him — under his shadow we will live among the nations — is quoted as something they used to say.
The poem ends with EDOM told to rejoice while she can, since the cup will pass to her Lamentations 4:21, and with one clause of relief: for Zion, the punishment is accomplished.
settled What this mark means