Lamentations 1:17
Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
Sermons
A JeremiadLamentations 1:12-22
Everyone Disposed to Think His Afflictions Peculiarly SevereN. Emmons, D. D.Lamentations 1:12-22
Good FridayE. Blencowe, M. A.Lamentations 1:12-22
Instructive SorrowsJ. Udall.Lamentations 1:12-22
Is it Nothing to You?Newman Hall, D. D.Lamentations 1:12-22
On the Passion of Our SaviourH. Scougal, M. A.Lamentations 1:12-22
Our Sorrows Rightly EstimatedJ. Trapp.Lamentations 1:12-22
Searchings of HeartR. Thomas.Lamentations 1:12-22
Sorrow Seen in its True LightHartley Aspen.Lamentations 1:12-22
The Appeal of the Saviour's SorrowsA. R. Thomas.Lamentations 1:12-22
The Sufferings of Christ Demand the Attention of AllS. Palmer.Lamentations 1:12-22
Zion's AppealW. F. Adeney, M. A.Lamentations 1:12-22
Grief in View of PunishmentJ. Udall.Lamentations 1:15-17
Supreme PenaltiesJ. Udall.Lamentations 1:15-17
The Appeal for HelpJ. Udall.Lamentations 1:15-17














The prophecy here rises into poetry. The captured and afflicted city is personified. Like a woman bereaved and desolate and lonely, bewailing her misfortunes, and pouring out the anguish of her heart, Jerusalem sits in her solitary desolation and contempt, and calls upon bystanders to remark her sad condition, and to offer their sympathy to unequalled anguish..

I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS SORROW, DESOLATION, AND SHAME. How extreme is the distress and humiliation here depicted is apparent from the fact that this language has been attributed to our Divine Saviour when hanging upon the cross of Calvary. If a city never endured sorrow like that of Jerusalem, certainly no human being ever experienced agonies so piercing as those which the Captain of our salvation willingly bore for our sake when he gave his life a ransom for many.

"All ye that pass by, To the Saviour draw nigh; To you is it nothing that Jesus should die? For sins not his own He died to atone; Was pain or was sorrow like his ever known?"

II. THE ADMISSION THAT AFFLICTION IS OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT, THAT IT IS CHASTISEMENT. When Jerusalem came to herself she could not fail to recognize a Divine hand in the miseries which befell her. The scourge was the army of the Chaldeans, but the hand was the righteous and retributive hand of the Eternal. It is too common for those who are in trouble to murmur against Providence, to exclaim against the injustice of providential appointments. Yet true wisdom points out that the path of submission and resignation is the right path. When once the mind is brought to acknowledge, "It is the Lord!" there is a prospect of spiritual improvement.

III. THE CRY FOR SYMPATHY. By a striking figure of speech, Jerusalem is presented as calling upon surrounding nations for interest and compassion. "Is it nothing to you? ... Behold, and see!" Human sympathy is welcome in seasons of sorrow, Yet true help and deliverance must be from God, and from God alone, It is better to call upon the Lord than to call upon man; for he is both ready to sympathize and mighty to save. - T.

The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men.
1. When God meaneth to afflict us, He will spoil us of all our helps wherein we may have any confidence.

2. God can as easily destroy in a fenced city as in a battle.

3. It is God that ruleth even the wicked, and setteth them on work against His servants.

4. Men can no more escape God's hand in punishing them, than the grapes can fly from the treader of the winepress.

5. The niceness of those that have lived daintily ("the virgin") is no reason to free them, but rather a provocation to bring afflictions upon them.(1) The pampering of ourselves is none of the ends for which God bestoweth His blessings upon us.(2) Such coy niceness as many be of is seldom without special sins that are incident to that condition, which God will not let pass unpunished.

6. Except the children forsake their sins, they shall not be spared for the godliness of their parents.

(J. Udall.)

For these things I weep
1. It is not only lawful, but also necessary, for the godly to be so greatly grieved, when God punisheth them for their sins, as may draw them into extreme weeping.

2. No adversity hath warrant to grieve us so much as the punishment of God upon us for our sins (Luke 23:28).

3. There is none so stout, or hardhearted, but afflictions will bring him down.

4. It is a grievous plague to be deprived of comforters in affliction; the contrary whereof is an exceeding blessing.

5. It is the duty of everyone to comfort and relieve others that be in distress.

(1)God hath so commanded (Galatians 6:2).

(2)We are members one of another (1 Corinthians 12:27).

(3)We may have the like need ourselves another time.

6. The Church, as also the commonwealth, is to declare herself a kind mother to everyone that is trained up therein, and to have compassion of their miseries, helping them to the uttermost.

7. It is the property of carnal friends to be friendly only whilst prosperity is upon us; but if our adversaries prevail against us, they are gone.

(J. Udall.)

Zion spreadeth forth her hands.
1. It is a necessary duty in God's people to seek out all good means of their release from troubles.

2. God often frustrateth the lawful endeavours of His children of that good issue which is expected, and yet liketh well that they should use means to bring the same to pass.

3. The wicked have no power against God's people, but that which is given them from the Lord.

4. God's people are more grievously afflicted and reproached in the world than any else, and the godliest most of all.

(J. Udall.)

People
Jacob, Jeremiah
Places
Jerusalem, Zion
Topics
Adversaries, Attackers, Charged, Comfort, Comforter, Commanded, Decreed, Filthy, Foes, Forth, Hands, Impure, Impurity, Jacob, Jerusalem, Menstruous, Neighbors, Neighbours, None, Ones, Orders, Outstretched, Round, Spread, Spreadeth, Spreads, Stretches, Unclean, Zion, Zion's
Outline
1. The miseries of Jerusalem and of the Jews lamented
12. The attention of beholders demanded to this unprecedented case
18. The justice of God acknowledged, and his mercy supplicated.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Lamentations 1:17

     7241   Jerusalem, significance

Lamentations 1:16-17

     5805   comfort

Library
No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow! A lthough the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophecies (Luke 24:44) , bear an harmonious testimony to MESSIAH ; it is not necessary to suppose that every single passage has an immediate and direct relation to Him. A method of exposition has frequently obtained [frequently been in vogue], of a fanciful and allegorical cast [contrivance], under the pretext
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Epistle vi. To Narses, Patrician .
To Narses, Patrician [1305] . Gregory to Narses, &c. In describing loftily the sweetness of contemplation, you have renewed the groans of my fallen state, since I hear what I have lost inwardly while mounting outwardly, though undeserving, to the topmost height of rule. Know then that I am stricken with so great sorrow that I can scarcely speak; for the dark shades of grief block up the eyes of my soul. Whatever is beheld is sad, whatever is thought delightful appears to my heart lamentable. For
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

"Come unto Me, all Ye that Labour, and are Wearied," &C.
Matth. xi. 28.--"Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are wearied," &c. It is the great misery of Christians in this life, that they have such poor, narrow, and limited spirits, that are not fit to receive the truth of the gospel in its full comprehension; from whence manifold misapprehensions in judgment, and stumbling in practice proceed. The beauty and life of things consist in their entire union with one another, and in the conjunction of all their parts. Therefore it would not be a fit way
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Meditations for one that is Like to Die.
If thy sickness be like to increase unto death, then meditate on three things:--First, How graciously God dealeth with thee. Secondly, From what evils death will free thee. Thirdly, What good death will bring unto thee. The first sort of Meditations are, to consider God's favourable dealing with thee. 1. Meditate that God uses this chastisement of thy body but as a medicine to cure thy soul, by drawing thee, who art sick in sin, to come by repentance unto Christ, thy physician, to have thy soul healed
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Concerning the Sacrament of Baptism
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the riches of His mercy has at least preserved this one sacrament in His Church uninjured and uncontaminated by the devices of men, and has made it free to all nations and to men of every class. He has not suffered it to be overwhelmed with the foul and impious monstrosities of avarice and superstition; doubtless having this purpose, that He would have little children, incapable of avarice and superstition, to be initiated into
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

Lamentations
The book familiarly known as the Lamentations consists of four elegies[1] (i., ii., iii., iv.) and a prayer (v.). The general theme of the elegies is the sorrow and desolation created by the destruction of Jerusalem[2] in 586 B.C.: the last poem (v.) is a prayer for deliverance from the long continued distress. The elegies are all alphabetic, and like most alphabetic poems (cf. Ps. cxix.) are marked by little continuity of thought. The first poem is a lament over Jerusalem, bereft, by the siege,
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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