afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer,

7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her; the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths, 8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully; she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

10 The adversary hath spread 'out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.

12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which

[for Jerusalem.

is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back; he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall; the LORD hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

15 The LORD hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men the LORD hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a removed woman among them.

18 The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

19 I called for my lovers, but they

Ver. 5. Before the enemy—that is, in subjection to her enemy.

Yer. 7. When her people, &c.--Blayney renders this much clearer, 'by a different punctuation. After placing a semicolon at old; he reads, "When her people fell into the hand, &c. the adversaries saw, and mocked at her discontinuance," or "destruction," as Boothroyd renders it.

Ver. 9. She remembered not her last end-that is, she did not recollect the necessary consequences of her course of sin. The enemy hath magnifiedinstead of himself," Dr. Blayney supplies the Word" affliction," hath aggravated mine affliction. Ver. 11. To relieve the soul-Blayney, "To sustain life."'

Ver. 12. Is it nothing to you?-This is a beautiful apostrophe to the passing traveller.

deceived me my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city; while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.

:

20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth; at home there is as death.

21 They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it; thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. (M)

CHAP. II.

HOW hath the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel; and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

2 The LORD hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied he hath thrown down in his

CHAP. I.

[her captivity.

wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

5 The LORD was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

7 The LORD hath cast off his altar,

he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he

(M) Jeremiah laments the miseries of Jerusalem as brought on by sin.-The Septuagint and Vulgate versions introduce these mournful odes with the following short paragraph, as a key to their contents: "And it came to pass, after that Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem had become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented this lamentation over Jerusalem." Of the style of these compositions, we have given Dr. South's opinion in our introduction to Jeremiah's prophecies, and shall here add that of a more modern critic, (Bishop Lowth,) who says, "Never was there a more rich and

elegant variety of beautiful images arranged together within so small a compass."

Jeremiah begins with lamenting the dismal reverse of circumstances which befell his country; confessing at the same time that her calamities were the just conse quence of her sins. The Prophet then withdraws, and Jerusalem herself is personified, and brought forward to continue the sad complaint, and to solicit that mercy from God, which she could hope for from no other quarter. Professor Jahn thinks this ode particularly laments the deports. tion of king Jehoiakim, and 10,000 prin cipal Jews with him to Babylon. (See 2 Kings, xxiv. 14, 15.

CHAP. II. Ver. 1. His footstool-that is, the ark. See 1 Chron. xxviii. 2.

Ver. 3. Cut off....the horn.-The horns are the strength and giory of cattle. - Drawn back his right hand from the enemy. When God stretches forth his right hand, it means an exertion of his power, and the reverse when he withdraws it.

Ver. 4. Pleasant Blayney, "Palaces." Ver. 6. Taken away his tabernacle — Margis "Hedge;" Blayney, "He hath done violence to the garden of his own hedging." So Boothroyd. Ser Isa. v. 1-7.

Heb. "Desirable” place;

Ver. 7. Given up-Heb, “Shut up,”—Mades

hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mother's bosom.

13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea who can heal thee?

14 Thy prophets have seen vain

[her captivity.

and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.

15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee; they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up; certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied; and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

18 Their heart cried unto the LORD, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

19 Arise, cry out in the night; in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the LORD: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the LORD?

21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins

Ver. 15. All that pass Heb. "By the way." The perfection of beauty-Psalm xlviii. 2.

Ver. 18. O wall.-Compare ver. 8. By a figure, the wall may be called upon to weep, as well as stones to cry out, Luke xix. 40. This appears to us a beautiful prosopopia, alluding to walls running down with the breath of a large congregation.

Ver. 20. Children of a span long-Blayney, "Little ones dandled in the hands" See Levit. Xxvi, 29; Deut. xxviii. 53.

[their calamities.

9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.

10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.

12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

14 I was a derision to all my peo ple; and their song all the day.

15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.

16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.

17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace; I forgat prosperity.

18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:

19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

20 My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me.

(N) The miseries of Jerusalem and Judea bewailed.-The Prophet shews the dire effects of the divine anger in the miseries brought on his country, by the subversion of its religion and government; the uuparalleled calamities which he charges, and no doubt justly, in a great measure on the false Prophets. In this desperate condition, the astonishment and bye-word of all who see her, Jerusalem is directed to suc earnestly for mercy and pardon.-Many of the images in this chapter, though objected to by some critics, appear to us very beautiful, as we have observed in our notes below. Professor Jahn supposes this second

CHAP. III. Ver. 4. My flesh and my skin hath he mude old-wasted and decayed by affliction.

Ver. 5. He hath builded against Boothroyd, "Around me:" this agrees with the following clause. Ver. 6. Dark places-the sepulchral caverns. Ver. 7. Their polishing - Blayney, "Their vein. ing" referring to the blue veins of the body