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Lamentações 1

ARC · Chapter 1/5

1Como assim solitaria está assentada aquella cidade, d'antes tão populosa! tornou-se como viuva; a que foi grande entre as nações, como a princeza entre as provincias, tornou-se tributaria!

2Continuamente chora de noite, e as suas lagrimas estão correndo pelas suas faces; não tem quem a console entre todos os seus amadores: todos os seus amigos se houveram aleivosamente com ella, se lhe tornaram inimigos.

3Judah passou em captiveiro por causa da afflicção, e por causa da grandeza da sua servidão: ella habita entre as nações, não acha descanço: todos os seus perseguidores a alcançam entre as angustias.

4Os caminhos de Sião pranteam, porque não ha quem venha á solemnidade; todas as suas portas estão assoladas; os seus sacerdotes suspiram: as suas virgens estão tristes, e ella mesma tem amargura.

5Os seus adversarios se lhe fizeram cabeça, os seus inimigos prosperam; porque o Senhor a entristeceu, por causa da multidão das suas prevaricações: os seus filhinhos vão em captiveiro adiante do adversario.

6E da filha de Sião foi-se toda a sua gloria: os seus principes ficaram sendo como veados que não acham pasto e caminham sem força adiante do perseguidor.

7Lembrou-se Jerusalem nos dias da sua afflicção, e das suas rebelliões, de todas as suas mais queridas coisas, que tivera dos tempos antigos: quando cahia o seu povo na mão do adversario, e ella não tinha quem a soccorresse, os adversarios a viram, e fizeram escarneo dos seus sabbados.

8Jerusalem gravemente peccou, por isso se fez instavel: todos os que a honravam, a desprezaram, porque viram a sua nudez; ella tambem suspirou e se voltou para traz.

9A sua immundicia está nas suas fraldas, nunca se lembrou do seu fim: por isso foi pasmosamente abatida, não tem consolador; vê, Senhor, a minha afflicção, porque o inimigo se engrandece.

10Estendeu o adversario a sua mão a todas as coisas mais preciosas d'ella; pois já viu ter entrado no seu sanctuario as nações ácerca das quaes mandaste que não entrassem na tua congregação.

11Todo o seu povo anda suspirando, buscando o pão, deram as suas coisas mais preciosas a troco de mantimento para refrescarem a alma: vê, Senhor, e contempla, que sou desprezivel.

12Porventura não vos toca a todos os que passaes pelo caminho? attendei, e vêde, se ha dôr como a minha dôr, que se me fez a mim, com que me entristeceu o Senhor, no dia do furor da sua ira

13Desde o alto enviou um fogo em meus ossos, o qual se assenhoreou: estendeu uma rede aos meus pés, fez-me voltar para traz, fez-me assolada e enferma todo o dia.

14Já o jugo das minhas prevaricações está atado pela sua mão, estão entretecidas, subiram sobre o meu pescoço, prostrou a minha força: entregou-me o Senhor nas mãos dos inimigos, não posso levantar-me.

15O Senhor atropellou todos os meus valentes no meio de mim; apregoou contra mim um ajuntamento, para quebrantar os meus mancebos: o Senhor pisou como n'um lagar a virgem filha de Judah.

16Por estas coisas eu ando chorando, e o meu olho, o meu olho se desfaz em aguas; porque se alongou de mim o consolador que devia restaurar a minha alma: os meus filhos estão assolados, porque prevaleceu o inimigo.

17Estende Sião as suas mãos, não ha quem a console: mandou o Senhor ácerca de Jacob que lhe fossem inimigos os que estão em redor d'elle; Jerusalem é como uma mulher immunda.

18Justo é o Senhor, pois me rebellei contra a sua bocca: ouvi, pois, todos os povos, e vêde a minha dôr; as minhas virgens e os meus mancebos se foram para o captiveiro.

19Chamei os meus amadores, porém elles me enganaram: os meus sacerdotes e os meus anciãos expiraram na cidade; porque buscavam para si mantimento, para refrescarem a sua alma.

20Olha, Senhor, porque estou angustiada; turbadas estão as minhas entranhas, o meu coração está transtornado no meio de mim, porque gravemente me rebellei: de fóra me desfilhou a espada, de dentro está a morte

21Bem ouvem que eu suspiro, porém não tenho quem me console: todos os meus inimigos que ouviram o meu mal folgam, porque tu o fizeste: trazendo tu o dia que apregoaste, então serão como eu.

22Venha todo o seu mal diante de ti, e faze-lhes como me fizeste a mim por causa de todas as minhas prevaricações; porque os meus suspiros são muitos, e o meu coração está desfallecido.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jerusalem is portrayed as a lonely widow, once full of people and now abandoned by her friends and allies. The city weeps over her sins, recognizing that her suffering came as a consequence of her own transgressions against God.

Explanation

This poem was written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., when the temple was burned and much of the population was carried off into exile. Jewish and Christian tradition attributes its authorship to Jeremiah, who personally witnessed this tragedy. The image of a city personified as a woman — once a 'princess' among the nations, now a 'tributary' and alone — was a common poetic device in the Ancient Near East for lamenting the fall of great cities. The text is honest in admitting that the disaster was neither chance nor an injustice from God, but a direct consequence of the people's unfaithfulness. The practical application today is that openly lamenting losses before God, without hiding the pain, is a legitimate and healthy way of dealing with suffering.

Fun facts

  • Lamentations is one of the few books of the Bible structured as an acrostic: each chapter (except the fifth) follows the order of the Hebrew alphabet, with each stanza beginning with a successive letter — a device used to express that the grief was 'complete, from A to Z.'
  • Jewish tradition reads Lamentations every year on Tisha B'Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of both the first and second temples of Jerusalem, showing how this text still shapes religious practice more than 2,500 years later.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Lamentações 1:1This chapter, like the next two and the fourth, is an acrostic poem: each stanza in the original Hebrew begins with a different letter of the alphabet, in order, from aleph to tav, start to finish. Running through every letter is almost a way of saying the pain covers everything, from A to Z. The city, once full of people, is compared to a lonely widow, an image of lost status and protection.
  2. Lamentações 1:2The city weeps alone at night because her old allies (‘lovers’) — likely Egypt and other nations Judah sought for protection — turned into enemies as soon as she fell, showing that those alliances were never trustworthy.
  3. Lamentações 1:3Judah is described in exile because of the oppression she suffered, finding no rest even among foreign nations — pursued even far from home, caught between distresses everywhere.
  4. Lamentações 1:4The roads to Zion are described almost as mourners — no one comes up to Jerusalem anymore for the pilgrim feasts, because the city lies destroyed and the temple in ruins. It's a poetic way of showing the silence where a crowd used to be.
  5. Lamentações 1:5Jerusalem's enemies now prosper over her, because it was the Lord Himself who brought this affliction on account of her many accumulated sins — the children led away captive before the enemy is the most painful image of all.
  6. Lamentações 1:6'The daughter of Zion' has lost all the beauty she once had; her leaders flee like deer with no strength and no pasture, pursued without any power to resist — a picture of total weakness where there used to be strength.
  7. Lamentações 1:7In the middle of the affliction, Jerusalem remembers the treasures and good life of former days, while her enemies mock even her sabbaths, the sacred day of rest the city could no longer keep in peace.
  8. Lamentações 1:8Recognizes sin as the direct cause of the fall: the city, once honored, is now despised because her 'nakedness' (shame and weakness) was exposed — she herself turns away, ashamed.
  9. Lamentações 1:9The image of filthiness in her own skirts is shockingly physical — it describes a people who never thought about the consequences ahead, and so fell with no one to comfort them; the cry to God arises right out of that realization.
  10. Lamentações 1:10The worst sign of desecration: foreigners entered even the temple's most sacred sanctuary, a place the law expressly forbade to people outside the permitted nations.
  11. Lamentações 1:11Describes real famine during the siege: the people traded precious belongings for food just to survive, and the final cry asks God to see how vile the city has become.
  12. Lamentações 1:12The question of whether the pain touches those who merely pass by is the poem's central cry, aimed at anyone who passes without caring. It's an appeal for strangers to stop and recognize the size of the pain, almost like asking the world to pause for a moment.
  13. Lamentações 1:13Uses physical images of suffering — fire in the bones, a net for the feet — to describe how God Himself brought about the ruin, leaving the city weak and sick all day long.
  14. Lamentações 1:14Compares accumulated sins to a heavy yoke tied around the neck, carefully woven and placed there by God's own hand — the city's strength completely exhausted.
  15. Lamentações 1:15Describes God rejecting Jerusalem's best warriors and summoning an army against the city; the image of the winepress being trodden represents the crushing violence suffered by the 'virgin daughter of Judah.'
  16. Lamentações 1:16The continuous weeping comes from having no comforter nearby — the city's children are devastated because the enemy, in the end, proved stronger.
  17. Lamentações 1:17Zion spreads out her hands asking for help, but no one comes; the Lord Himself had decreed that Jacob's neighbors become his enemies, and Jerusalem is compared to an unclean woman, rejected by everyone.
  18. Lamentações 1:18Even in the midst of the pain, there is an acknowledgment of justice: 'the Lord is righteous,' because the rebellion against Him was real — and the invitation is for all peoples to see up close the pain of the young people led into captivity.
  19. Lamentações 1:19The old allies ('lovers') deceived the city when she needed them most, and even the religious leaders died in Jerusalem while desperately trying to find food.
  20. Lamentações 1:20The image of the sword outside and death inside sums up the experience of the siege: whoever tried to leave the city died by the enemy's sword outside, and whoever stayed inside faced famine and disease. There was no safe side.
  21. Lamentações 1:21Acknowledges that the enemies heard of the suffering and rejoiced over it, since it was God Himself who brought the announced day of judgment — and asks that, in the end, the enemies suffer the same fate.
  22. Lamentações 1:22Closes the chapter with a direct request that the enemies' evil also come before God, just as Jerusalem's evil came before Him — a cry for equivalent justice, ending with the heart 'faint' from so much sighing.

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