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Lamentações 1

BLIVRE · Chapter 1/5

1Como se senta solitária a cidade que era tão populosa! A grande entre as nações tornou-se como viúva, a senhora de províncias passou a ser escrava.

2Amargamente chora na noite, suas lágrimas em seu rosto; entre todos os seus amantes não há quem a console; todos os seus amigos a traíram, inimigos se tornaram.

3Judá foi ao cativeiro com aflição e grande servidão; ela habita entre as nações, mas não acha descanso; todos os seus perseguidores a alcançam em meio ao aperto.

4Os caminhos de Sião estão em pranto, pois ninguém vem aos festivais; todas as suas portas estão desertas, seus sacerdotes gemem, suas virgens se afligem, e ela sofre de amargura.

5Seus oponentes estão no comando, seus inimigos prosperam; pois o SENHOR a afligiu por causa das suas muitas transgressões; suas crianças foram em cativeiro adiante do adversário.

6Partiu-se toda a beleza da filha de Sião; seus líderes estão como cervos, não acham pasto algum; eles andam fracos, fugindo do perseguidor.

7Nos dias da sua aflição, e de suas andanças perdidas, Jerusalém lembra-se de todas as suas preciosidades, que tinha nos tempos antigos; quando seu povo caiu na mão do adversário, não houve quem a ajudasse; os adversários a viram, e zombaram da sua queda.

8Jerusalém pecou gravemente; por isso ela se tornou impura; todos os que a honravam a desprezam, porque viram a sua nudez; ela geme, e se vira para trás.

9Sua imundície estava até nas roupas; nunca se importou com o seu futuro ; por isso caiu espantosamente, sem ter quem a consolasse. Olha, SENHOR, a minha aflição, porque o inimigo está engrandecido.

10O adversário tomou todas as suas coisas de valor; ela viu as nações entrarem no seu templo - aquelas que proibiste de entrarem na tua congregação.

11Todo o seu povo anda suspirando em busca de pão; trocaram todas os seus bens por comida a fim de sobreviverem. Olha, SENHOR, e vê que estou desprezada.

12Todos vós que estais passando, não vos [importais] ? Olhai, e vede se há dor como a minha, que me foi imposta, que o SENHOR me afligiu no dia da sua ira ardente.

13Desde o alto ele enviou fogo em meus ossos, o qual os dominou; ele estendeu uma rede a meus pés, fez-me voltar para trás; tornou-me assolada, sofrendo dores o dia todo.

14O jugo de minhas transgressões está amarrado por sua mão, elas estão ligadas, postas sobre o meu pescoço; ele abateu minhas forças. O Senhor me entregou nas suas mãos daqueles contra quem não posso me levantar.

15O Senhor derrotou todos os meus fortes em meio de mim; convocou contra mim um ajuntamento para quebrar os meus rapazes; o Senhor tem pisado a virgem filha de Judá como [se fosse] em uma prensa de uvas.

16Por estas coisas que eu choro; meus olhos, de meus olhos correm águas; pois afastou-se de mim consolador que daria descanso à minha alma: meus filhos estão desolados, porque o inimigo prevaleceu.

17Sião estendeu suas mãos, não há quem a console; o SENHOR deu ordens contra Jacó, para que seus inimigos o cercassem: Jerusalém se tornou imunda entre eles.

18O SENHOR é justo; eu que me rebelei contra sua boca. Ouvi, pois, todos os povos, e vede minha dor; minhas virgens e meus rapazes foram em cativeiro.

19Clamei a meus amantes, porém eles me enganaram; meus sacerdotes e meus anciãos pereceram na cidade; pois buscam comida para si tentarem sobreviver. )

20Olha, SENHOR, que estou angustiada; tormentam-se minhas entranhas, meu coração está transtornado em meio de mim, pois gravemente me rebelei; de fora desfilhou [-me] a espada, de dentro está como a morte.

21Eles me ouvem gemendo, [porém] não tenho consolador. Todos meus inimigos, quando ouvem minha aflição se alegram, pois tu o fizeste. Quando tu trouxeres o dia que anunciaste, eles serão como eu.

22Toda a maldade deles venha diante de ti, e faze com eles assim como fizeste comigo por causa de todas as minhas transgressões; pois meus gemidos são muitos, e meu coração está desfalecido.

📖 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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