Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
Lamentations
I. Chap. i, ver. 1. “How doth the city (Jerusalem, allegorically the afflicted Church, tropologically the penitent soul) sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow, the mistress of the Gentiles: the princess of provinces made tributary!”
II. Chap. ii, ver. 1. “How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in his wrath! he hath cast down from heaven to the earth (from the summit of happiness and glory to the lowest abyss of misery and ignominy) the glorious one of Israel, and hath not remembered his footstool” (that is the ark and the propitiatory) “in the day of his anger,” as if to say: How has God permitted to be laid waste not only the city but also his temple? hence he adds:
Ver. 7. “The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath cursed his sanctuary,” that is, he has permitted his holy temple to be ill-treated and burnt by the Chaldeans.
III. Chap. iii, ver. 5. “He hath built round about me (a rampart of afflictions and anguish, as if to say: God has walled me round on every side with afflictions), and he hath compassed me with gall and labour.”
… as the dead of old.”
V. Ver. 10. “He is to me a bear lying in wait, a lion in secret places.”
VI. Ver. 12. “He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath shot into my reins the daughters of his quiver,” that is, by his arrows and wounds he hath pierced my inmost parts.
VII. Ver. 16. “And he hath broken my teeth one by one, he hath fed me with ashes,” he has given me ashen bread to eat, hard and stony, which breaks my teeth.
VIII. Chap. iv, ver. 1. “How is the gold become dim (with which the temple was overlaid), the finest colour is changed” into the soot of the fire with which it was burnt, “the stones of the sanctuary (of the holy temple) are scattered in the top of every street?”
IX. Ver. 2. “The noble sons of Sion, and they that were clothed with the best gold: how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, the work of the hands of the potter?” as if to say: The young men of the Jews once noble and glorious, are now become vile and inglorious: once they were vessels of gold, now of earth and clay.
X. Ver. 3. “Even the sea monsters have drawn out the breast, they have given suck to their young: the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostrich in the desert,” as if to say: Wild beasts and monsters, however savage, yet give suck to their young: but so great is the famine, affliction and disturbance in Jerusalem that the mothers of Sion leave their sons gaping with hunger, and let them die, like the ostrich, a foolish and cruel bird, which leaves its eggs and young.
XI. Ver. 5. “They that were fed delicately have died in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet have embraced the dung,” as if to say: They who were clothed, and slept, in garments of saffron and silk are now forced to sleep on a dunghill and to cover themselves with dung.
XII. Ver. 19. “Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of the air: they pursued us upon the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.”