Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
Lamentations
I. Chap. i, ver. 4. “The ways of Sion mourn, because there are none that come to the solemn feast. They mourn, that is, they are squalid and deserted. It is a catachresis.
II. Ver. 6. “And from the daughter of Sion all her beauty is departed.”
III. Ver. 8. “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable.” Virtue is stable, for it rests on stable law, reason and God: unstable are sin and sinners, who are driven by unstable lust, the world and the demon.
IV. Ver. 12. “O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.” It is the voice of Jerusalem laid waste by the Chaldeans.
V. Ver. 13. “From above he hath sent fire (the thunderbolt of his wrath and vengeance) into my bones: he hath spread a net for my feet,” that I might be taken by the Chaldeans, bound and snared.
VI. Ver. 20. “Abroad the sword destroyeth, and at home there is a like death,” as if to say: Neither at home nor abroad is there safety and rest for me: for on both sides the Chaldeans slay my sons and citizens.
VII. Chap. ii, ver. 11. “My liver is poured out upon the earth,” as if to say: For grief I have as it were poured out my bowels. For the liver is the seat of love and desire, and consequently also of the opposite grief and compassion.
VIII. Ver. 13. “Great as the sea is thy destruction:” thou hast come, O Sion, into the waves and sea of sorrows and evils.
IX. Ver. 15. “They have hissed, and wagged their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city, saying, of perfect beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
X. Ver. 18. “Let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself no rest, and let not the apple of thine eye cease (cease from weeping).”
XI. Ver. 19. “Arise, give praise (calling upon God with praise) in the night, in the beginning of the watches: pour out thy heart like water before the sight of the Lord.”
XII. Ver. 20. “Shall women then eat their fruit, their children of a span long? shall the priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?”
XIII. Chap. iii, ver. 17. “My soul is removed far off from peace, I have forgotten good things. And I said, My end is cut off,” as if to say: There will be no end of my evils, “and my hope from the Lord.”
XIV. Ver. 22. “The mercies of the Lord, that we are not consumed.”
“They are new every morning (the suns of benefits rise daily, and come to us from God), great is thy faithfulness (fidelity in performing what is promised us).”
XV. Ver. 24. “The Lord is my portion, said my soul: therefore will I wait for him.”
XVI. Ver. 25. “The Lord is good to them that hope in him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good to wait with silence for the salvation of God.”
XVII. Ver. 27. “It is good for a man when he hath borne the yoke (of discipline and tribulations) from his youth.”
XVIII. Ver. 28. “He shall sit solitary and hold his peace: because he hath taken it up upon himself,” as if to say: The pious man will silently take upon his shoulders and bear the burden of tribulations sent and laid on him by God.
Ver. 30. “He shall give his cheek to him that striketh him, he shall be filled with reproaches: for the Lord will not cast off for ever.”
XIX. Ver. 37. “Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not?” What atheist would say that these crosses are sent us not by God’s providence, but come to us by chance, fate, or nature?
XX. Ver. 39. “Why hath a living man murmured, a man for his sins? Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens.”
XXI. Ver. 44. “Thou hast set a cloud before thee, that prayer may not pass through.”
XXII. Ver. 45. “Thou hast made me a rooting out and refuse in the midst of the nations.”
XXIII. Ver. 51. “My eye hath wasted my soul because of all the daughters of my city,” as if to say: My eye, seeing the daughters of Sion taken, mocked and violated, has as it were torn out my soul and life, so that for grief I fell into a swoon, and was as it were lifeless.
XXIV. Chap. iv, ver. 10. “The hands of the merciful women (otherwise, but cruel from hunger) have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
Ver. 11. “The Lord hath accomplished his fury.”