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Nova Vulgata
Jeremiæ 1:1
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Verba Jeremi, filii Helci, de sacerdotibus qui fuerunt in Anathoth, in terra Benjamin.
civitas plena populo!
Facta est quasi vidua
domina gentium;
princeps provinciarum
facta est sub tributo.
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
How doth: The LXX have the following words as an introduction: "And it came to pass after Israel had been carried captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said." Lamentations 2:1, Lamentations 4:1, Isaiah 14:12, Jeremiah 50:23, Zephaniah 2:15, Revelation 18:16, Revelation 18:17
sit: Lamentations 2:10, Isaiah 3:26, Isaiah 47:1-15, Isaiah 50:5, Isaiah 52:2, Isaiah 52:7, Jeremiah 9:11, Ezekiel 26:16
full: Psalms 122:4, Isaiah 22:2, Zechariah 8:4, Zechariah 8:5
as a: Isaiah 47:8, Isaiah 47:9, Isaiah 54:4, Revelation 18:7
great: 1 Kings 4:21, 2 Chronicles 9:26, Ezra 4:20
how is: Lamentations 5:16, 2 Kings 23:33, 2 Kings 23:35, Nehemiah 5:4, Nehemiah 9:37
Reciprocal: Leviticus 13:46 - without Leviticus 26:31 - And I will make Deuteronomy 28:16 - in the city Isaiah 24:12 - General Isaiah 47:5 - silent Isaiah 49:21 - am desolate Isaiah 54:11 - not comforted Isaiah 60:15 - thou Isaiah 64:10 - General Jeremiah 12:11 - it mourneth Jeremiah 15:9 - She that hath Jeremiah 34:22 - and I will Jeremiah 42:2 - left Jeremiah 44:2 - a desolation Jeremiah 48:39 - How is it Jeremiah 51:34 - the king Lamentations 1:9 - came Ezekiel 26:2 - the gates Ezekiel 26:17 - How art Ezekiel 36:3 - they have made Daniel 9:2 - the desolations Amos 6:1 - named Obadiah 1:5 - how Micah 2:4 - a doleful lamentation
Gill's Notes on the Bible
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!.... These are the words of Jeremiah; so the Targum introduces them,
"Jeremiah the prophet and high priest said;''
and began thus, "how"; not inquiring the reasons of this distress and ruin; but as amazed and astonished at it; and commiserating the sad case of the city of Jerusalem, which a little time ago was exceeding populous; had thousands of inhabitants in it; besides those that came from other parts to see it, or trade with it: and especially when the king of Babylon had invaded the land, which drove vast numbers to Jerusalem for safety; and which was the case afterwards when besieged by the Romans; at which time, as Josephus f relates, there were eleven hundred thousand persons; and very probably a like number was in it before the destruction of it by the Chaldeans, who all perished through famine, pestilence, and the sword; or were carried captive; or made their escape; so that the city, as was foretold it should, came to be without any inhabitant; and therefore is represented as "sitting", which is the posture of mourners; and as "solitary", or "alone" g, like a menstruous woman in her separation, to which it is compared, Lamentations 1:17; or as a leper removed from the society of men; so the Targum,
"as a man that has the plague of leprosy on his flesh, that dwells alone;''
or rather as a woman deprived of her husband and children; as follows:
[how] is she become as a widow! her king, that was her head and husband, being taken from her, and carried captive; and God, who was the husband also of the Jewish people, having departed from them, and so left in a state of widowhood. Jarchi h observes, that it is not said a widow simply, but as a widow, because her husband would return again; and therefore only during this state of captivity she was like one; but Broughton takes the "caph" not to be a note of similitude, but of reality; and renders it, "she is become a very widow". Vespasian, when he had conquered Judea, struck a medal, on one side of which was a woman sitting under a palm tree in a plaintive and pensive posture, with this inscription, "Judea Capta", as Grotius observes:
she [that was] great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, [how] is she become tributary! that ruled over many nations, having subdued them, and to whom they paid tribute, as the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, and Edomites, in the times of David and Solomon; but since obliged to pay tribute herself, first to Pharaohnecho, king of Egypt; then to the king of Babylon in the times of Jehoiakim; and last of all in the times of Zedekiah; so the Targum,
"she that was great among the people, and ruled over the provinces that paid tribute to her, returns to be depressed; and after this to give tribute to them.''
f De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3. g בדד "sola", V. L. Montanus. h E Talmud Bab. Sanhedrin. fol. 104. 1. & Taanith, fol. 20. 1.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
In these two verses is the same sad image as appears in the well-known medal of Titus, struck to celebrate his triumph over Jerusalem. A woman sits weeping beneath a palm-tree, and below is the legend “Judaea capta.”
Translate Lamentations 1:1 :
How sitteth solitary the city that was full of people:
She is become as a widow that was great among the nations:
A princess among provinces she is become a vassal.
Tributary - In the sense of personal labor Joshua 16:10.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
Chronological notes relative to the Book of the Lamentations
- Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3416.
- Year of the Jewish era of the world, 3173.
- Year from the Deluge, 1760.
- First year of the forty-eighth Olympiad.
- Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian account, 166.
- Year before the birth of Christ, 584.
- Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 588.
- Year of the Julian Period, 4126.
- Year of the era of Nabonassar, 160.
- Cycle of the Sun, 10.
- Cycle of the Moon, 3.
- Second year after the fourth Sabbatic year after the seventeenth Jewish jubilee, according to Helvicus.
- Twenty-ninth year of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of the Romans: this was the seventy-ninth year before the commencement of the consular government.
- Thirty-eighth year of Cyaxares or Cyaraxes, the fourth king of Media.
- Eighteenth year of Agasicles, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae.
- Twentieth year of Leon, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae.
- Thirty-second year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia. This was the father of the celebrated Croesus.
- Fifteenth year of AEropas, the seventh king of Macedon.
- Nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
- Eleventh year of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah.
CHAPTER I
The prophet begins with lamenting the dismal reverse of fortune
that befell his country, confessing at the same time that her
calamities were the just consequence of her sins, 1-6.
Jerusalem herself is then personified and brought forward to
continue the sad complaint, and to solicit the mercy of God,
7-22.
In all copies of the Septuagint, whether of the Roman or Alexandrian editions, the following words are found as a part of the text: Και εγενετο μετα το αιχμαλωτισθηναι τον Ισραηλ, και Ιερουσαλημ ερημωθηναι, εκαθισεν Ιερεμιας κλαιων, και εθρηνησεν τον θρηνον τουτον επι Ιερουσαλημ, και ειπεν· - "And it came to pass after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping: and he lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem; and he said."
The Vulgate has the same, with some variations: - "Et factum est, postquam in captivitatem redactus est Israel, et Jerusalem deserta est, sedit Jeremias propheta fiens, et planxit lamentations hac in Jerusalem, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans, digit." The translation of this, as given in the first translation of the Bible into English, may be found at the end of Jeremiah, taken from an ancient MS. in my own possession.
I subjoin another taken from the first PRINTED edition of the English Bible, that by Coverdale, 1535. "And it came to passe, (after Israel was brought into captyvitie, and Jerusalem destroyed;) that Jeremy the prophet sat weeping, mournynge, and makinge his mone in Jerusalem; so that with an hevy herte he sighed and sobbed, sayenge."
Matthew's Bible, printed in 1549, refines upon this: "It happened after Israell was brought into captyvite, and Jerusalem destroyed, that Jeremy the prophet sate wepyng, and sorrowfully bewayled Jerusalem; and syghynge and hewlynge with an hevy and wooful hert, sayde."
Becke's Bible of the same date, and Cardmarden's of 1566, have the same, with a trifling change in the orthography.
On this Becke and others have the following note: - "These words are read in the LXX. interpreters: but not in the Hebrue."
All these show that it was the ancient opinion that the Book of Lamentations was composed, not over the death of Josiah, but on account of the desolations of Israel and Jerusalem.
The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse Lamentations 1:1. How doth the city sit solitary — Sitting down, with the elbow on the knee, and the head supported by the hand, without any company, unless an oppressor near, - all these were signs of mourning and distress. The coin struck by Vespasian on the capture of Jerusalem, on the obverse of which there is a palm-tree, the emblem of Judea, and under it a woman, the emblem of Jerusalem, sitting, leaning as before described, with the legend Judea capta, illustrates this expression as well as that in Isaiah 47:1. Isaiah 3:26, where the subject is farther explained.
Become as a widow — Having lost her king. Cities are commonly described as the mothers of their inhabitants, the kings as husbands, and the princes as children. When therefore they are bereaved of these, they are represented as widows, and childless.
The Hindoo widow, as well as the Jewish, is considered the most destitute and wretched of all human beings. She has her hair cut short, throws off all ornaments, eats the coarsest food, fasts often, and is all but an outcast in the family of her late husband.
Is she become tributary! — Having no longer the political form of a nation; and the remnant that is left paying tribute to a foreign and heathen conqueror.
