Lamentations 1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands
Either as submitting to the conqueror, and imploring mercy; or rather as calling to her friends to help and relieve her. The Targum is,
``Zion spreadeth out her hands through distress, as a woman spreads out her hands upon the seat to bring forth;''
see (
Jeremiah 4:31 ) . Some render the words, "Zion breaks with her hands"
F6; that is, breaks bread; and Joseph Kimchi observes, that it was the custom of comforters to break bread to the mourner; but here she herself breaks it with her hands, because there was none to comfort her:
[and there is] none to comfort her;
to speak a word of comfort to her, or to help her out of her trouble; her children gone into captivity; her friends and lovers at a distance; and God himself departed from her; (
See Gill on Lamentations 1:16);
the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, [that] his adversaries [should be] round about him;
that he should be surrounded by them, and carried captive, and should be in the midst of them in captivity: this was the decree and determination of God; and, agreeably to it, he ordered it in his providence that the Chaldeans should come against him, encompass him, and overcome him; and that because he had slighted and broken the commandments of the Lord; and therefore was justly dealt with, as is acknowledged in (
Lamentations 1:18 ) . So the Targum,
``the Lord gave to the house of Jacob commandments, and a law to keep, but they transgressed the decree of his word; therefore his enemies encompassed the house of Jacob round about:''
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them;
reckoned filthy and unclean, abominable and nauseous; whom none cared to come near, but shunned, despised, and abhorred; as the Jews separated from the Gentiles, and would not converse with them; so neither now would the Chaldeans with the Jews; but treat them as the offscouring of all things.