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A Plea for Mercy5 Remember, O L ord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! 2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens. 3 We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows. 4 We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought. 5 With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven; we are weary, we are given no rest. 6 We have made a pact with Egypt and Assyria, to get enough bread. 7 Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear their iniquities. 8 Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hand. 9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness. 10 Our skin is black as an oven from the scorching heat of famine. 11 Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah. 12 Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders. 13 Young men are compelled to grind, and boys stagger under loads of wood. 14 The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music. 15 The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning. 16 The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned! 17 Because of this our hearts are sick, because of these things our eyes have grown dim: 18 because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.
19 But you, O L ord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. 20 Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days? 21 Restore us to yourself, O L ord, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old— 22 unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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He mentions here another kind of reproach, that women had been ravished in Jerusalem, and in other cities.
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There is here a delicate word for a disgraceful act. The words literally are, —
And he mentioned Sion rather than Jerusalem, — it was indeed to state a part for the whole; but that place, we know, had been chosen by God that his name might be there worshipped. Sion, then, was a holy place above any other; it was, in a word, the earthly dwelling of God. As, then, God had there his palace, that he might dwell in the midst of his people, it was a disgraceful sight in the extreme to see women ravished there, for the temple of God was thus violated. It was not only a thing disgraceful to the people, that women were thus ravished, but it was a filthy profanation of God’s worship, and therefore sacrilegious. We now see the design of the Prophet. He mentions also the cities of Judah, but with reference to the same thing. It follows — |