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Selected Verse: Lamentations 4:3 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| La 4:3 |
King James |
Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
sea monsters . . . breast--Whales and other cetaceous monsters are mammalian. Even they suckle their young; but the Jewish women in the siege, so desperate was their misery, ate theirs (Lam 4:10; Lam 2:20). Others translate, "jackals."
ostriches--see on Job 39:14; Job 39:16, on their forsaking their young. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
Sea monsters - Rather, jackals.
Their young ones - "Their" whelps. The term is applied only to the young of dogs, lions, and the like. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Cruel - The Jewish women are become cruel to their children, or forced to appear so, having through the famine no milk to give them, nor any thing to relieve them. Ostriches - Like ostriches that lay their eggs, and leave them in the sand. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
Even the sea monsters draw out the breast - The whales give suck to their young ones. The word תנין tannin, signifies all large and cruel creatures, whether aquatic or terrestrial; and need not here be restrained to the former sort. My Old MS. Bible translates curiously: Not and the cruel bestis that ben clepid Lamya, and thei nakeden ther tetis, geve ther whelpis souken.
Like the ostriches in the wilderness - For her carelessness about her eggs, and her inattention to her young, the ostrich is proverbial. |
16 She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear;
14 Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust,
20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.