Albert Barnes Commentary Lamentations 4:17-20

"Our eyes do yet fail [in looking] for our vain help: In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save. They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens: They chased us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits; Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations." — Lamentations 4:17-20 (ASV)

A rapid sketch of the last days of the siege and the capture of the king.

(Lamentations 4:17) Rather, Still do our eyes waste away looking for our vain help.

In our watching — Or, on our watchtower.

(Lamentations 4:18) Or, They hunted our steps that we could not go out into the streets. To hunt means here to lie in ambush and catch by snares; and the streets are literally the wide places, especially at the gates. Toward the end of the siege, the towers erected by the enemy would command these places.

(Lamentations 4:19) Our persecutors are ... — Our pursuers (see the note on Lamentations 1:3) were swifter than the eagles of heaven.

They pursued us — Or, they chased us.

Mountains ... wilderness — The route in going from Jerusalem to Jericho leads first over heights, beginning with the Mount of Olives, and then descends into the plain of the Ghor.

(Lamentations 4:20) The breath of our nostrils — Zedekiah is not set before us as a vicious king, but rather as a man who did not have enough strength of character to stem the evil current of his times. And now that the state had fallen, he was like the very breath of life to the fugitives, who would have no rallying point without him.

In their pits — The words are metaphorical, suggesting that Zedekiah was hunted like a wild animal and driven into the pitfall.