Charles Ellicott Commentary Lamentations 1:20

"Behold, O Jehovah; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled; My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death." — Lamentations 1:20 (ASV)

Behold, O Lord ... —Deserted by men, the mourner appeals to Jehovah. “Bowels” and “heart” are used almost as synonymous for the deepest emotions of the soul. The word for “troubled,” elsewhere (Psalms 75:8) used of color, might, perhaps, be better rendered inflamed.

At home there is as death. —The “as” seems inserted to give the emphasis of the undefined. It is not death pure and simple that makes each home tremble, but the “plurima mortis imago” (Virg. Aen. ii. 369), the starvation, disease, exhaustion, which all were deadly, i.e., deathlike, in their working.