John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 1:8

"Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward." — Lamentations 1:8 (ASV)

Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what he had briefly referred to: that all the evil which the Jews suffered came from God’s vengeance. They were worthy of such a punishment because they had not offended lightly, but had heaped up for themselves a dreadful judgment, since they had in every way abandoned themselves to impiety.

This is the substance of what is said. From this we learn that the Prophet did not compose this song to lament the calamity of his own country as pagans were accustomed to do. An example of a pagan lamentation we have in Virgil:—

“Come is the great day and the unavoidable time
Of Dardania: we Trojans have been; Ilium has been,
And the great glory of the Teucrians: cruel Jupiter has to Argos
Transferred all things: the Danai rule in the burnt city.”

He also repeats the same sentiment in other words:—

“O country! O Ilium, the house of the gods! and the famous for war,
The camp of the Dardanidans! cruel Jupiter has to Argos
Transferred all things.”

Thus, he mourns the destruction of Troy; but he complains of the cruelty of God, and calls Him cruel Jupiter, because he himself was enraged—and yet the speaker was Pantheus, the priest of Apollo. From this we see how the unbelieving, when they lament their own calamities, vomit forth blasphemies against God, for they are exasperated by sorrow.

The Prophet's complaint is very different from that of the ungodly. For when he deplores the miseries of his people, he at the same time adds that God is a righteous avenger. He does not, then, accuse God of cruelty or of too much rigor, but reminds the people to humble themselves before God and to confess that they justly deserved all their evils.

The unbelieving do indeed sometimes include some words by which they seem to give glory to God, but these are fleeting, for they soon return to their perverseness. They are sometimes moderate, saying, “If you are turned by any entreaties.” In that case, they expostulate with God, as though he were deaf to the prayers of his servants. Finally, they break out into open blasphemies:—

“After it seemed good to the gods to subvert the affairs of Asia
And the undeserved nation of Priam.”—

They regarded the nation which had been cut off as unworthy of such a punishment; they called it an undeserved nation. Now, then, we perceive the difference between the unbelieving and the children of God.

For it is common to all to mourn in adversities. But the end of the mourning of the unbelieving is perverseness, which eventually breaks out into rage when they feel their sufferings, and in the meantime, they do not humble themselves before God.

But the faithful do not harden themselves in their mourning. Instead, they reflect on themselves, examine their own lives, and of their own accord prostrate themselves before God. They willingly submit to the sentence of condemnation and confess that God is just.

From this we now see how we ought to lament the calamity of the Church: we must return to this principle that God is a just avenger. He does not punish only common offenses but the greatest sins. And when He reduces us to extremities, He does so on account of the greatness of our sins, as Daniel also confessed.

For it was not in few words that he declared that the people were worthy of exile and of the punishment which they suffered; instead, he accumulated words:

We have sinned, we have acted impiously, we have done wickedly, we have been transgressors (Daniel 9:5).

Nor was the Prophet satisfied without this enumeration, for he saw how great the impiety of the people had been, and how mad their obstinacy had been—not for a few years, but for that long time during which they had been warned by the prophets. Yet they did not repent, but always became worse and worse. Such, then, is the mode of speaking adopted here.

He says that she was made a commotion; that is, that she was removed from her country. There seems to be an implied contrast between the rest which had been promised to the Jews and a wandering and vagrant exile. For, as we have seen, the Jews had not only been banished, but they had nowhere a quiet dwelling; it was, in fact, a commotion.

This may also be referred to the curse of the law, because they were to be for a commotion—for even the unbelieving shook their heads at them. But the word, נידה, nide, should properly be applied to their exile, when the Jews became unsettled and vagrant.

It is added that she was despised and treated reproachfully by all who previously esteemed and honored her. This also significantly increased the severity of her calamity; she had been repudiated by her friends, by whom she had previously been valued and honored. The reason is mentioned: because they saw her nakedness. But the word properly means turpitude or ignominy.

Finally, it is added that she even groaned and turned backward; that is, she was so oppressed with grief that there was no hope of a remedy. For to turn backward means the same as to be deprived of all hope of restoration.