John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 4:14

"They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, So that men cannot touch their garments." — Lamentations 4:14 (ASV)

Those who simply read that the blind had wandered deduce this meaning: that the blind were polluted in the streets, because there was filth everywhere. They indeed come close to the Prophet's meaning, but they do not clearly explain what he intended. Therefore, I regard it as beyond dispute that the people are here compared to the blind, but it does not yet appear for what purpose.

But my opinion is this: the whole city was so full of defilements that they could not avoid uncleanness. For a blind man would touch a carcass, he would touch an unclean beast, or he would touch a man infected with some disease. How could this be? Because he could not see to distinguish between a dead and a living man, or between the clean and unclean.

Our Prophet now compares the people to the blind. And why? Because wherever they went, uncleanness met them, so that their eyes were, as it were, dazzled by thick darkness. For when pestilence does not spread everywhere, we can avoid an unclean place. But when there is no corner without a dead corpse or some sickness, we must pass on regardless, having no choice to make—and why? Because uncleanness surrounds us everywhere. So then, the Prophet says that the citizens of Jerusalem were everywhere polluted, as though they were blind.

Now follows the reason, which has not been understood by interpreters. They were polluted, he says, with blood, because they could not but touch their garments. They all give this version: “They could not touch their garments.” And since there is much obscurity and almost absurdity in this rendering, they say the meaning is that they were to avoid touching their garments, because the law forbade them to touch the unclean.

But the Prophet meant another thing. The words are literally thus: “They could not, they will touch their garments,” that is, they will inevitably touch their garments. But the particle I have mentioned is to be understood, and the passage will read thus: They could not but touch their garments. We know that the language will bear this. And since this is consistent with the subject the Prophet is addressing, everyone who judges rightly will readily accept what I have stated.

The meaning then is that they wandered as the blind, and were polluted in all the streets of the city, because they could not escape uncleanness, which met them everywhere. This was because the city, as I have said, was so full of pollutions that they could not turn either here or there and avoid uncleanness.

As to the words, polluted with blood, they refer to the ceremonial law. There were indeed various kinds of pollutions, but this was the chief one. He accommodates his expressions to his own age and follows what was prescribed by the law. He, however, alludes to the sins designated by blood. In short, we see that the whole of Jerusalem was so polluted with defilements that no one could go out without encountering some uncleanness. A confirmation follows, which interpreters have also not understood—