John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 4:19

"Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens: They chased us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness." — Lamentations 4:19 (ASV)

Here, then, the Prophet means that the Jews were so confined that there was no escape for them, because their steps were observed by their enemies, and also because the Chaldeans acted with the greatest speed so they could capture them.

He then says, first, that their enemies were like hunters, for the Jews could not go even through the streets of their own city. We know that they were reduced to the greatest distress; but how hard the siege was is better expressed by this analogy: they dared not walk through the city.

For there is an implied comparison, as if he had said, “We had no liberty in the very city, much less were we allowed to go out and ramble through the open fields.” He, in the second place, adds what corresponds with the first clause: Approach did our end, fulfilled were our days; surely come did our end. He concludes that no hope remained since their enemies were oppressing them in this way.

He then infers that the end was near, by which he means final ruin or destruction. He adds that the days were fulfilled, where he seems to compare the state of Jerusalem with the life of man; for a person who leaves the world is said to have fulfilled his days, for a certain time for our sojourn has been predetermined.

God, when it pleases him, calls us to himself. Therefore, our time is then fulfilled, just as our course is said to be finished; for, as the life of man is compared in Scripture to a race, so death is like the goal.

So now, speaking of the city, the Prophet says that its time was fulfilled, for it was not God’s will that it should remain any longer.

In the third place, he says that the end had come. He said before that it was near, but he says now that it had come. He, in short, shows that God, having long spared the Jews, when he saw that they made no end of sinning, at last resorted to severity, for they had shamefully abused his forbearance. He had long suspended his judgment and had often tried whether they could be healed. The Prophet, then, now reproves their obstinacy when he says that their end had come, and that their time was fulfilled.

He afterwards, for the same purpose, adds that swifter than eagles had been their persecutors or pursuers. The Prophet, no doubt, continues the same subject. Just as he had depicted the Chaldeans as hunters, so he now says that in their speed they exceeded the eagles.

It is, indeed, a hyperbolical expression, but the Prophet could not otherwise express the incredible speed with which the Chaldeans hastened in pursuing the Jews. Nor is there any doubt that he indirectly derided the security of the foolish people.

For we know that whenever the prophets threatened them, this false opinion always prevailed: that the Chaldeans would not come because they were far away, the journey was long and difficult, and there were many hindrances. The Prophet, then, now taunts them for this confidence by which they had been deceived, when he says that swifter than the eagles of the heavens were their enemies.

He mentions the ways they adopted: Through the mountains they pursued, and laid in wait in the desert. He means that every way of escape was closed up.

For when enemies come, many hide themselves on mountains and thus escape; and others, by going to the desert, find some hiding places there. But the Prophet says that such was the speed of the Chaldeans that the Jews looked in vain to the mountains or to deserts, for snares were everywhere prepared, and the enemy was present everywhere to pursue them.

Thus he confirms what he had said: that the time was fulfilled, for the Lord kept them shut up on every side.

Now, though the Prophet speaks here of the ruin of the city, yet we may gather a useful doctrine: When the hand of God is against us, we look around in all directions in vain, for there will be no safety for us on mountains, nor will solitude protect us in the desert. Just as we see that the Jews were shut in by God’s hand, so when we contend with him, we turn our eyes here and there in vain; for, however we may for a time entertain good hopes, yet God will surely at last disappoint us.