John Gill Commentary Lamentations 2:11

"Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city." — Lamentations 2:11 (ASV)

Mine eyes do fail with tears According to Aben Ezra, everyone of the elders before mentioned said this; but rather they are the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, who had wept his eyes dry, or rather blind, on account of the calamities of his people; though he himself obtained liberty and enlargement by means thereof:

my bowels are troubled ; all his inward parts were distressed: my liver is poured upon the earth ; his gall bladder, which lay at the bottom of his liver, broke, and he cast it up, and poured it on the earth; see (Job 16:13) ;

and all this was for the destruction of the daughter of my people ; or, the "breach" of them ^F20 ; their civil and church state being destroyed and broke to shivers; and for the ruin of the several families of them: particularly because the children and sucklings swoon in the streets of the city ; through famine, for want of bread, with those that could eat it; and for want of the milk of their mothers and nurses, who being starved themselves could not give it; and hence the poor infants fainted and swooned away; which was a dismal sight, and heart melting to the prophet.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F20: (rbv le) "propter contritionem", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius; "propter confractionem", Piscator; "propter fractionem", Cocceius.