Thomas Aquinas 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)

Third, he excludes the remedy of flight. Here he touches upon the history that is told in Jeremiah 52, when the Chaldeans surrounded Zedekiah fleeing upon a solitary road. Note the hyperbolic expression: they shall fly as an eagle (Habakkuk 1:8).