Lamentations 5:5

THE REMAINING PEOPLE WERE ENSLAVED

"Our pursuers are upon our necks;

We are weary, and have no rest.

We have given the land to the Egyptians,

And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

Our fathers sinned, and are not;

And we have borne their iniquities.

Servants rule over us:

There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

We get our bread at the peril of our lives,

Because of the sword of the wilderness."

These verses describe the condition of the poorest people of the land who had been left behind by the Chaldean conquerors. The land owners were not these poor Israelites but the Assyrians and Egyptians who also laid heavy tribute upon them. In addition to that the Babylonian `servants' (governors) over them also exacted heavy taxes to be forwarded to Babylon. The people were not allowed any rest, for they were essentially slaves.

"The Egyptians ... and the Assyrians" (Lamentations 5:6). "These are mentioned here as indications of the geographical areas to which some of the people had gone in order to survive."[3]

"Servants rule over us" (Lamentations 5:8). "Babylonian satraps were often the promoted slaves of the king's household."[4]

Price's description of this is accurate:

"They lack the necessities of life; homes and loved ones are gone; they must pay black market prices even for wood and water; they work incessantly; they beg bread from their enemies; they are enslaved and ruled over by former servants."[5]

"Because of the sword of the wilderness" (Lamentations 5:9). Cook accurately understood the `sword of the wilderness' here to be that of Bedouin marauders. "Those who had been left in the land, in their attempt to gather such fruits as might have remained, were exposed to incursions by the Bedouin."[6] Ash noted that, "The captivity was terrible, but the fate of those left in the land was no less so."[7]