They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
Lamentations 4:5 belongs to the account of Jerusalem's calamity under the Babylonians, standing within the wider description of severe suffering in Lamentations 4:3-10.
It depicts a reversal of fortune in Jerusalem's ruin, in which those once fed with rich food and accustomed to delicate fare are left destitute and desolate in the streets. Those brought up in comfort and luxury and clothed in fine scarlet wear it no longer but are reduced to homelessness and extreme degradation among refuse. Raised in scarlet, they are brought to lie among refuse heaps and to embrace dunghills.
The suffering so described shows the tribulation the Jews endured under the Babylonians was as great as and comparable to the tribulation described in Matthew 24. It therefore proves the later destruction of Jerusalem was not the greatest tribulation ever.
Lamentations 4:5 belongs to the account of Jerusalem's calamity under the Babylonians, standing within the wider description of severe suffering in Lamentations 4:3-10.
It depicts a reversal of fortune in Jerusalem's ruin, in which those once fed with rich food and accustomed to delicate fare are left destitute and desolate in the streets. Those brought up in comfort and luxury and clothed in fine scarlet wear it no longer but are reduced to homelessness and extreme degradation among refuse. Raised in scarlet, they are brought to lie among refuse heaps and to embrace dunghills.
The suffering so described shows the tribulation the Jews endured under the Babylonians was as great as and comparable to the tribulation described in Matthew 24. It therefore proves the later destruction of Jerusalem was not the greatest tribulation ever.