Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her in her distress.
All Commentaries on Lamentations 1:3 Go To Lamentations 1
Glossa Ordinaria
AD 1480
JUDAH HAS REMOVED: the tenth topic of complaint, by which helplessness, weakness and loneliness are revealed.
Historical interpretation. JUDAH HAS MIGRATED &c: that is to say, due to their manifold sins they have been led into captivity not only to Babylon but thence, on account of the sufferings of serfdom, as runaway slaves they have migrated to other peoples, but not even there have they found rest. From which follows: ALL HER PERSECUTORS HAVE TAKEN HER &c, namely those who pursued the fugitives and previously more cruelly had shattered the distressed. In fact, those who had fled the light yoke of the Lord, are justly being overwhelmed by heavy sufferings, and those who despised the liberty promised in Christ, deservedly labored in the sufferings of serfdom. JUDAH HAS MIGRATED from one kind of enemy to another, fleeing the unmercifulness of her lords. As Cain the fratricide wandering about and banished, so the Jews dwell amongst the gentiles finding no rest, carrying about the disgrace of their confusion, because they did not fear to kill Christ, their brother.
Allegorical interpretation. JUDAH HAS MIGRATED &c: liberty lost, the Church of Christ often migrates into the serfdom of the gentiles and the suffering of vices, and finds no rest, but fleeing from place to place and seized by her persecutors, she suffers worse anguish. Often, however, our Jerusalem is in this way historically captured and suffers and roams captive among enemies, just as the earthly Jerusalem fore-showed historically.
Moral interpretation. JUDAH HAS MIGRATED &c: namely the soul, who ought to praise God and, accusing herself, unfold her sins, afflicted by the slavery of her sins, she wanders from vices to vice, and SHE HAS FOUND NO REST. Hence the apostle: I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my members. There is no way to escape, unless the one he himself shows through the grace of God, by Jesus Christ. But the miserable soul, exhausted at last in the manner of pregnant women, is caught by her persecutors IN THE MIDST OF STRAITS, whence: Woe to them that are with child and that give suck in those days.
