Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my soul is troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death.
All Commentaries on Lamentations 1:20 Go To Lamentations 1
Glossa Ordinaria
AD 1480
BEHOLD, O LORD: the fourteenth or rather fifth topic of complaint, as all misfortunes are presented to the judge one by one, so that he, as if he saw the things themselves and not only heard the words, should be moved to pity.
Historical interpretation BEHOLD, O LORD: sometimes Jerusalem is perplexed with shame; sometimes, trusting in compassion, she is raised up, whence she says: BEHOLD, O LORD, that her affliction may turn the pious judge to compassion, shame to mercy. MY BOWELS ARE TROUBLED, like a woman in labor. I AM FULL: she points out, not that she is entirely touched, but that she is full of the BITTERNESS of sorrow and pain. MY HEART IS TURNED WITHIN ME by the weight of tribulation; THE SWORD of the persecutor; DEATH ALIKE, for the bitterness of tribulation.
Allegorical interpretation BEHOLD, O LORD: RES is interpreted ‘of the head’. For the disorder of the bowels or the destruction of the heart is a sighing of the mind that is denoted in the head. Therefore it is justly said confusion ‘of the head’, when the Church is filled with bitterness due to the falling of her own, she who daily exhibits her pain and tribulation before the most clement judge. The bowels are the reservoir of all food, in which it is digested; by which those are understood, who do not neglect to conceal within and ruminate the bread, which comes down from heaven, just as clean flesh. They receive this food through faith, digest it with charity and meditating God’s law, whence Isaiah: Of fear, O Lord, we have conceived, and have brought forth wind. The Church deplores these bowels being disturbed, when she suffers various temptations and is vexed within and without.
MY HEART IS TURNED WITHIN ME: namely because she does not put the seal of God upon her heart, whence: Put me as a seal upon thy heart. Indeed, if she had been sealed, the enemy would not have overthrown her. Thus, she is struck without by the sword of the persecutors, within by the doctrine of the heretics or the depravity of morals, which are more bitter than gall.
Moral interpretation BEHOLD O LORD: the soul, troubled by various pains, mourns her bowels, that is her mind being disturbed, whence: The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, which searches all the hidden things of the bowels, that is of the mind. This sighing of the head is therefore good, as the mind is represented by the head, whence Jeremiah says elsewhere: My bowels, my bowels are in part, and adds explaining: The senses of my heart are troubled within me. For the bowels signify the mind, because as in the bowels the offspring, so the thoughts in the mind. To be sure, the faithful soul, wearied by temptations, deplores herself weakened within and without; without by persecutions, within by pains. Indeed, when we are weakened on the outside by scourging, on the inside are we wearied by suggestions by the flesh, whence he adds: ABROAD THE SWORD DESTROYS, AND AT HOME THERE IS DEATH ALIKE.
