5:9 We procured our bread with [the peril of] our lives because of the sword {e} of the wilderness.
(e) Because of the enemy that came from the wilderness and would not suffer us to go and seek our necessary food.
5:9 The sword - The enemies lay encamped in all the plains, so that they could stir out no way but the sword of the Chaldeans was upon them.
5:1-16 Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him who bare our sins in his own body on the tree.
