1:1 How doth {a} the city sit desolate, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the nations, {b} [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she become a slave!
(a) The prophet wonders at the great judgment of God, seeing Jerusalem, which was so strong and so full of people, to be now destroyed and desolate.
(b) Who had chief rule over many provinces and countries.
1:1 A widow - She that had a king, or rather a God, that was an husband to her, now was forsaken of God, and her king taken from her.
1:1-11 The prophet sometimes speaks in his own person; at other times Jerusalem, as a distressed female, is the speaker, or some of the Jews. The description shows the miseries of the Jewish nation. Jerusalem became a captive and a slave, by reason of the greatness of her sins; and had no rest from suffering. If we allow sin, our greatest adversary, to have dominion over us, justly will other enemies also be suffered to have dominion. The people endured the extremities of famine and distress. In this sad condition Jerusalem acknowledged her sin, and entreated the Lord to look upon her case. This is the only way to make ourselves easy under our burdens; for it is the just anger of the Lord for man's transgressions, that has filled the earth with sorrows, lamentations, sickness, and death.
