Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
A rapid sketch of the last days of the siege and the capture of the king.
Lamentations 4:17
Rather, "Still do our eyes waste away looking for our vain help."
In our watching - Or, "on our watchtower."
Lamentations 4:18
Or, They hunted "our steps that we could not go out into the streets. To hunt" means here to lie in ambush, and catch by snares; and the streets are literally "the wide places," especially at the gates. Toward the end of the siege the towers erected by the enemy would command these places.
Lamentations 4:19
Our persecutors are ... - Our pursuers (Lamentations 1:3 note) "were swifter thorn the eagles of heaven."
They pursued us - Or, they chased us.
Mountains ... wilderness - The route in going from Jerusalem to Jericho leads first over heights, beginning with the Mount of Olives, and then descends into the plain of the Ghor.
Lamentations 4:20
The breath of our nostrils - Zedekiah is not set before us as a vicious king, but rather as a man who had not strength enough of character to stem the evil current of his times. And now that the state was fallen he was as the very breath of life to the fugitives, who would have no rallying point without him.
In their pits - The words are metaphorical, suggesting that Zedekiah was hunted like a wild animal, and driven into the pitfall.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Lamentations 4:20:
1 Kings 1:34
Isaiah 16:3
Lamentations 4:17-20
Lamentations 4:21-22
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