Lamentations Chapter 4 verse 1 Holy Bible
How is the gold become dim! `how' is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
read chapter 4 in ASV
How dark has the gold become! how changed the best gold! the stones of the holy place are dropping out at the top of every street.
read chapter 4 in BBE
How is the gold become dim! the most pure gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of all the streets!
read chapter 4 in DARBY
How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
read chapter 4 in KJV
read chapter 4 in WBT
How is the gold become dim! [how] is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
read chapter 4 in WEB
How is the gold become dim, Changed the best -- the pure gold? Poured out are stones of the sanctuary At the head of all out-places.
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 1. - How is the gold become dim!... the stones of the sanctuary, etc. "Alas for the sad sights of the capture of Jerusalem! The most fine gold has lost its brilliance now that the fire of Nebuzar-adan (2 Kings 25:9) has passed over it, and the precious stones, consecrated to Jehovah, have been cast out into the open street!" Not that the latter part of this description can have corresponded to literal fact. None of the hallowed jewels would have been treated with such indifference. The expression must be as figurative as the parallel one, "to cast pearls before swine," in Matthew 7:6. The precious stones are the "sons of Zion," who are compared to "fine gold" in ver. 2, precisely as they are in Zechariah 9:16 (comp. ver. 13," Thy sons, O Zion") to "the stones of a crown." They are called "stones of the sanctuary," in allusion, perhaps, to the precious stones employed in the decoration of the temple according to 1 Chronicles 29:2 and 2 Chronicles 3:6. But we may also translate hallowed stones, which better suits the figurative use of the phrase. Those, however, who adopt the literal interpretation, explain "the stones of the sanctuary" of the hewn stones of the fabric of the temple, which are described as "costly" in 1 Kings 5:17. But how can even a poet have represented the enemy as carrying these stones out and throwing them down in the street? On the other hand, in an earlier lamentation we are expressly told that the young children "fainted for hunger in the top of every street" (Lamentations 2:19).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersIV.(1) How is the gold . . .--The chapter, considered as a distinct poem, reproduces in its general character that of Lamentations 1, 2, differing from them, however, in tracing more fully the connection between the sufferings and the sins of Judah. The "gold" and the stones of holiness are none other than the material treasures of palace or temple, and the repetition of the phrase "in the top of every street," used in Lamentations 2:19 of children, seems intended to indicate that the words include all that was most precious among the possessions of Jerusalem.
