Lamentations 5:9

Lam 5:9 We gat our bread with [the peril of] our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

Ver. 9. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives.] So did our good ancestors the bread of life, while their preachers also were glad to do as Jotham did, {Jdg 9:21} when they had delivered what they had to say, run away, and flee for their lives. See 2Sa 23:17.

Because of the sword of the wilderness.] Where rovers and robbers lay in wait for us; neither could we pass them without apparent peril.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Because of the enemy that came from the wilderness, and would not suffer us to go and seek our necessary food.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

We gat our bread with . . . peril--that is, those of us left in the city after its capture by the Chaldeans.

because of . . . sword of . . . wilderness--because of the liability to attack by the robber Arabs of the wilderness, through which the Jews had to pass to get "bread" from Egypt (compare Lam 5:6).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 9. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives] They could not go into the wilderness to feed their cattle, or to get the necessaries of life, without being harassed and plundered by marauding parties, and by these were often exposed to the peril of their lives. This was predicted by Moses, De 28:31.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The word חרב, chereb, means drought as well as sword. As the Prophet is speaking of famine and the desert,, I have no doubt but that dryness or drought is sword the word means here; and I wonder that the word sword had occurred to any; they could not have regarded the context.

He then says that the people sought bread with the soul, that is, at the hazard of their own life. If danger be preferred, I do not object. But as he simply says, with the soul, he seems to express this, that for food they hazarded their own life. Food, indeed, is the support of life, for why is bread sought but for sustaining life? But the hungry so rush headlong to procure food, that they expose themselves to thousand dangers, and they also weary themselves with many labors; and this is to seek bread with their soul, that is, when men not only anxiously labor to procure food, but pour forth as it were their own blood, as when one undertakes a long journey to get some support, lie is almost lifeless when he reaches the distant hospital. As, then, the Jews nowhere found food, the Prophet says that they sought bread with their life, that is, at the hazard of life. This is the view I prefer.

He then adds, For the dryness of the wilderness. What has the sword to do with wilderness? We see that this is wholly unsuitable; there was then no reason why interpreters should pervert this word. But what he calls the dryness of the wilderness was the want by which the people were distressed, as though they were in the wilderness. This is said by way of comparison, — that on account of the dryness of the desert, that is, on account of sterility, they were under the necessity of exposing their life to death, only that they might anywhere find bread.

It may also be, that the Prophet meant, that they were fugitives, and thus went in hunger through woods and forest, when they dared not to go forth into the open country lest the enemy should meet them. But what I have said is most suitable, that is, that they were so famished as though they were in a vast desert, and far away from every hospital, so that bread could nowhere be found. We now, then, perceive the meaning of the Prophet. He adds, —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(9) The sword of the wilderness.—Another element of suffering is hinted at. Those who were left in the land were attacked, as they gathered in their scanty harvest, by the nomad tribes of the wilderness. Amalekites, Midianites, and others. (Comp. Jer_40:14.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. We get our bread] The reference is to the bands of wild Arabs (Bedaween), who plundered them as they ventured from the shelter of the city to reap the harvest or to tend the cattle or sheep of their masters.

the sword of the wilderness] a unique expression in O.T. For the sense see last note. A suggestion, involving only changes of vocalisation and of one consonant (ûmiddeber instead of hammidbar), is to read for “of the wilderness” and because of pestilence. Cp. Jer_14:12; Jer_21:7; Jer_27:13; Jer_34:17 (Stade, ZATW, xv. p. 285). But pestilence has no proper place in this context. Enc. Bibl. (2700) suggests Arabian for “sword” (‘ãrâb for ḥereb).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We gat our bread with the peril of our lives,.... This seems to refer to the time of the siege when they privately went out of the city to get in some provision, but went in danger of their lives:

because of the sword of the wilderness: or, "of the plain" (t); because of the, word of the Chaldean army, which lay in the plain about Jerusalem into whose hand there was danger of falling, and of being cut to pieces.

(t) "propter gladium in deserto, sive plano", Gataker.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

We gat - Or, We get “our bread at the peril of our lives.” This verse apparently refers to those who were left in the land, and who in gathering in such fruits as remained, were exposed to incursions of the Bedouin, here called “the sword of the desert.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Sword. Any one might kill us.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The enemies lay encamped in all the plains, so as they could stir out no way but the sword of the Chaldeans was upon them, and what victuals they got they adventured their lives for, during the time of the siege.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Sword of the wilderness — This alludes to the predatory Bedouins, who sometimes strip a whole district of its herds and its harvests in a single day.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We gat our bread; rather, we get our bread. The allusion in the following words is perhaps to murderous attacks of Bedawins (as we should call the Ishmaelites) on the Jews who attempted to gather in the scanty harvest.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

With our lives we bring our bread with the peril of our soul. We were endangered when we would bring our food from the field because of the sword of the wilderness.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.