Servants - i. e. Slaves. A terrible degradation to a high-spirited Jew.

Servants have ruled over us - To be subject to such is the most painful and dishonorable bondage: -

Quio domini faciant,

audent cum talia fures?

Virg. Ecclesiastes 3:16.

"Since slaves so insolent are grown,

What may not masters do?"

Perhaps he here alludes to the Chaldean soldiers, whose will the wretched Jews were obliged to obey.

Servants have ruled over us,.... The Targum is,

"the sons of Ham, who were given to be servants to the sons of Shem, they have ruled over us;''

referring to the prophecy of Noah, Genesis 9:26; or such as had been tributary to the Jews, as the Edomites; so Aben Ezra; the Babylon, an, are meant; and not the nobles and principal inhabitants only, but even their servants, had power and authority over the Jews and they were at their beck and command; which made their servitude the more disagreeable and intolerable:

there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand; out of the hand of these servants.

Further description of the miserable condition under which the congregation languishes. Lamentations 5:8. "Servants rule over us," etc. עבדים are not the Chaldean soldiers, who are in 2 Kings 24:10 designated the servants of Nebuchadnezzar (Pareau, Rosenmller, Maurer); still less the Chaldeans, in so far as they, till shortly before, had been the subjects of the Assyrians (Kalkschmidt); nor the Chaldean satraps, as servants of the king of Babylon (Thenius, Ewald); nor even "slaves who had been employed as overseers and taskmasters of the captives while on the march" (Ngelsbach); but the Chaldeans. These are called servants, partly because of the despotic rule under which they were placed, partly in the sense already indicated by C. B. Michaelis, as being those qui nobis potius, si pii fuissemus, servire debuissent, in accordance with the analogous designation of Jerusalem as a princess among the countries of the world, Lamentations 1:1.

Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

8. Servants . ruled . us-Servants under the Chaldean governors ruled the Jews (Ne 5:15). Israel, once a "kingdom of priests" (Ex 19:6), is become like Canaan, "a servant of servants," according to the curse (Ge 9:25). The Chaldeans were designed to be "servants" of Shem, being descended from Ham (Ge 9:26). Now through the Jews' sin, their positions are reversed.

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.