Fathers

Lamentations 5

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Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money. Our wood is sold to us. Our pursuers are on our necks. We are weary, and have no rest. We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers sinned, and are no more. We have borne their iniquities. Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand. We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine. They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah. Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored. The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music. The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim. For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it. You, Yahweh, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation. Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time? Turn us to yourself, Yahweh, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old. But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.

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What the Fathers say

Lamentations 5:18

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Here is indeed cause for sadness: "For Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it." That is, where the temple is. And: "jackals prowl over it." As if they were residing in remote desert places. Thus, the prophet Micah reports: "Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height." (Micah 3:12).

Commentary on Lamentations ↗

Bonaventure

This refers much more directly to the time of the New Testament, when Scripture was made evident, and mostly toward the end, when those Scriptures were understood which had not been understood before. For then there shall be a "mountain," that is, the contemplative Church; then, "there shall be no harm" when the monsters of heresy shall flee on account of the proper use of wisdom. But today Mount Sion is desolate because of jackals, that is, because of cunning and fetid interpreters.

Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 13 ↗