The Bible

 

Lamentations 5

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1 Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.

2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

4 Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.

5 Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.

6 We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.

8 Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

9 We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.

11 They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.

13 The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.

14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

15 The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

16 The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have sinned!

17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,

18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.

19 Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.

20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?

21 Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

22 Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?

   

Commentary

 

Generation

  
Family of Queen Victoria, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

To “generate” something is to create it, and that idea underpins the meaning of a “generation” of people -- it is a group that was created together, at roughly the same time, from the same parents or group of parents. On a spiritual level, we can be “generators” by using what we know from the Lord to create ideas of how to be good, and also to create good actions based on those ideas -- what the Writings call things of faith and things of charity. In general, then, a “generation” in the Bible represents the spiritual ideas and activities created by a church -- with a “church” being anything from an individual believer to a group lasting thousands of years. “Generation” can also pick up specific meanings from context. For instance, when the Bible says the people of Israel were captive in Egypt for four generations, it means a state of temptation based on the meaning of “four.” When paired with “eternity,” meanwhile, “generations” represents ideas and actions surrounding love of serving others, with “eternity” representing things springing from love of the Lord. Finally, “generations and generations” is used in the Bible to represent forever.