The Bible

 

Lamentations 5

Study

   

1 Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us: Look, 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 We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold to us.

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

6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians, To the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; We have borne their iniquities.

8 Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.

11 They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.

13 The young men bare the mill; The children stumbled under the wood.

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

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

16 The crown is fallen from our head: Woe to us! for we have sinned.

17 For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;

18 For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.

19 You, Yahweh, remain forever; Your throne is from generation to generation.

20 Why do you forget us forever, [And] forsake us so long time?

21 Turn us to yourself, Yahweh, and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old.

22 But you have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us.

   

Commentary

 

Food

  
"The Chef" by Unknown Master, Spanish (active 17th century)

Just as natural food feeds the natural body, so too does spiritual food feed the spiritual body. And since our spiritual body is the expression of what we love, then spiritual food is what feeds our state of love: It is the desire for good, the delight of being good, the understanding of what it is to be good and the knowledge of all that's true and leads to what is good. So when food is talked about in the Bible, that's what it means, and the huge variety of forms food can take represent the huge variety of good we can seek in life and the huge variety of thought we can have leading to it.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 680, 1695, 4792, 5147, 5293, 5576, 9003)