Lamentations 1:1
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
American King James Version (AKJV)
How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
American Standard Version (ASV)
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
Basic English Translation (BBE)
See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!
Webster's Revision
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary.
World English Bible
How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
English Revised Version (ERV)
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
Definitions for Lamentations 1:1
Clarke's Lamentations 1:1 Bible Commentary
How doth the city sit solitary - Sitting down, with the elbow on the knee, and the head supported by the hand, without any company, unless an oppressor near, - all these were signs of mourning and distress. The coin struck by Vespasian on the capture of Jerusalem, on the obverse of which there is a palm-tree, the emblem of Judea, and under it a woman, the emblem of Jerusalem, sitting, leaning as before described, with the legend Judea capta, illustrates this expression as well as that in Isaiah 47:1. See the note on Isaiah 3:26 (note), where the subject is farther explained.
Become as a widow - Having lost her king. Cities are commonly described as the mothers of their inhabitants, the kings as husbands, and the princes as children. When therefore they are bereaved of these, they are represented as widows, and childless.
The Hindoo widow, as well as the Jewish, is considered the most destitute and wretched of all human beings. She has her hair cut short, throws off all ornaments, eats the coarsest food, fasts often, and is all but an outcast in the family of her late husband.
Is she become tributary! - Having no longer the political form of a nation; and the remnant that is left paying tribute to a foreign and heathen conqueror.
Barnes's Lamentations 1:1 Bible Commentary
In these two verses is the same sad image as appears in the well-known medal of Titus, struck to celebrate his triumph over Jerusalem. A woman sits weeping beneath a palm-tree, and below is the legend "Judaea capta."
Translate Lamentations 1:1 :
How sitteth solitary the city that was full of people:
She is become as a widow that was great among the nations:
A princess among provinces she is become a vassal.
Tributary - In the sense of personal labor Joshua 16:10.
Wesley's Lamentations 1:1 Bible Commentary
1:1 A widow - She that had a king, or rather a God, that was an husband to her, now was forsaken of God, and her king taken from her.