Lamentations 5:7

Our fathers have sinned, and are not - Nations, as such, cannot be punished in the other world; therefore national judgments are to be looked for only in this life. The punishment which the Jewish nation had been meriting for a series of years came now upon them, because they copied and increased the sins of their fathers, and the cup of their iniquity was full. Thus the children might be said to bear the sins of the fathers, that is, in temporal punishment, for in no other way does God visit these upon the children. See Eze 18:1, etc.

(Jer 31:29). borne their iniquities--that is, the punishment of them. The accumulated sins of our fathers from age to age, as well as our own, are visited on us. They say this as a plea why God should pity them (compare Eze 18:2, &c.).

Our fathers have sinned, and are not,.... In the world, as the Targum adds; they were in being, but not on earth; they were departed from hence, and gone into another world; and so were free from the miseries and calamities their children were attended with, and therefore more happy: and we have borne their iniquities; the punishment of them, or chastisement for them: this is not said by way of complaint, much less as charging God with injustice, in punishing them for their fathers' sins, or to excuse theirs; for they were ready to own that they had consented to them, and were guilty of the same; but to obtain mercy and pity at the hands of God.

A Prayer to the Lord by the Church, Languishing in Misery, for the Restoration of Her Former State of Grace 1 Remember, O Jahveh, what hath happened to us; consider, and behold our reproach. 2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to foreigners. 3 We are orphans, without a father; our mothers are as widows. 4 Our own water we drink for money, our own wood cometh to us in return for payment. 5 On our necks are we persecuted; we are jaded, - there is no rest for us. 6 [Towards] Egypt we reach our hand, - [towards] Assyria, to satisfy ourselves [with] bread. 7 Our fathers sinned, they are not; we bear their iniquities. 8 Servants rule us; there is none to deliver us out of their hand. 9 At the risk of our life we bring in our bread, because of the sword of the wilderness. 10 Our skin gloweth with heat like a furnace, because of the fever-heat of hunger. 11 They have forced women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah. 12 Princes are hung up by their hand; the face of the elders is not honoured. 13 Young men carry millstones, and lads stagger under [loads of] wood. 14 Elders cease from the gate, young men from their instrumental music. 15 The joy of our heart hath ceased, our dancing has turned into mourning. 16 The crown of our head is fallen; woe unto us, that we have sinned! 17 Because of this our heart became sick; because of these [things] our eyes became dark. 18 Upon Mount Zion, which is laid waste, jackals roam through it. 19 Thou, O Jahveh, dost sit [enthroned] for ever; They throne is for generation and generation. 20 Why dost thou forget us for ever, - forsake us for a length of days? 21 Lead us back, O Jahveh, to thyself, that we may return; renew our days, as of old. 22 Or, hast Thou indeed utterly rejected us? art thou very wroth against us? This…

This chapter, though it has the same number of verses with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th, is not alphabetical, as they were, but the scope of it is the same with that of all the foregoing elegies. We have in it, I. A representation of the present calamitous state of God's people in their captivity (v. 1-16). II. A protestation of their concern for God's sanctuary, as that which lay nearer their heart than any secular interest of their own (Lam 5:17, Lam 5:18). III. A humble supplication to God and expostulation with him, for the returns of mercy (Lam 5:19-22); for those that lament and do not pray sin in their lamentations. Some ancient versions call this chapter, "The Prayer of Jeremiah."