Lamentations 1:11
All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.
All her people sigh,.... Not her priests only, Lamentations 1:4; but all the common people, because of their affliction, particularly for want of bread. So the Targum,
"all the people of Jerusalem sigh because of the famine;''
for it follows:
they seek bread; to eat, as the Targum; inquire where it is to be had, but in vain:
they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: or, "to cause the soul to return" {x}; to fetch it back when fainting and swooning away through famine; and therefore would give anything for food; part with their rich clothes, jewels, and precious stones; with whatsoever they had that was valuable in their cabinets or coffers, that they might have meat to keep from fainting and dying; to refresh and recruit their spirits spent with hunger:
see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile; mean, base, and contemptible, in the eyes of men, through penury and want of food; through poverty, affliction, and distress; and therefore desires the Lord would consider her case, and look with pity and compassion on her.
{x} vpn byvhl "ad reducendum animam", Montanus, Piscator.