How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street.
Here Jeremiah, following the order of the alphabet the fourth time, Here, as in the two first chapters, the verses only begin alphabetically, but instead of having three or six lines, they have only two or four. — Ed. deplores the ruin of the city, and the destruction of the priesthood and of the kingdom.
The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamentation of the very sad and doleful change which the judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The city that was formerly as gold, as the most fine gold, so rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth, has become dim, and is changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value...
Commenting on Lamentations 4:1-12
How is the gold become dim!.... Or "covered" (b); or hid with rust, dust, or dirt; so that it can scarcely be discerned: how is the most fine gold changed! this may be literally true of the gold of the temple; and so the Targum calls it "the gold of the house of the sanctuary;'' with which that was overlaid, and many things in it...