Lamentations 5:8 Meaning and Explanation

'Servants have ruled over us.' In the overturned order of conquest, even slaves and underlings of the conquering power now lord it over God's people. Those who should have been the lowest now hold authority over them. The humiliation is sharpened by the lowliness of their new masters; they are subject even to servants.

'There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.' No deliverer appears, no one with the power to rescue them from this bondage. The verse expresses the helplessness of a people who can find no human savior. This very absence of any earthly deliverer is what drives the prayer of the chapter heavenward. When no one on earth can deliver, the only hope is the LORD, and it is to him that the whole poem is addressed.