Lamentations 5:9 Meaning and Explanation

'We gat our bread with the peril of our lives.' Simply to find food, the people must risk death. Every venture out to gather or harvest is fraught with danger. The basic act of staying alive has become a matter of life and death, each meal won at the risk of being killed.

'Because of the sword of the wilderness.' Beyond the settled areas lurk raiders and enemies, the 'sword of the wilderness,' threatening any who go out in search of food. The land that should have fed them safely has become a place of ambush and danger. The verse conveys the constant, gnawing peril of life after the city's fall, when even hunger could not be answered without facing the threat of the sword.