Now the God-fearing people do what Jeremiah told them to do: they start crying out to God. Until the end of this song, it will again be they who are speaking. In their whole prayer, they do not directly ask God for help. They know they are too guilty for this. They only ask that he will “look” (see note under Lamentations 1:9).
The first thing that the people ask God to look at is the horrible cannibalism in the city. Women were eating their own children! (The Lord had also warned that this would happen; see Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53–57.) The second thing is the dead bodies in God’s temple. In that holy place where no stranger was ever allowed, heathen soldiers had killed priests and prophets.
The prayer does not contain any complaint against God. It only asks God to consider, “Should” these things be happening? Will he not have mercy when he sees how terrible it all is?
20 Look, O LORD, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?