Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
"They have seen her nakedness"  (Lamentations 1:8).  The wickedness of Israel was adultery, the taking of the worship which properly belonged to God alone (her husband) and the giving of it to the pagan gods and goddesses of the people, spiritual adultery, as it was called; however, it was the brazen immorality of that idol worship which constituted its principal offense; and that is what is meant by the reference in  Lamentations 1:9 that, "her filthiness was in her skirts."  In ancient times, the punishment of an immoral woman was a brutal public display of her naked body, in which her skirts were tied above her head and she was shamefully scourged out of society.  (See our commentary under  Nahum 3:5 for a further discussion of this type of humiliation.)