Our necks [are] under persecution,.... A yoke of hard servitude and bondage was put upon their necks, as Jarchi interprets it; which they were forced to submit unto: or, "upon our necks we are pursued" ; or, "suffer persecution": which Aben Ezra explains thus, in connection with the La 5:4; if we carry water or wood upon our necks, the enemy pursues us; that is, to take it away from us.
The Targum relates a fable here, that when Nebuchadnezzar saw the ungodly rulers of the children of Israel, who went empty, he ordered to sow up the books of the law, and make bags or wallets of them, and fill them with the stones on the banks of the Euphrates, and loaded them on their necks:we labour, [and] have no rest; night nor day, nor even on sabbath days; obliged to work continually till they were weary; and, when they were, were not allowed time to rest themselves, like their forefathers in Egypt.