After the writer described the city’s destruction, he offers the first description of Judah’s descent into exile. Apart from Jerusalem’s destruction, the exile is the reason Jerusalem weeps. The verb has gone into exile
comes from a root word that means to uncover
or lay bare.
When people were taken into exile, they "exposed" their land to the enemy.1 It was this bareness, caused by the exile, that contributed to Jerusalem’s grief. This verb only appears here and in Lamentations 4:22. Although the exile is not an obvious theme mentioned directly in the remainder of Lamentations, it is a constant background theme and reason for the lament.2
3 Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.