Prophetic visions often involve a messenger delivering God's word to the people. In a striking departure from this pattern, the prophet directs his voice upward, issuing a deeply personal and direct cry to God born from a profound sense of divine silence [ביאור שטיינזלץ].
The primary approach among commentators is that the prophet looks ahead through divine inspiration and witnesses the rise of the Babylonian empire. Seeing the future peace of Babylon and the oppressive rule of Nebuchadnezzar over the Israelites, he brings his complaints and prayers before God [רש"י, מצודת דוד]. He asks how long and how far this suffering will reach, questioning both the duration of the pain and the physical limits of the destruction [אבן עזרא, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Crying out like a person who has suffered a direct, personal injustice [אבן עזרא], he lays the future oppression and wrongdoing committed against the Israelites by the Babylonians before God [רש"י, רד"ק].
The prophet's prayer takes two distinct forms: a plea for salvation and a scream against violence and injustice [מצודת ציון, מלבי"ם]. There is a careful progression in his argument. Initially, he begs for God to save the people. However, anticipating the divine response that the Israelites have sinned and do not deserve salvation, he shifts his approach to a legal demand for justice. He argues that even if the Israelites are guilty, the extreme violence of the Babylonian empire demands a trial. According to the rules of fairness and justice, it is simply wrong for a wicked nation to swallow up a people more righteous than themselves, yet God still does not intervene [מלבי"ם].
While this plea is generally understood as an ongoing cry about present and future events, an alternative perspective views the prophet's initial call for help as an event that has already happened. In this light, the prophet's question is one of cause and effect. He asks how much longer he must scream about this violence without God bringing salvation, noting that his past prayers have gone completely unanswered. His painful dilemma is whether there is any point in continuing to plead when all previous attempts have failed to bring a response [אברבנאל].