Lamentations 2 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Lamentations 2

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

2:1   How the Lord in his anger
    has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
  He has cast down from heaven to earth
    the splendor of Israel;
  he has not remembered his footstool
    in the day of his anger.
2   The Lord has swallowed up without mercy
    all the habitations of Jacob;
  in his wrath he has broken down
    the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
  he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
    the kingdom and its rulers.
3   He has cut down in fierce anger
    all the might of Israel;
  he has withdrawn from them his right hand
    in the face of the enemy;
  he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
    consuming all around.
4   He has bent his bow like an enemy,
    with his right hand set like a foe;
  and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes;
    in the tent of the daughter of Zion,
  he has poured out his fury like fire.
5   The Lord has become like an enemy;
    he has swallowed up Israel;
  he has swallowed up all its palaces;
    he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
  and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
    mourning and lamentation.
6   He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
    laid in ruins his meeting place;
  the LORD has made Zion forget
    festival and Sabbath,
  and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7   The Lord has scorned his altar,
    disowned his sanctuary;
  he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
    the walls of her palaces;
  they raised a clamor in the house of the LORD
    as on the day of festival.
8   The LORD determined to lay in ruins
    the wall of the daughter of Zion;
  he stretched out the measuring line;
    he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
  he caused rampart and wall to lament;
    they languished together.
9   Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    he has ruined and broken her bars;
  her king and princes are among the nations;
    the law is no more,
  and her prophets find
    no vision from the LORD.
10   The elders of the daughter of Zion
    sit on the ground in silence;
  they have thrown dust on their heads
    and put on sackcloth;
  the young women of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.
11   My eyes are spent with weeping;
    my stomach churns;
  my bile is poured out to the ground
    because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
  because infants and babies faint
    in the streets of the city.
12   They cry to their mothers,
    “Where is bread and wine?”
  as they faint like a wounded man
    in the streets of the city,
  as their life is poured out
    on their mothers’ bosom.
13   What can I say for you, to what compare you,
    O daughter of Jerusalem?
  What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you,
    O virgin daughter of Zion?
  For your ruin is vast as the sea;
    who can heal you?
14   Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
  they have not exposed your iniquity
    to restore your fortunes,
  but have seen for you oracles
    that are false and misleading.
15   All who pass along the way
    clap their hands at you;
  they hiss and wag their heads
    at the daughter of Jerusalem:
  “Is this the city that was called
    the perfection of beauty,
    the joy of all the earth?”
16   All your enemies
    rail against you;
  they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
    they cry: “We have swallowed her!
  Ah, this is the day we longed for;
    now we have it; we see it!”
17   The LORD has done what he purposed;
    he has carried out his word,
  which he commanded long ago;
    he has thrown down without pity;
  he has made the enemy rejoice over you
    and exalted the might of your foes.
18   Their heart cried to the Lord.
    O wall of the daughter of Zion,
  let tears stream down like a torrent
    day and night!
  Give yourself no rest,
    your eyes no respite!
19   “Arise, cry out in the night,
    at the beginning of the night watches!
  Pour out your heart like water
    before the presence of the Lord!
  Lift your hands to him
    for the lives of your children,
  who faint for hunger
    at the head of every street.”
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?
21   In the dust of the streets
    lie the young and the old;
  my young women and my young men
    have fallen by the sword;
  you have killed them in the day of your anger,
    slaughtering without pity.
22   You summoned as if to a festival day
    my terrors on every side,
  and on the day of the anger of the LORD
    no one escaped or survived;
  those whom I held and raised
    my enemy destroyed.

Commentary

v1: Israel, the Lord’s footstool, the great privilege of being His people; yet they rebelled against Him, and were cast down in His wrath. In this chapter, God is seen as the enemy of the city; the lament is from the victom of His anger.

v2: Military defeat was the method of God’s judgment upon the nation. He had used other means in different times; fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah; hailstones upon Ammon (Josh 10).

v3-5: God’s anger shown towards Israel;

a flaming fire that consumes;
wrath poured out like fire;
swallowed up and destroyed.

The writer here stands amidst the ruins. The section through to v13 contains painful descriptions; but also personal observation. The writer is an eye-witness of these ruins. .

Even the wall and rampart lament; such is the depth of destruction. The physical city and the human inhabitants share the pain; hence these pictoral descriptions.

v6-7: Religious ritual destroyed; this had already become formal and powerless. The Lord God did violence to His dwelling place, His place of meeting; He rejected His altar, and abandoned His sacrifices. Although we rightly consider the Lord’s sorrow, we must also appreciate His anger.

v8: The Lord determined, for judgment had to fall. The walls and ramparts, useful in defending the city, became useless.

v9: Following from verse 8, the gates and bars were destroyed.

The people of God were exiled. But, perhaps more seriously, those who brought God’s word to the people were silent, see Jer 7.16; 11.14; 14.11.

v10: The elders were impotent. They may meet together, but they could make no decisions to change events.

v11: Jeremiah was greatly troubled by the distress of his people. Although he had warned them, and the events were no surprise to him, he still shared in their sorrows.

v12: The particular suffering of children.

v13: It was difficult to find appropriate words. Jerusalem is looking for someone whose suffering was greater, but could find none.

Jeremaih speaks of; daughter, virgin daughter; precious child; the pain becomes personal; not a mere number of faceless or nameless victims, but someone the writer knows and loves; how much greater therefore is his pain!?

v14: The false prophets had not exposed the people’s sins. Only once the city was destroyed did the people see their they had trusted in a lie.

v15: A poignant quotation of Ps 48.2; contrasting the current experience:

God is their refuge (Ps 48.3);
God is seen to be faithful (Ps 48.8);
His loving kindness (Ps 48.9);
The blessing of being in Zion (Ps 48.11-14).

The people of Jerusalem had changed their attitude towards God, but He does not change. The people had forfeited the wonderful blessings of the Psalm. Even the Gentiles saw something of this, and mocked them.

v16-17: The enemies of Israel rejoiced over Zion’s defeat; both the defeat and the mockery was predicted by God. How foolish to think that God would not fulfil His own word. The mockery was effectively part of God’s judgment of His people.

v18-19: True prayer reveals a real concern; like Hannah pouring out her heart before the Lord. We should have a genuine sorrow over events around us. The pain is personal and so are the tears.

v20-22: The sorrow and the irony;

women were forced to eat their own children, such was the severity of the famine;
prophet and priest killed in the place of worship;
young and old, male and female, lie together and die together.

The Lord’s anger had been poured out; these events were desperate and sad and awful; terrors on every side. The last days of Jerusalem were terrible times, as famine lead to the city being defeated, its people killed and scattered.

'Look ... and see!' the plea to the Lord; as the word 'remember' in the early chapters of Exodus. These words speak of the Lord's covenant, which is with His people. Will He not remember His covenant and His people!