Lamentations 2:1 Komentář

The second alphabetical elegy is set to the same mournful tune with the former, and the substance of it is much the same; it begins with Ecah, as that did, "How sad is our case! Alas for us!" I. Here is the anger of Zion's God taken notice of as the cause of her calamities (Lam 2:1-9). II. Here is the sorrow of Zion's children taken notice of as the effect of her calamities (Lam 2:10-19). III. The complaint is made to God, and the matter referred to his compassionate consideration (Lam 2:20-22). The hand that wounded must make whole.

It is a very sad representation which is here made of the state of God's church, of Jacob and Israel, of Zion and Jerusalem; but the emphasis in these verses seems to be laid all along upon the hand of God in the calamities which they were groaning under. The grief is not so much that such and such things are done as that God has done them, that he appears angry with them; it is he that chastens them, and chastens them in wrath and in his hot displeasure; he has become their enemy, and fights against them; and this, this is the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery. I. Time was when God's delight was in his church, and he appeared to her, and appeared for her, as a friend. But now his displeasure is against her; he is angry with her, and appears and acts against her as an enemy. This is frequently repeated here, and sadly lamented. What he has done he has done in his anger; this makes the present day a melancholy day indeed with us, that it is the day of his anger (Lam 2:1), and again (Lam 2:2) it is in his wrath, and (Lam 2:3) it is in his fierce anger, that he has thrown down and cut off, and (Lam 2:6) in the indignation of his anger. Note, To those who know how to value God's favour nothing appears more dreadful than his anger; corrections in love are easily borne, but rebukes in love wound deeply. It is God's wrath that burns against Jacob like a flaming fire (Lam 2:3), and it is a consuming fire; it devours round about, devours all her honours, all her comforts. This is the fury that is poured out like fire (Lam 2:4), like the fire and brimstone which were rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah; but it was their sin that kindled this fire. God is such a tender Father to his children that we may be sure he is never angry with them but when they provoke him, and give him cause to be angry; nor is he ever angry more than there is cause for. God's covenant with them was that if they would obey his voice he would be an enemy to their enemies (Exo 23:22), and he had been so as long as they kept close to him; but now he is an enemy to them; at least he is as an enemy, Lam 2:5. He has bent his bow like an enemy, Lam 2:4. He stood with his right hand stretched out against them, and a sword drawn in it as an adversary. God is not really an enemy to his people, no, not when he is angry with them and corrects them in anger. We may be sorely displeased against our dearest friends and relations, whom yet we are far from having an enmity to. But sometimes he is as an enemy to them, when all his providences concerning them seem in outward appearance to have a tendency to their ruin, when every thing made against them and nothing for them. But, blessed be God, Christ is our peace, our peacemaker, who has slain the enmity, and in him we may agree with our adversary, which it is our wisdom to do, since it is in vain to contend with him, and he offers us advantageous conditions of peace. II. Time was when God's church appeared very bright, and illustrations, and considerable among the nations; but now the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud (Lam 2:1), a dark cloud, which is very terrible to himself, and through which she cannot see his face; a thick cloud (so that word signifies), a black cloud, which eclipses all her glory and conceals her excellency; not such a cloud as that under which God conducted them through the wilderness, or that in which God took possession of the temple and filled it with his glory: no, that side of the cloud is now turned towards them which was turned towards the Egyptians in the Red Sea. The beauty of Israel is now cast down from heaven to the earth; their princes (Sa2 1:19), their religious worship, their beauty of holiness, all that which recommended them to the affection and esteem of their neighbours and rendered them amiable, which had lifted them up to heaven, was now withered and gone, because God had covered it with a cloud. He has cut off all the horn of Israel (Lam 2:3), all her beauty and majesty (Psa 132:17), all her plenty and fulness, and all her power and authority. They had, in their pride, lifted up their horn against God, and therefore justly will God cut off their horn. He disabled them to resist and oppose their enemies; he turned back their right hand, so that they were not able to follow the blow which they gave nor to ward off the blow which was given them. What can their right hand do against the enemy when God draws it back, and withers it, as he did Jeroboam's? Thus was the beauty of Israel cast down, when a people famed for courage were not able to stand their ground nor make good their post. III. Time was when Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were strong and well fortified, were trusted to by the inhabitants and let alone by the enemy as impregnable. But now the lord has in anger swallowed them up; they are quite gone; the forts and barriers are taken away, and the invaders meet with no opposition: the stately structures, which were their strength and beauty, are pulled down and laid waste. 1. The Lord has in anger swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob (Lam 2:2), both the cities and the country houses; they are burnt, or otherwise destroyed, so totally ruined that they seem to have been swallowed up, and no remains left of them. He has swallowed up, and has not pitied. One would have thought it a pity that such sumptuous houses, so well built, so well furnished, should be quite destroyed, ad that some pity should have been had for the poor inhabitants that were thus dislodged and driven to wander; but God's wonted compassion seemed to fail: He has swallowed up Israel, as a lion swallows up his prey, Lam 2:5. 2. He has swallowed up not only her common habitations, but her palaces, all her palaces, the habitations of their princes and great men (Lam 2:5), though those were most stately, and strong, and rich, and well guarded. God's judgments, when they come with commission, level palaces with cottages, and as easily swallow them up. If palaces be polluted with sin, as theirs were, let them expect to be visited with a curse, which shall consume them, with the timber thereof and the stones thereof, Zac 5:4. 3. He had destroyed not only their dwelling-places, but their strong-holds, their castles, citadels, and places of defence. These he has thrown down in his wrath, and brought them to the ground; for shall they stand in the way of his judgments, and give check to the progress of them? No; let them drop like leaves in autumn; let them be rased to the foundations, and made to touch the ground, Lam 2:2. And again (Lam 2:5), He has destroyed his strong-holds; for what strength could they have against God? And thus he increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation, for they could not but be in a dreadful consternation when they saw all their defence departed from them. This is again insisted on, Lam 2:7-9. In order to the swallowing up of her palaces, he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces, which were their security, and, when they are broken down, the palaces themselves are soon broken into. The walls of palaces cannot protect them, unless God himself be a wall of fire round about them. This God did in his anger, and yet he has done it deliberately. It is the result of a previous purpose, and is done by a wise and steady providence; for the Lord has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he brought the Chaldean army in on purpose to do this execution. Note, Whatever desolations God makes in his church, they are all according to his counsels; he performs the thing that is appointed for us, even that which makes most against us. But, when it is done, he has stretched out a line, a measuring line, to do it exactly and by measure: hitherto the destruction shall go, and no further; no more shall be cut off than what is marked to be so. Or it is meant of the line of confusion (Isa 34:11), a levelling line; for he will go on with his work; he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying, that right hand which he stretched out against his people as an adversary, Lam 2:4. As far as the purpose went the performance shall go, and his hand shall accomplish his counsel to the utmost, and not be withdrawn. Therefore he made the rampart and the wall, which the people had rejoiced in and upon which perhaps they had made merry, to lament, and they languished together; the walls and the ramparts, or bulwarks, upon them, fell together, and were left to condole with one another on their fall. Her gates are gone in an instant, so that one would think they were sunk into the ground with their own weight, and he has destroyed and broken her bars, those bars of Jerusalem's gates which formerly he had strengthened, Psa 147:13. Gates and bars will stand us in no stead when God has withdrawn his protection. IV. Time was when their government flourished, their princes made a figure, their kingdom was great among the nations, and the balance of power was on their side; but now it is quite otherwise: He has polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof, Lam 2:2. They had first polluted themselves with their idolatries, and then God dealt with them as with polluted things; he threw them to the dunghill, the fittest place for them. he has given up their glory, which was looked upon as sacred (that is a character we give to majesty), to be trampled upon and profaned; and no marvel that the king and the priest, whose characters were always deemed venerable and inviolable, are despised by every body, when God has, in the indignation of his anger, despised the king and the priest, Lam 2:6. He has abandoned them; he looks upon them as no longer worthy of the honours conveyed to them by the covenants of royalty and priesthood, but as having forfeited both; and then Zedekiah the king was used despitefully, and Seraiah the chief priest put to death as a malefactor. The crown has fallen from their heads, for her king and her princes are among the Gentiles, prisoners among them, insulted over by them (Lam 2:9), and treated not only as common persons, but as the basest, without any regard to their character. Note, It is just with God to debase those by his judgments who have by sin debased themselves. V. Time was when the ordinances of God were administered among them in their power and purity, and they had those tokens of God's presence with them; but now those were taken from them, that part of the beauty of Israel was gone which was indeed their greatest beauty. 1. The ark was God's footstool, under the mercy-seat, between the cherubim; this was of all others the most sacred symbol of God's presence (it is called his footstool, Ch1 28:2; Psa 99:5; Psa 132:7); there the Shechinah rested, and with an eye to this Israel was often protected and saved; but now he remembered not his footstool. The ark itself was suffered, as it should seem, to fall into the hands of the Chaldeans. God, being angry, threw that away; for it shall be no longer his footstool; the earth shall be so, as it had been before the ark was, Isa 66:1. Of what little value are the tokens of his presence when his presence is gone! Nor was this the first time that God agave his ark into captivity, Psa 78:61. God and his kingdom can stand without that footstool. 2. Those that ministered in holy things had been pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion (Lam 2:4); they had been purer than snow, whiter than mile (Lam 4:7); none more pleasant in the eyes of all good people than those that did the service of the tabernacle. But now these are slain, and their blood is mingled with their sacrifices. Thus is the priest despised as well as the king. Note, When those that were pleasant to the eye in Zion's tabernacle are slain God must be acknowledged in it; he has done it, and the burning which the Lord has kindled must be bewailed but the whole house of Israel, as in the case of Nadab and Abihu, Lev 10:6. 3. The temple was God's tabernacle (as the tabernacle, while that was in being, was called his temple, Psa 27:4) and this he has violently taken away (Lam 2:6); he has plucked up the stakes of it and cut the cords; it shall be no more a tabernacle, much less his; he has taken it away, as the keeper of a garden takes away his hovel or shade, when he has done with it and has no more occasion for it; he takes it down as easily, as speedily, and with a little regret and reluctance as if it were but a cottage in a vineyard or a lodge in a garden of cucumbers (Isa 1:8), but a booth which the keeper makes, Job 27:18. When men profane God's tabernacle it is just with him to take it from them. God has justly refused to smell their solemn assemblies (Amo 5:21); they had provoked him to withdraw from them, and then no marvel that he has destroyed his places of the assembly; what should they do with the places when the services had become an abomination? He has now abhorred his sanctuary (Lam 2:7); it has been defiled with sin, that only thing which he hates, and for the sake of that he abhors even his sanctuary, which he had delighted in and called his rest for ever, Psa 132:14. Thus he had done to Shiloh. Now the enemies have made as great a noise of revelling and blaspheming in the house of the Lord as ever had been made with the temple-songs and music in the day of a solemn feast, Psa 74:4. Some, by the places of the assembly (Lam 2:6), understand not only the temple, but the synagogues, and the schools of the prophets, which the enemy had burnt up, Psa 74:8. 4. The solemn feasts and the sabbaths had been carefully remembered, and the people constantly put in mind of them; but now the Lord has caused those to be forgotten, not only in the country, among those that lived at a distance, but even in Zion itself; for there were none left to remember them, nor were there the places left where they used to be observed. Now that Zion was in ruins no difference was made between sabbath time and other times; every day was a day of mourning, so that all the solemn feasts were forgotten. Note, It is just with God to deprive those of the benefit and comfort of sabbaths and solemn feasts who have not duly valued them, nor conscientiously observed them, but have profaned them, which was one of the sins that the Jews were often charged with. Those that have seen the days of the Son of man, and slighted them, may desire to see one of those days and not be permitted, Luk 17:22. 5. The altar that had sanctified their gifts is now cast off, for God will no more accept their gifts, nor be honoured by their sacrifices, Lam 2:7. The altar was the table of the Lord, but God will no longer keep house among them; he will neither feast them nor feast with them. 6. They had been blest with prophets and teachers of the law; but now the law is no more (Lam 2:9); it is no more read by the people, no more expounded by the scribes; the tables of the law are gone with the ark; the book of the law is taken from them, and the people are forbidden to have it. What should those do with Bibles who had made no better improvement of them when they had them? Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord; God answers them no more by prophets and dreams, which was the melancholy case of Saul, Sa1 28:15. They had persecuted God's prophets, and despised the visions they had from the Lord, and therefore it is just with God to say that they shall have no more prophets, no more visions. Let them go to the prophets that had flattered and deceived them with visions of their own hearts, for they shall have none from God to comfort them, or tell them how long. Those that misuse God's prophets justly lose them.

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 2 This chapter contains another alphabet, in which the Prophet Jeremiah, or those he represents, lament the sad condition of Jerusalem; the destruction of the city and temple, and of all persons and things relative to them, and to its civil or church state; and that as being from the hand of the Lord himself, who is represented all along as the author thereof, because of their sins, Lam 2:1; and then the elders and virgins of Zion are represented as in great distress, and weeping for those desolations; which were very much owing to the false prophets, that had deceived them, Lam 2:10; and all this occasioned great rejoicing in the enemies of Zion, Lam 2:15; but sorrow of heart to Zion herself, who is called to weeping, Lam 2:18; and the chapter is concluded with an address to the Lord, to take this her sorrowful case into consideration, and show pity and compassion, Lam 2:20.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,.... Not their persons for protection, as he did the Israelites at the Red sea, and in the wilderness; nor their sins, which he blots out as a thick cloud; or with such an one as he filled the tabernacle and temple with when dedicated; for this was "in his anger", in the day of his anger, against Jerusalem; but with the thick and black clouds of calamity and distress; he "beclouded" (r) her, as it may be rendered, and is by Broughton; he drew a veil, or caused a cloud to come over all her brightness and glory, and surrounded her with darkness, that her light and splendour might not be seen. Aben Ezra interprets it, "he lifted her up to the clouds": that is, in order to cast her down with the greater force, as follows: and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel; all its glory, both in church and state; this was brought down from the highest pitch of its excellency and dignity, to the lowest degree of infamy and reproach; particularly this was true of the temple, and service of God in it, which was the beauty and glory of the nation, but now utterly demolished: and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger; to spare and preserve that; meaning either the house of the sanctuary, the temple itself, as the Targum and Jarchi; or rather the ark with the mercy seat, on which the Shechinah or divine Majesty set his feet, when sitting between the cherubim; and is so called, Ch1 28:2. (r) "obnubilavit", Montanus, Vatablus; "obnubilat", Cocceius.

No envy hindered the progress of these affairs that advanced gradually and grew and increased day by day. Nor could any evil demon slander them or hinder them through human counsels, so long as the divine and heavenly hand watched over and guarded his people as worthy.But on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth. We envied and reviled each other and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another. Rulers assailed rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people and monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation rising to the greatest height of wickedness, the divine judgment with forbearance, as is its pleasure, while the multitudes yet continued to assemble, gently and moderately harassed the episcopacy. This persecution began with the brothers in the army. But as if without sensibility, we were not eager to make the Deity favorable and propitious; and some, like atheists, thought that our affairs were unheeded and ungoverned; and thus we added one wickedness to another. And those esteemed our shepherds, casting aside the bond of piety, were excited to conflicts with one another and did nothing else than heap up fights and threats and jealousy and enmity and hatred toward each other, like tyrants eagerly endeavoring to assert their power. Then, truly, according to the word of Jeremiah, “The Lord in his wrath darkened the daughter of Zion, and cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord also overwhelmed all the beautiful things of Israel and threw down all his strongholds.” And according to what was foretold in the Psalms, “He has made void the covenant of his servant, and profaned his sanctuary to the earth—in the destruction of the churches—and has thrown down all his strongholds and has made his fortresses cowardice. All that pass by have plundered the multitude of the people; and he has also become a reproach to his neighbors. For he has exalted the right hand of his enemies, and has turned back the help of his sword and has not taken his part in the war. But he has deprived him of purification and has cast his throne to the ground. He has shortened the days of his time, and besides all, has poured out shame on him.” All these things were fulfilled in us when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations. We saw the divine and sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the midst of the marketplaces and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them were captured ignominiously and mocked by their enemies. When also, according to another prophetic word, “Contempt was poured out on rulers, and he caused them to wander in an untrodden and pathless way.”

The destruction of the city, (Jerusalem), the people, and the entire city is lamented. So, this Verse 1 is divided into two parts. First is deplored destruction itself, second the desperation of the people becomes exclusive. As later expressed in Chapter 3:1: "I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath." The idea of destruction itself has two views. First, misery from destruction is lamented, second, the inward destruction to oneself beseeches divine mercy. As the later Verse 18 says: "Cry aloud to the Lord! O daughter of Zion." On the misery from inward destruction to oneself two more notions are presented. First is lamented destruction in general, second in particular. As Verse 2 states: "The Lord has destroyed without mercy all the habitations of Jacob." Regarding destruction in general it is wondered at, due to the multiple glory that preceeded it. First the prerogative as to divine knowledge. Since, Psalm 147:20: "He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the Lord!" The contrary is within Verse 1: "How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!" Namely, within ignorance and sadness. As Isaiah 59:9 declares: "We look for light, and behold darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom." Second is the particular destruction in relation to the power of royal dignity. The Book of I Esdras 4:20 so states: "And mighty kings have been over Jerusalem, who ruled over the whole province Beyond the River, to whom tribute, custom, and toll were paid." Thus, Verse 1 continues: "He hast cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel." Such is the end of royal dignity and power, or heavenly conversation. As Revelation 6:13 declares: "and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale." Third is the destruction in reference to the cult of divine instruction, or religion. So Psalm 144:15 claims: "Happy the people to whom such blessings fall! Happy the people whose God is the Lord." In contrary, Verse 1 records: "he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger." That is, not remembered in goodness, the footstool of his footstool, within which he (the Lord) is adored, like a king is reverenced around the footstool beneath his feet. As the prophet Ezekiel 43:7 states: "and he said to me, 'Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel for ever'".

The prophet shows the dire effects of the Divine anger in the miseries brought on his country; the unparalleled calamities of which he charges, on a great measure, on the false prophets, Lam 2:1-14. In thus desperate condition, the astonishment and by-word of all who see her, Jerusalem is directed to sue earnestly for mercy and pardon, Lam 2:15-22.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud - The women in the eastern countries wear veils, and often very costly ones. Here, Zion is represented as being veiled by the hand of God's judgment. And what is the veil? A dark cloud, by which she is entirely obscured. Instead of אדני Adonai, lord, twenty-four of Dr. Kennicott's MSS., and some of the most ancient of my own, read יהוה Yehovah, Lord, as in Lam 2:2. The beauty of Israel - His Temple. His footstool - The ark of the covenant, often so called. The rendering of my old MS. Bible is curious: - And record not of his litil steging-stole of his feet, in the dai of his woodnesse. To be wood signifies, in our ancient language, to be mad.

(Lam. 2:1-22) How--The title of the collection repeated here, and in Lam 4:1. covered . . . with a cloud--that is, with the darkness of ignominy. cast down from heaven unto . . . earth-- (Mat 11:23); dashed down from the highest prosperity to the lowest misery. beauty of Israel--the beautiful temple (Psa 29:2; Psa 74:7; Psa 96:9, Margin; Isa 60:7; Isa 64:11). his footstool--the ark (compare Ch1 28:2, with Psa 99:5; Psa 132:7). They once had gloried more in the ark than in the God whose symbol it was; they now feel it was but His "footstool," yet that it had been a great glory to them that God deigned to use it as such.

Lamentation over the Judgment of Destruction That Has Come on Zion and the Desolation of Judah 1 Alas! how the Lord envelopes the daughter of Zion in His wrath! He hath cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth; Nor hath He remembered His footstool in the day of His wrath. 2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, He hath not spared: He hath broken down, in His anger, the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath smitten [them] down to the earth. He hath profaned the kingdom and its princes. 3 He hath cut off, in the burning of wrath, every horn of Israel; He hath drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, And hath burned among Jacob like a flaming fire, [which] devours round about. 4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy, standing [with] His right hand like an adversary, And He slew all the desires of the eye; On the tent of the daughter of Zion hath He poured out His fury like fire. 5 The Lord hath become like an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel. He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds, And hath increased on the daughter of Judah groaning and moaning. 6 And He hath violently treated His own enclosure, like a garden; He hat destroyed His own place of meeting: Jahveh hath caused to be forgotten in Zion the festival and the Sabbath, And in the fierceness of His wrath He hath rejected king and priest. 7 The Lord hath spruned His own altar, He hath abhorred His own sanctuary; He hath delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; They have made a noise in the house of Jahvey, as [on] the day of a festival. 8 Jahveh hath purposed to destroy the walls of the daughter of Zion: He hath stretched out a line, He hath not drawn back His hand from demolishing; And He hath made the rampart and the [city] wall to mourn; they sorrow together. 9 Her gates have sunk into the earth; He hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princces are among the nations; there is no law. Her prophets also find no vision from Jahveh. 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they silent; They have cast up dust upon their head, they have clothed themselves with sackcloth garments: The virgins of Jerusalem have brought down their head to the earth. 11 Mine eyes waste away with tears, My bowels glow, My liver is poured out on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people; Because the young child and the suckling pine away in the streets of the city. 12 They said to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? When they were fainting like one wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul was poured out into the bosom of their mothers. 13 What slall I testify against thee? what shall I compare to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I liken to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy destruction is great, like the sea; who can heal thee? 14 Thy prophets have seen for thee vanity and absurdity, And have not revealed thine iniquity, to turn thy captivity; But they have seen for thee burdens of vanity, and expulsion. 15 All that pass by the way clap [their] hands against thee; They hiss and shake their head against the daughter of Jerusalem [saying, "Is] this the city that they call "The perfection of beauty, a joy of the whole earth?'" 16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, "We have swallowed [her]; Assuredly this is the day that we have expected; we have found [it], we have seen [it]." 17 Jahveh hath done what He hath purposed: He hath executed His word which He commanded from the days of yore: He hath broken down, and hath not spared: And He hath made the enemy rejoice over thee; He hath raised up the horn of thine adversaries. 18 Their heart crieth out unto the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream by day and by night: Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease. 19 Arise, wail in the night; at the beginning of the watches, Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thine hands to Him for the soul of thy young children, That faint for hunger at the head of every street. 20 See, O Jahveh, and consider to whom Thou hast acted thus! Shall women eat their [body's] fruit, the children of their care? Or shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 The boy and the old man lie without, on the ground; My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword: Thou hast slain in the day of Thy wrath, Thou hast slaughtered, Thou hast not spared. 22 Thou summonest, as on a feast-day, my terrors round about; And in the day of wrath of Jahveh there was no fugitive or survivor Whom I would have nursed and brought up; mine enemy destroyed them. This second poem contains a new and more bitter lamentation regarding the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah; and it is distinguished from the first, partly by the bitterness of the complaint, but chiefly by the fact that while, in the first, the oppressed, helpless, and comfortless condition of Jerusalem is the main feature, - here, on the other hand, it is the judgment which the Lord, in His wrath, has decreed against Jerusalem and Judah, that forms the leading thought in the complaint, as is shown by the prominence repeatedly given to the wrath, rage, burning wrath, etc. (Lam 2:1.). The description of this judgment occupies the first part of the poem (Lam 2:1-10); then follows, in the second part (Lam 2:11-19), the lamentation over the impotency of human consolation, and over the scoffing of enemies at the misfortunes of Jerusalem (Lam 2:11-16). It was the Lord who sent this judgment; and it is He alone who can give comfort and help in this distress. To Him must the daughter of Zion betake herself with her complaint (Lam 2:17-19); and this she actually does in the concluding portion (Lam 2:20-22). Lamentations 2:1-22 Description of the judgment. - Lam 2:1. The lamentation opens with signs for the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The first member of the verse contains the general idea that the Lord (אדני, the Lord κατ ̓ ἐξοχὴν, very suitably used instead of יהוה) has, in His wrath, enveloped Jerusalem with clouds. This thought is particularized in the two members that follow, and is referred to the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple. יעיב, from עוּב (which is ἅπ. λεγ. as a verb, and is probably a denominative from עב, a cloud), signifies to cover or surround with clouds. בּאפּו does not mean "with His wrath" (Ewald, Thenius), but "in His wrath," as is shown by Lam 2:3, Lam 2:6, Lam 2:21, Lam 2:22. "The daughter of Zion" here means the city of Jerusalem, which in the second member is called "the glory (or ornament) of Israel," by which we are to understand neither res Judaeorum florentissimae in general (Rosenmller), nor the temple in special, as the "splendid house," Isa 64:10 (Michaelis, Vaihinger). Jerusalem is called the glory or ornament of Israel, in the same way as Babylon in Isa 64:10 is called "the glory of the splendour of the Chaldeans" (Thenius, Gerlach). In the figurative expression, "He cast down from heaven to earth," we are not to think there is any reference to a thunderbolt which knocks down an object, such as a lofty tower that reaches to heaven (Thenius); "from heaven" implies that what is to be thrown down was in heaven, as has been already remarked by Raschi in his explanation, postquam sustulisset eos (Judaeos) usque ad coelum, eosdem dejecit in terram, where we have merely to substitute "Jerusalem," for eos, which is too vague. Gerlach has rightly remarked that the expression "cast down from heaven" is to be accounted for by the fact that, in the first member of the verse, Jerusalem is compared to a star, in the same way as Babylon is expressly called a tar in Isa 14:12; nay, what is more, Jerusalem is here compared to a star that has fallen from heaven; the reference to that passage thus becomes unmistakeable. Moreover, the casting down from heaven means something more than deprivation of the glory that had come on the city in consequence of God's dwelling in the midst of it (Gerlach); it signifies, besides, the destruction of the city, viz., that it would be laid in ashes. In all this, the Lord has not been thinking of, i.e., paid any regard to, His footstool, i.e., the ark of the covenant (Ch1 28:2; Psa 99:5), - not the temple (Ewald), although we cannot think of the ark without at the same thinking of the temple as the house in which it was kept. The ark, and not the temple, is named, because the temple became a habitation of the Lord, and a place where He revealed Himself, only through the ark of the covenant, with which the Lord had graciously connected His presence among His people. It is further implied, in the fact that God does not think of His footstool, that the ark itself was destroyed along with the temple and the city.