Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Lamentations 2:1

Clarke's Commentary

CHAPTER II

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,

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, 15-22.

NOTES ON CHAP. II

Verse Lamentations 2:1. 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 Yehovah, LORD, as in Lamentations 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.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Sufferings sent by God (2:1-22)

In this poem the main theme is that the calamity that has befallen Judah has been the work of God. He has humbled the exalted nation; he has turned her glory into darkness (2:1). City and field, temple and fortress have been destroyed by him. They expected God to be the defender of his people, but he has been the attacker. Far from showing pity towards them, he has been angry with them (2-5).
God has destroyed the temple and left it looking like an old broken-down hut in a neglected garden. Religious festivals and ceremonies have ceased. In the sacred house of God, heathen soldiers have shouted wildly as they plundered and smashed (6-7). As builders are thorough in measuring and building a wall, so God has been thorough in destroying Jerusalem’s wall. He has allowed the enemy to invade the city, and now all Jerusalem’s leaders are gone (8-9).
The writer weeps as he describes the scene in Jerusalem at the height of the siege. Starvation is widespread, and the city’s leaders can do nothing to help. Children search the streets for scraps of food till eventually they collapse and die (10-13).

Now that the city has fallen, people can see how the false prophets misled them in giving assurances of deliverance. They should have spoken like the genuine prophets, who condemned the people’s sins and warned of God’s judgment if they did not repent (14; cf. Jeremiah 14:13-16; Jeremiah 23:14-17). Now the genuine prophets’ predictions of judgment have come true. Jerusalem’s enemies mock the fallen city (15-17; cf. Jeremiah 24:8-10; Jeremiah 27:12-15).

Again the writer pictures the heartbreaking scene in besieged Jerusalem, with starving people crying out to God for mercy. Some even kill their own children for food (18-20). As pilgrims flock to Jerusalem at the time of an annual festival, so enemy soldiers now pour into the city, but only to slaughter its citizens (21-22).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

GRAPHIC PICTURE OF THE DIVINE VISITATION UPON JUDAH

"Now hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof. He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about. He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary, and hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire. The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed all his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary; He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly. Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: And he hath made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languish together. Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground; they keep silence; They cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground."

The word "anger" occurs three times in this paragraph and the word "wrath" is found twice. Of all the attributes of God which appear in his word, none is more generally neglected and denied than this very one, namely, that the fierce anger of God will ultimately rage against human wickedness, as exhibited in these verses.

The God of American Pulpits today is generally extolled as a namby-pamby, an old fuddy duddy, somewhat like an over-indulgent old grandfather, too lazy, indifferent or unconcerned to do anything whatever, no matter what crimes of blood and lust roar like a tornado under his very nose. The Bible does not support such an image of God!

Yes, He is a God who loves mankind, who gave His Son upon the Cross for human redemption. He is a God of mercy, forgiveness, grace and forbearance, but when any man or any nation has fully demonstrated final rejection of God's love and their rebellion against His eternal law, that wonderful, loving, forgiving God will at last appear in His character as the enemy of that man or that nation.

The background of all these terrible things that happened to Jacob is the almost unbelievable wickedness of the Chosen People. A major part of the Old Testament is little more than a brief summary of that wickedness:

"The Lord hath covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger" During the exodus, God had shielded the Chosen People with a cloud, the dark side of which confronted Egypt; but now it is the remnant of Israel that faces the ugly side of the cloud! Throughout this chapter there appears the screaming fact that it is God Himself who has brought all of the evil upon His sinful people. "That was the wormwood and the gall in their terrible affliction."Matthew Henry's Commentary, Vol. 4, p. 719.

"Cast down from heaven unto the earth" What a change there was from the glory of Solomon to the very bottom of the social ladder. Israel at this point had become the slaves of the Gentiles.

"He hath thrown down… the strongholds… of Judah" But was it not Babylon that did that? No! It was God who did it; Babylon was merely God's instrument.

"He hath cut off all the horn of Israel" The horn was a well-known symbol of power. Cheyne noted that a better rendition would be "every horn."The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 9d, p. 17. "It referred to all the strongholds, especially the fortresses."Ibid. We especially liked Hiller's blunt rendition, "God lopped off the horns of Israel."The Anchor Bible Commentary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1972), Vol. 7a, p. 104. Or, as we might paraphrase it: "God dehorned His sinful people."

"He hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire" The conception that God's anger is like a terrible fire is not merely an Old Testament metaphor. "To the wicked God, at any time, may become a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29; Deuteronomy 4:24)."Wycliffe Old Testament Commentary, p. 698.

"God, in these verses, is represented as a furious warrior, who with irresistible power destroyed everything that Judah had trusted in. They had stopped trusting in God, and instead were relying on might (Lamentations 2:2), palaces (Lamentations 2:5), strongholds (Lamentations 2:5), the physical Temple (Lamentations 2:6)."The New Layman's Bible Commentary, p. 855. All these were destroyed.

"He hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden" Solomon's temple was not God's tabernacle to begin with, but Solomon's corrupted replacement of it. Nevertheless the Jews had trusted in it as their security and salvation. The wonder expressed here is that God removed it and destroyed it so easily, "as if of a garden." "God removed his Temple as easily as a farmer removes a vintage booth (a tiny arbor), which had served its purpose, from a garden."J. R. Dummelow's Commentary, p. 484. In summer time, one may often see such little shelters near orchards and gardens, where the sellers of fruits, etc, could be sheltered from the sun.

This terrible destruction of the Temple sends the Bible student back to the very origin of it in the mind of David; and the undeniable fact that David and his son Solomon were wrong in the building of it. (See 2 Samuel 7).

"They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly" This `noise,' however was different. It was the boisterous, profane and obscene cries of the Chaldean soldiers screaming and shouting their delight as they looted and destroyed the marvelous treasures of the Temple. It was a horrible contrast with the sweet songs of the Temple virgins and the solemn liturgies of the priesthood.

"The triumphant shouts of the enemy bore some resemblance to the sounds on a solemn feast day, but O how sad a contrast it was"!Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary, p. 562.

"God purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion" "Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian armies are here ignored! The capture of Jerusalem, far from being God's defeat, was a victory for his righteousness. See Isaiah 42:24 ff. God's judicial displeasure against iniquity is a grim reality indeed for those who render themselves liable to receive it."The New Bible Commentary, Revised, 661.

"Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not" The ridiculous rendition of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) reads, "The law is no more," being not only a false translation but an outright falsehood also. The Law of Moses never ceased, until the Son of God nailed it to the cross. And, as the Lord said, "Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished" (Matthew 5:18). The tragedy of this crooked mistake in the RSV is that it is used by radical critics as, "Notable evidence that the Torah was not regarded (when Lamentations was written) as a thing given through Moses in the far-off past."Peake's Bible Commentary by Arthur S. Peake (Edinburgh: T. C. and E. C. Jack, Ltd., 1924), p. 497. Thoughtful scholars will not be deceived by this tragic rendition in the Revised Standard Version. We thank God that the Anchor Bible gave us another acceptable translation of this passage; "The king and the princes are among the heathen (where) there is no instruction."The Anchor Bible Commentary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1972), op. cit., p. 94. With regard to the word "where" which the translators have supplied in the ASV, and which this writer supplied in the Anchor Bible, it does not occur in the KJV, where it was considered unnecessary, because the word Gentiles stands adjacent to and in front of the words there is no law, plainly indicating that it was among them, the Gentiles, that God's Law was not. There was never, in the long history of Israel after Sinai a single hour in which the Law of Moses did not exist.

"The elders… sit upon the ground… the virgins hang down their heads" "The elders open not their mouth in the gate as usual… overwhelmed with grief… in token of great grief, as did the friends of Job, they sit upon the ground and keep silent."Matthew Henry's Commentary, op. cit., p. 723.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

How ... - Or, “How” doth “אדני 'ădonāy cover.” He hath east down etc. By God’s footstool seems to be meant the ark. See Psalms 99:5 note.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

The Prophet again exclaims in wonder, that an incredible thing had happened, which was like a prodigy; for at the first sight it seemed very unreasonable, that a people whom God had not only received into favor, but with whom he had made a perpetual covenant, should thus be forsaken by him. For though men were a hundred times perfidious, yet God never changes, but remains unchangeable in his faithfulness; and we know that his covenant was not made to depend on the merits of men. Whatsoever, then, the people might be, yet it behooved God to continue in his purpose, and not to annul the promise made to Abraham. Now, when Jerusalem was reduced to desolation, there was as it were all abolition of God’s covenant. There is, then, no wonder that the Prophet here exclaims, as on account of some prodigy, How can it be that God hath clouded or darkened, etc.

We must, however, observe at the same time, that the Prophet did not mean here to invalidate the fidelity or constancy of God, but thus to rouse the attention of his own nation, who had become torpid in their sloth; for though they were pressed down under a load of evils, yet they had become hardened in their perverseness. But it was impossible that any one should really call on God, except he was humbled in mind, and brought the sacrifice of which we have spoken, even a humble and contrite spirit. (Psalms 51:19.) It was, then, the Prophet’s object to soften the hardness which he knew prevailed in almost the whole people. This was the reason why he exclaimed, in a kind of astonishment, How has God clouded, etc. ⁽¹⁴⁸⁾

Some render the words, “How has God raised up,” etc., which may be allowed, provided it be not taken in a good sense, for it is said, in his wrath; but in this case the words to raise up and to cast down ought to be read conjointly; for when one wishes to break in pieces an earthen vessel, he not only casts it on the ground, but he raises it up, that it may be thrown down with greater force. We may, then, take this meaning, that God, in order that he might with greater violence break in pieces his people, had raised them up, not to honor them, but in order to dash them more violently on the ground. However, as this sense seems perhaps too refined, I am content with the first explanation, that God had clouded the daughter of Zion in his wrath; and then follows an explanation, that he had cast her from heaven to the earth. So then God covered with darkness his people, when he drew them down from the high dignity which they had for a time enjoyed. He had, then, cast on the earth all the glory of Israel, and remembered not his footstool

The Prophet seems here indirectly to contend with God, because he had not spared his own sanctuary; for God, as it has been just stated, had chosen Mount Sion for himself, where he designed to be prayed to, because he had placed there the memorial of his name. As, then, he had not spared his own sanctuary, it did not appear consistent with his constancy, and he also seemed thus to have disregarded his own glory. But the design of the Prophet is rather to shew to the people how much God’s wrath had been kindled, when he spared not even his own sanctuary. For he takes this principle as granted, that God is never without reason angry, and never exceeds the due measure of punishment. As, then, God’s wrath was so great that he destroyed his own Temple, it was a token of dreadful wrath; and what was the cause but the sins of men? for God, as I have said, always preserves moderation in his judgments. He, then, could not have better expressed to the people the heinousness of their sins, than by laying before them this fact, that God remembered not his footstool

And the Temple, by a very suitable metaphor, is called the footstool of God. It is, indeed, called his habitation; for in Scripture the Temple is often said to be the house of God. It was then the house, the habitation, and the rest of God. But as men are ever inclined to superstition, in order to raise up their thoughts above earthly elements, we are reminded, on the other hand, in Scripture, that the Temple was the footstool of God. So in the Psalms,

“Adore ye before his footstool,” (Psalms 99:5;)

and again,

“We shall adore in the place where his feet stand.”
(Psalms 132:7.)

We, then, see that the two expressions, apparently different, do yet well agree, that the Temple was the house of God and his habitation, and that yet it was only his footstool. It was the house of God, because the faithful found by experience that he was there present; as, then, God gave tokens of his presence, the Temple was rightly called the house; of God, his rest and habitation. But that the faithful might not fix their minds on the visible sanctuary, and thus by indulging a gross imagination, fall into superstition, and put an idol in the place of God, the Temple was called the footstool of God. For as it was a footstool, it behooved the faithful to rise up higher and to know that God was really sought, only when they raised their thoughts above the world. We now perceive what was the purpose of this mode of speaking.

God is said not to have remembered his Temple, not because he had wholly disregarded it, but because the destruction of the Temple could produce no other opinion in men. All, then, who saw that the Temple had been burnt by profane hands, and pulled down after it had been plundered, thought that the Temple was forsaken by God; and so also he speaks by Ezekiel, (Ezekiel 10:18.) Then this oblivion, or not remembering, refers to the thoughts of men; for however God may have remembered the Temple, yet he seemed for a time to have disregarded it. We must, at the same time, bear in mind what I have said, that the Prophet here did not intend to dispute with God, or to contend with him, but, on the contrary, to shew what the people deserved; for God was so indignant on account of their sins, that he suffered his own Temple to be profaned. The same thing also follows respecting the kingdom, —

(148) The verb here is in the future tense, and the clause might be thus rendered, —

Why should the Lord in his wrath becloud
the daughter of Sion?

And if ישבה, in Lamentations 1:1, be in the future tense, as it may be, that clause may be rendered in the same way, —

Why should sit alone the city that was full of people?

Then follows here, as in the former instance, a description of what had happened to Sion, —

He hath cast from heaven to earth the glory of Israel,
And not remembered his footstool in the day of his wrath.

At the same time, the clauses may both be rendered as proposed in a note on Lamentations 1:1, and the tenses of the verbs be preserved. The verb here is clearly in the future tense, and the verb in the former instance may be so; and the future in Hebrew is often to be taken as the present, as the case is in Welsh.

How this! in his wrath becloud does the Lord the daughter of Sion!

— Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 2

The second lamentation:

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and he has cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. He has cut off in his fierce anger all of the horn of Israel: he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, he has burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about. He has bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire ( Lamentations 2:1-4 ).

It must have been an awesome and a very traumatic experience to have seen the destruction that was wrecked upon Jerusalem by the Babylonian army. When, after eighteen months of siege, they finally broke into the city and began to slay with the sword. Even before they broke the walls and came in, people were already starving to death within the city. It was a horrible scene. Jeremiah can't get it out of his mind, the thoughts and the sights that he saw. They were imprinted in his mind. And now, as he sees it lying desolate, he reflects over these things. And he tells some of the things that were happening, and they are so horrible that they would make those kind of impressions in your mind that cause you to shudder whenever you think of them. And they are those mental images that you just can't seem to remove. As you see the people starving to death, falling on the streets, faint, weak, once mighty people, once a proud people, but now so defeated and destroyed.

The Lord was as an enemy: he swallowed up Israel, he has swallowed up all of her palaces: he has destroyed the strongholds, he has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. He hath violently taken away the tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD has caused the solemn feasts and the sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up in the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of the solemn feast ( Lamentations 2:5-7 ).

That is, the enemies were in there cheering and yelling and all as they were destroying it, much as the voices and cheers and all that once went up in the days of their solemn feasts.

The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are now among the Gentiles: there is no more law; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD. The elders of the daughters of Zion sit on the ground, and keep silent: they have cast dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: and the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. And my eyes do fail because of the tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city ( Lamentations 2:7-11 ).

It's almost more than he can bear. He sees these little children and little nursing babies fainting because of the lack of food. He sees them as they are swooning, just staggering through the streets. Young girls, their heads bowed down to the ground. The old men just sitting there staring blankly in sackcloth with dust, with dirt. They've just covered themselves with dirt and there is no place to go. There's no hope. It's all gone.

The little children say to their mothers, Where is the corn and the wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom. What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee? Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you: and they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but they have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment. All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? ( Lamentations 2:12-15 )

Desolate, destroyed, ravaged city, once the perfection of beauty. Once the joy of the whole earth, and now it's being hissed at as people walk by, clapping their hands and shaking their heads.

All of your enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss, gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we have looked for; we have found, and we have seen. The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old ( Lamentations 2:12-17 ):

God was faithful to His warnings. He had told them if they did not turn from their wickedness, if they did not turn from their idolatry, that He was going to bring their enemies against them and they would be destroyed. God has done that which He had purposed.

he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old: he has thrown down, he's not pitied: he has caused your enemies to remove joy over thee, he has set up the horn of your adversaries [the power of your adversaries]. Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease ( Lamentations 2:17-18 ).

He's calling them for intercession to weep before God until God does a work again.

Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up your hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street ( Lamentations 2:19 ).

"Isn't this enough," Jeremiah is saying, "to challenge you to seek God, to seek God all night long? Look at your little children swooning in the streets. Pray for them that God will somehow work His work again among the people." They were living in an extremely desperate time, but they were not yet really desperate before the Lord. They were just plain desperate, but really not seeking God. You wonder what will it take to cause men to really seek God, to really cry out? The Bible says, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" ( James 5:16 ).

My mom tells me how that one time when I was a little kid and I was sick, and she came into the bedroom and laid hands on me, and I was running a fever. And she prayed, "Oh Lord, touch Charles, you know, and heal him." And when she was through praying, I said to her, "Mom, now pray like you really mean it." And I wonder how many times our prayers aren't just sort of perfunctory type of activities, you know. There is no real heart behind it. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." God said to Jeremiah, "And in the day that you seek Me with your whole heart, in that day I will be found of you."

And Jeremiah is saying, "Hey, go for it. Cry in the night, in the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward Him. At least for the life of the young children that are fainting for hunger on every street."

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this: Shall the women eat their fruit ( Lamentations 2:20 ),

That is, the women eat their own little babies, which they were doing.

shall children be born who are only a span long? ( Lamentations 2:20 )

The women were so malnourished that as their children were being born they were only seven or eight inches long at birth. Horrible.

shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of your anger; you have killed, and not pitied. You have called us in a solemn day my terrors round about me, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath my enemy consumed ( Lamentations 2:20-22 ). "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Jeremiah pictured the sovereign Lord (Heb. ’adonay) overshadowing Jerusalem, personified as a young woman, with a dark cloud because of His anger. The Lord had cast the city from the heights of glory to the depths of ignominy (cf. Isaiah 14:12). It had been as a footstool for His feet, but He had not given it preferential treatment in His anger. The footstool may be a reference to the ark of the covenant (cf. 1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalms 99:5) or the temple, but it probably refers to Jerusalem.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

A. God’s anger 2:1-10

"There are about forty descriptions of divine judgment, which fell upon every aspect of the Jews’ life: home, religion, society, physical, mental and spiritual. Some of the blackest phrases of the book appear here . . ." [Note: Irving L. Jensen, Jeremiah and Lamentations, p. 132.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

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, 1 Chronicles 28:2.

r יעיב "obnubilavit", Montanus, Vatablus; "obnubilat", Cocceius.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!   2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.   3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.   4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.   5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.   6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.   7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.   8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.   9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

      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 (Lamentations 2:1; Lamentations 2:1), and again (Lamentations 2:2; Lamentations 2:2) it is in his wrath, and (Lamentations 2:3; Lamentations 2:3) it is in his fierce anger, that he has thrown down and cut off, and (Lamentations 2:6; Lamentations 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 (Lamentations 2:3; Lamentations 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 (Lamentations 2:4; Lamentations 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 (Exodus 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,Lamentations 2:5; Lamentations 2:5. He has bent his bow like an enemy,Lamentations 2:4; Lamentations 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 (Lamentations 2:1; Lamentations 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 (2 Samuel 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 (Lamentations 2:3; Lamentations 2:3), all her beauty and majesty (Psalms 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 (Lamentations 2:2; Lamentations 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, Lamentations 2:5; Lamentations 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 (Lamentations 2:5; Lamentations 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,Zechariah 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,Lamentations 2:2; Lamentations 2:2. And again (Lamentations 2:5; Lamentations 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, Lamentations 2:7-9; Lamentations 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 (Isaiah 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,Lamentations 2:4; Lamentations 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,Psalms 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,Lamentations 2:2; Lamentations 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,Lamentations 2:6; Lamentations 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 (Lamentations 2:9; Lamentations 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,1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalms 99:5; Psalms 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, Isaiah 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 gave his ark into captivity, Psalms 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 (Lamentations 2:4; Lamentations 2:4); they had been purer than snow, whiter than mile (Lamentations 4:7; Lamentations 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, Leviticus 10:6. 3. The temple was God's tabernacle (as the tabernacle, while that was in being, was called his temple,Psalms 27:4) and this he has violently taken away (Lamentations 2:6; Lamentations 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 (Isaiah 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 (Amos 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 (Lamentations 2:7; Lamentations 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,Psalms 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,Psalms 74:4. Some, by the places of the assembly (Lamentations 2:6; Lamentations 2:6), understand not only the temple, but the synagogues, and the schools of the prophets, which the enemy had burnt up,Psalms 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, Luke 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, Lamentations 2:7; Lamentations 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 (Lamentations 2:9; Lamentations 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, 1 Samuel 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.