Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Lamentations 2:20

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Lamentations 2:20. Consider to whom thou hast done this — Perhaps the best sense of this difficult verse is this: "Thou art our Father, we are thy children; wilt thou destroy thy own offspring? Was it ever heard that a mother devoured her own child, a helpless infant of a span long?" That it was foretold that there should be such distress in the siege, - that mothers should be obliged to eat their own children, is evident enough from Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53; Deuteronomy 28:56-57; but the former view of the subject seems the most natural and is best supported by the context. The priest and the prophet are slain; the young and old lie on the ground in the streets; the virgins and young men are fallen by the sword. "THOU hast slain them in the day of thine anger; THOU hast killed, and not pitied." See Lamentations 4:10.

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

THE PEOPLE'S CRY TO GOD FOR HELP

"See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the people be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? The youth and the old man 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 thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied. Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger: Those that I dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed."

This heart-breaking prayer does not request any specific thing as God's response; it merely pleads for God's attention and consideration of this terrible plight of his people.

"Behold to whom thou hast done thus" This does not spell out what was in the minds of the people. They are pleading: "Look God, we are the children of Abraham, through whom Thou hast promised blessings to all mankind! We are the people you rescued from Egypt! We are those to whom you gave the land of Canaan! We are thy Chosen People! Just look at us now!

"Shall the women eat their fruit" Such a terrible thing had actually happened in Israel's history (2 Kings 6:28-29). "The fruit here is the children."The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., p. 20.

Matthew Henry's words regarding this prayer are priceless:

"Prayer is a salve for very sore, even the sorest, a remedy for every malady, even the most grievous. And our business in prayer is not to prescribe, but to subscribe to the wisdom and will of God; to refer our case to Him and to leave it with Him. Lord, behold and consider, and thy will be done."Matthew Henry's Commentary, op. cit., p. 726.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

The sense is: “See, Yahweh, and look! whom hast Thou treated thus? Shall women eat their fruit - children whom they must still carry?” the swaddled child being one still needing to be nursed and borne in their arms.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

Here, also, Jeremiah dictates words, or a form of prayer to the Jews. And this complaint availed to excite pity, that God had thus afflicted, not strangers, but the people whom he had adopted. Interpreters do, indeed, give another explanation, “See, Jehovah, To whom hast thou done this?” that is, Has any people been ever so severely afflicted? But I do not think that the comparison is made here, which they seek to make, but that the people only set before God the covenant which he had made with their fathers, as though they said, “O Lord, hadst thou thus cruelly raged against strangers, there would have been nothing so wonderful; but since we are thine heritage, and the blessed seed of Abraham, since thou hast been pleased to choose us as thy peculiar people, what can this mean, that, thou treatest us with so much severity?”

We now, then, perceive the real meaning of the Prophet, when, in the person of the people, he speaks thus, See, and look on, Jehovah, to whom thou hast done this; for thou hast had to do with thy children: not that the Jews could allege any worthiness; but the gratuitous election of God must have been abundantly sufficient to draw forth mercy. Nor do the faithful here simply ask God to see, but they add another word, Look on. By the two words they more fully express the indignity of what had happened, as though they said, that it was like a prodigy that God’s people should be so severely afflicted, who had been chosen by him: see, then, to whom thou hast done this

And this mode of praying was very common, as we find it said in the Psalms,

“Pour forth thy wrath on the nations which know not thee, and on the kingdoms which call not on thy name.” (Psalms 79:6.)

And a similar passage we have before observed in our Prophet. (Jeremiah 10:25.) The sum of what is said is, that there was a just reason why God should turn to mercy, and be thus reconciled to his people, because he had not to do with aliens, but with his own family, whom he had been pleased to adopt. But the rest I shall defer until tomorrow.

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 responded to this call to prayer by asking the Lord to consider who was suffering so greatly that women were cannibalizing their own newborn children to stay alive in the famine (cf. Leviticus 26:27-29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; 2 Kings 6:24-31). Would He allow such a fate for healthy children? Would He permit the slaying of Judahite priests and prophets in the very temple of the Lord?

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

C. Jerusalem’s plea 2:20-22

This last pericope is another prayer to the Lord (cf. Lamentations 1:20-22).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this,.... On whom thou hast brought these calamities of famine and sword; not upon thine enemies, but upon thine own people, that are called by thy name, and upon theirs, their young ones, who had not sinned as their fathers had: here the church does not charge God with any injustice, or complain of hard usage; only humbly entreats he would look upon her, in her misery, with an eye of pity and compassion; and consider her sorrowful condition; and remember the relation she stood in to him; and so submits her case, and leaves it with him. These words seem to be suggested to the church by the prophet, as what might be proper for her to use, when praying for the life of her young children; and might be introduced by supplying the word "saying" before "behold, O Lord", c.

shall the women eat their fruit their children, the fruit of their womb, as the Targum; their newborn babes, that hung at their breasts, and were carried in their arms; it seems they did, as was threatened they should, Leviticus 26:29; and so they did at the siege of Samaria, and at the siege of Jerusalem, both by the Chaldeans and the Romans:

[and] children of a span long? or of a hand's breadth; the breadth of the palms of the hand, denoting very little ones: or "children handled", or "swaddled with the hands" c; of their parents, who are used to stroke the limbs of their babes, to bring them to; and keep them in right form and shape, and swaddle them with swaddling bands in a proper manner; see Lamentations 2:22; and so the Targum,

"desirable children, who are wrapped in fine linen.''

Jarchi d interprets it of Doeg Ben Joseph, whom his mother slew, and ate:

shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? as very probably some were, who fled thither for safety when the city was broken up; but were not spared by the merciless Chaldeans, who had no regard to their office and character; nor is it any wonder they should not, when the Jews themselves slew Zechariah, a priest and prophet, between the porch and the altar; of whom the Targum here makes mention; and to whom Jarchi applies these words.

c עללי טפחים "parvulos qui educantur", Pagninus; "parvulos educationum", Montanus; "educationis", Calvin; "infantes palmationum, [sive] tractationis palmarum", Michaelis; "pueros palmis tractatos", Cocceius. d E Talmud Bab. Yoma, fol. 38. 2.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.   11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured 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.   12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.   13 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?   14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.   15 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?   16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.   17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.   18 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.   19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.   20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?   21 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 thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.   22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

      Justly are these called Lamentations, and they are very pathetic ones, the expressions of grief in perfection, mourning and woe, and nothing else, like the contents of Ezekiel's roll, Ezekiel 2:10.

      I. Copies of lamentations are here presented and they are painted to the life. 1. The judges and magistrates, who used to appear in robes of state, have laid them aside, or rather are stripped of them, and put on the habit of mourners (Lamentations 2:10; Lamentations 2:10); the elders now sit no longer in the judgment-seats, the thrones of the house of David, but they sit upon the ground, having no seat to repose themselves in, or in token of great grief, as Job's friends sat with him upon the ground,Job 2:13. They open not their mouth in the gate, as usual, to give their opinion, but they keep silence, overwhelmed with grief, and not knowing what to say. They have cast dust upon their heads, and girded themselves with sackcloth, as deep mourners used to do; they had lost their power and wealth, and that made the grieve thus. Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris--Genuine are the tears which we shed over lost property. 2. The young ladies, who used to dress themselves so richly, and walk with stretched-forth necks (Isaiah 3:16), now are humbled; The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground; those are made to know sorrow who seemed to bid defiance to it and were always disposed to be merry. 3. The prophet himself is a pattern to the mourners, Lamentations 2:11; Lamentations 2:11. His eyes do fail with tears; he has wept till he can weep no more, has almost wept his eyes out, wept himself blind. Nor are the inward impressions of grief short of the outward expressions. His bowels are troubled, as they were when he saw these calamities coming (Jeremiah 4:19; Jeremiah 4:20), which, one would think, might have excused him now; but even he, to whom they were no surprise, felt them an insupportable grief, to such a degree that his liver is poured out on the earth; he felt himself a perfect colliquation; all his entrails were melted and dissolved, as Psalms 22:14. Jeremiah himself had better treatment than his neighbours, better than he had had before from his own countrymen, nay, their destruction was his deliverance, their captivity his enlargement; the same that made them prisoners made him a favourite; and yet his private interests are swallowed up in a concern for the public, and he bewails the destruction of the daughter of his people as sensibly as if he himself had been the greatest sufferer in that common calamity. Note, The judgments of God upon the land and nation are to be lamented by us, though we, for our parts, may escape pretty well.

      II. Calls to lamentation are here given: The heart of the people cried unto the Lord,Lamentations 2:18; Lamentations 2:18. Some fear it was a cry, not of true repentance, but of bitter complaint; their heart was as full of grief as it could hold, and they gave vent to it in doleful shrieks and outcries, in which they made use of God's name; yet we will charitably suppose that many of them did in sincerity cry unto God for mercy in their distress; and the prophet bids them go on to do so: "O wall of the daughter of Zion! either you that stand upon the wall, you watchmen on the walls (Isaiah 62:6), when you see the enemies encamped about the walls and making their approaches towards them, or because of the wall (that is the subject of the lamentation), because of the breaking down of the wall (which was not done till about a month after the city was taken), because of this further calamity, let the daughter of Zion lament still." This was a thing which Nehemiah lamented long after, Nehemiah 1:3; Nehemiah 1:4. "Let tears run down like a river day and night, weep without intermission, give thyself no rest from weeping, let not the apple of thy eye cease." This intimates, 1. That the calamities would be continuing, and the causes of grief would frequently recur, and fresh occasion would be given them every day and every night to bemoan themselves. 2. That they would be apt, by degrees, to grow insensible and stupid under the hand of God, and would need to be still called upon to afflict their souls yet more and more, till their proud and hard hearts were thoroughly humbled and softened.

      III. Causes for lamentation are here assigned, and the calamities that are to be bewailed are very particularly and pathetically described.

      1. Multitudes perish by famine, a very sore judgment, and piteous is the case of those that fall under it. God had corrected them by scarcity of provisions through want of rain some time before (Jeremiah 14:1), and they were not brought to repentance by that lower degree of this judgment, and therefore now by the straitness of the siege God brought it upon them in extremity; for, (1.) The children died for hunger in their mothers' arms: The children and sucklings, whose innocent and helpless state entitles them to relief as soon as any, swoon in the streets (Lamentations 2:11; Lamentations 2:11) as the wounded (Lamentations 2:12; Lamentations 2:12), there being no food to be had for them; those that are starved die as surely as those that are stabbed. They lie a great while crying to their poor mothers for corn to feed them and wine to refresh them, for they are such as had been bred up to the use of wine and wanted it now; but there is none for them, so that at length their soul is poured into their mothers' bosom, and there they breathe their last. This is mentioned again (Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 2:19): They faint for hunger in the top of every street. Yet this is not the worst, (2.) There were some little children that were slain by their mothers' hands and eaten, Lamentations 2:20; Lamentations 2:20. Such was the scarcity of provision that the women ate the fruit of their own bodies, even their children when they were but of a span long, according to the threatening, Deuteronomy 28:53. The like was done in the siege of Samaria, 2 Kings 6:29. Such extremities, nay, such barbarities, were they brought to by the famine. Let us, in our abundance, thank God that we have food convenient, not only for ourselves, but for our children.

      2. Multitudes fall by the sword, which devours one as well as another, especially when it is in the hand of such cruel enemies as the Chaldeans were. (1.) They spared no character, no, not the most distinguished; even the priest and the prophet, who of all men, one would think, might expect protection from heaven and veneration on earth, are slain, not abroad in the field of battle, where they are out of their place, as Hophni and Phinehas, but in the sanctuary of the Lord, the place of their business and which they hoped would be a refuge to them. (2.) They spared no age, no, not those who, by reason of their tender or their decrepit age, were exempted from taking up the sword; for even they perished by the sword. "The young, who have not yet come to bear arms, and the old, who have had their discharge, lie on the ground, slain in the streets, till some kind hand is found that will bury them." (3.) They spared no sex: My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. In the most barbarous military executions that ever we read of the virgins were spared, and made part of the spoil (Numbers 31:18; Judges 5:30), but here the virgins were put to the sword, as well as the young men. (4.) This was the Lord's doing; he suffered the sword of the Chaldeans to devour thus without distinction: Thou has slain them in the day of thy anger, for it is God that kills and makes alive, and saves alive, as he pleases. But that which follows is very harsh: Thou has killed, and not pitied; for his soul is grieved for the misery of Israel. The enemies that used them thus cruelly were such as he had both mustered and summoned (Lamentations 2:22; Lamentations 2:22): "Thou hast called in, as in a solemn day, my terrors round about, that is, the Chaldeans, who are such a terror to me;" enemies crowded into Jerusalem now as thickly as ever worshippers used to do on a solemn festival, so that they were quite overpowered with numbers, and none escaped nor remained; Jerusalem was made a perfect slaughter-house. Mothers are cut to the heart to see those whom they have taken such care of, and pains with, and whom they have been so tender of, thus inhumanly used, suddenly cut off, though not soon reared: Those that I have swaddled, and brought up, has my enemy consumed, as if they were brought forth for the murderer, like lambs for the butcher, Hosea 9:13. Zion, who was a mother to them all, lamented to see those who were brought up in her courts, and under the tuition of her oracles, thus made a prey.

      3. Their false prophets cheated them, Lamentations 2:14; Lamentations 2:14. This was a thing which Jeremiah had lamented long before, and had observed with a great concern (Jeremiah 14:13): Ah! Lord God, the prophets say unto them, You shall not see the sword; and here he inserts it among his lamentations: Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee; they pretended to discover for thee, and then to discover to thee, the mind and will of God, to see the visions of the Almighty and then to speak his words; but they were all vain and foolish things; their visions were all their own fancies, and, if they thought they had any, it was only the product of a crazed head or a heated imagination, as appeared by what they delivered, which was all idle and impertinent: nay, it is most likely that they themselves knew that the visions they pretended were counterfeit, and all a sham, and made use of only to colour that which they designedly imposed upon the people with, that they might make an interest in them for themselves. They are thy prophets, not God's prophets; he never sent them, nor were they pastors after his heart, but the people set them up, told them what they should say, so that they were prophets after their hearts. (1.) Prophets should tell people of their faults, should show them their sins, that they may bring them to repentance, and so prevent their ruin; but these prophets knew that would lose them the people's affections and contributions, and knew they could not reprove their hearers without reproaching themselves at the same time, and therefore they have not discovered thy iniquity; they saw it not themselves, or, if they did, saw so little evil in it, or danger from it, that they would not tell them of it, though that might have been a means, by taking away their iniquity, to turn away their captivity. (2.) Prophets should warn people of the judgments of God coming upon them, but these saw for them false burdens; the messages they pretended to deliver to them from God they knew to be false, and falsely ascribed to God; so that, by soothing them up in carnal security, they caused that banishment which, by plain dealing, they might have prevented.

      4. Their neighbours laughed at them (Lamentations 2:15; Lamentations 2:15): All that pass by thee clap their hands at thee. Jerusalem had made a great figure, got a great name, and borne a great sway, among the nations; it was the envy and terror of all about; and, when the city was thus reduced; they all (as men are apt to do in such a case) triumphed in its fall; they hissed, and wagged the head, pleasing themselves to see how much it had fallen from its former pretensions. Is this the city (said they) that men called the perfection of beauty?Psalms 50:2. How is it now the perfection of deformity! Where is all its beauty now? Is this the city which was called the joy of the whole earth (Psalms 48:2), which rejoiced in the gifts of God's bounty and grace more than any other place, and which all the earth rejoiced in? Where is all its joy now and all its glorying? It is a great sin thus to make a jest of others' miseries, and adds very much affliction to the afflicted.

      5. Their enemies triumphed over them, Lamentations 2:16; Lamentations 2:16. Those that wished ill to Jerusalem and her peace now vent their spite and malice, which before they concealed; they now open their mouths, nay, they widen them; they hiss and gnash their teeth in scorn and indignation; they triumph in their own success against her, and the rich prey they have got in making themselves masters of Jerusalem: "We have swallowed her up; it is our doing, and it is our gain; it is all our own now. Jerusalem shall never be either courted or feared as she has been. Certainly this is the day that we have long looked for; we have found it; we have seen it; aha! so would we have it." Note, The enemies of the church are apt to take its shocks for its ruins, and to triumph in them accordingly; but they will find themselves deceived; for the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

      6. Their God, in all this, appeared against them (Lamentations 2:17; Lamentations 2:17): The Lord has done that which he had devised. The destroyers of Jerusalem could have no power against her unless it were given them from above. They are but the sword in God's hand; it is he that has thrown down, and has not pitied. "In this controversy of his with us we have not had the usual instances of his compassion towards us." He has caused they enemy to rejoice over thee (see Job 30:11); he has set up the horn of thy adversaries, has given them power and matter for pride. This is indeed the highest aggravation of the trouble, that God has become their enemy, and yet it is the strongest argument for patience under it; we are bound to submit to what God does, for, (1.) It is the performance of his purpose: The Lord has done that which he had devised; it is done with counsel and deliberation, not rashly, or upon a sudden resolve; it is the evil that he has framed (Jeremiah 18:11), and we may be sure it is framed so as exactly to answer the intention. What God devises against his people is designed for them, and so it will be found in the issue. (2.) It is the accomplishment of his predictions; it is the fulfilling of the scripture; he has now put in execution his word that he had commanded in the days of old. When he gave them his law by Moses he told them what judgments he would certainly inflict upon them if they transgressed that law; and now that they have been guilty of the transgression of this law he had executed the sentence of it, according to Leviticus 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:15. Note, In all the providences of God concerning his church it is good to take notice of the fulfilling of his word; for there is an exact agreement between the judgments of God's hand and the judgments of his mouth, and when they are compared they will mutually explain and illustrate each other.

      IV. Comforts for the cure of these lamentations are here sought for and prescribed.

      1. They are sought for and enquired after, Lamentations 2:13; Lamentations 2:13. The prophet seeks to find out some suitable acceptable words to say to her in this case: Wherewith shall I comfort thee, O virgin! daughter of Zion? Note, We should endeavour to comfort those whose calamities we lament, and, when our passions have made the worst of them, our wisdom should correct them and labour to make the best of them; we should study to make our sympathies with or afflicted friends turn to their consolation. Now the two most common topics of comfort, in case of affliction, are here tried, but are laid by because they would not hold. We commonly endeavour to comfort our friends by telling them, (1.) That their case is not singular, nor without precedent; there are many whose trouble is greater, and lies heavier upon them, than theirs does; but Jerusalem's case will not admit this argument: "What thing shall I liken to thee, or what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee? What city, what country, is there, whose case is parallel to thine? What witness shall I produce to prove an example that will reach thy present calamitous state? Alas! there is none, no sorrow like thine, because there is none whose honour was like thine." (2.) We tell them that their case is not desperate, but that it may easily be remedied; but neither will that be admitted here, upon a view of human probabilities; for thy breach is great, like the sea, like the breach which the sea sometimes makes upon the land, which cannot be repaired, but still grows wider and wider. Thou art wounded, and who shall heal thee? No wisdom nor power of man can repair the desolations of such a broken shattered state. It is to no purpose therefore to administer any of these common cordials; therefore,

      2. The method of cure prescribed is to address themselves to God, and by a penitent prayer to commit their case to him, and to be instant and constant in such prayers (Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 2:19): "Arise out of thy dust, out of thy despondency, cry out in the night, watch unto prayer; when others are asleep, be thou upon thy knees, importunate with God for mercy; in the beginning of the watches, of each of the four watches, of the night (let thy eyes prevent them, Psalms 119:148), then pour out thy heart like water before the Lord, be free and full in prayer, be sincere and serious in prayer, open thy mind, spread thy case before the Lord; lift up thy hands towards him in holy desire and expectation; beg for the life of thy young children. These poor lambs, what have they done? 2 Samuel 24:17. Take with you words, take with you these words (Lamentations 2:20; Lamentations 2:20), Behold, O Lord! and consider to whom thou hast done this, with whom thou hast dealt thus. Are they not thy own, the seed of Abraham thy friend and of Jacob thy chosen? Lord, take their case into thy compassionate consideration!" Note, Prayer is a salve for every sore, even the sorest, a remedy for every malady, even the most grievous. And our business in prayer is not to prescribe, but to subscribe to the wisdom and will of God; to refer our case to him, and then to leave it with him. Lord, behold and consider, and thy will be done.