Lenten Study Lamentations Ch 2
Jeremiah starts slowly in chapter two and draws us closer to the horror of the fall of Jerusalem. He doesn’t mince words about why this is happening. He draws us a brutal picture with flowery language describing why God is angry. He has a right to be.
"Michelangelo, Jeremiah lamenting the fall of Jerusalem, detail of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 1508-12" by Prof. Mortel is marked with CC BY 2.0.
1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has cast from heaven to earth The glory of Israel, And has not remembered His footstool In the day of His anger.
Lamentations 2:1 (NASB)
I am not certain what the reference to God remembering His footstool means. I have several ideas, and none of them are complimentary. Jerusalem is situated on a hill or mountain with higher hills and mountains around it. There is something of a visual reference to how the city might look like the footstool to the mountains around it and God being on the mountains resting His feet on the footstool of Jerusalem. The other idea is of someone getting angry who has their feet up resting and when they spring up in their anger, knocking the footstool over. Chapter two is about God’s anger at how Jerusalem was behaving. Some historical accounts have Jerusalem at this time behaving worse than Sodom or Gomorrah, and we all know what happened to those two cities.
2 The Lord has swallowed up; He has not spared All the habitations of Jacob. In His wrath He has thrown down The strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 In fierce anger He has cut off All the strength of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand From before the enemy. And He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire Consuming round about.
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy; He has set His right hand like an adversary And slain all that were pleasant to the eye; In the tent of the daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.
Lamentations 2:2-5 (NASB)
Based on the city’s location, defenses, and wealth, many of that day considered Jerusalem to be impregnable and unconquerable. In the safety and security of the walls they built, the city’s people grew decadent and wicked regarding following God’s ways. That sloth and failure on their part lead to the anger of God empowering and encouraging Israel’s enemies. In His righteous anger, God allowed those enemies to sweep over what the world thought was unassailable.
6 And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused to be forgotten The appointed feast and sabbath in Zion, And He has despised king and priest In the indignation of His anger.
7 The Lord has rejected His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered 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 an appointed feast.
Lamentations 2:6-7 (NASB)
Some conquering foes have spared the places of worship out of respect for both the people and the gods they worshiped. Not in this case. Many times God has protected His house of worship when other locations in a city fell. Not this time. God’s statement by allowing this is that the people have so fully contaminated the city they have failed even in the holiest places. So, all of it must be cleansed. The fall of Jerusalem is a cleansing of both the people and the place.
8 The LORD determined to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying, And He has caused rampart and wall to lament; They have languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground, He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets find No vision from the LORD.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion Sit on the ground, they are silent. They have thrown dust on their heads; They have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem Have bowed their heads to the ground.
Lamentations 2:8-10 (NASB)
The stretching of a line is how ancient architects planned a building in the dirt. God is planning on building something here, but first, He must clear the ground of the unwanted structure. This is both a figurative and literal statement. Jerusalem must fall for the more desirable to rise. The wicked people of Jerusalem must fall for a more obedient and righteous people to rise.
11 My eyes fail because of tears, My spirit is greatly troubled; My heart is poured out on the earth Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, When little ones and infants faint In the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they faint like a wounded man In the streets of the city, As their life is poured out On their mothers’ bosom.
Lamentations 2:11-12 (NASB)
During the siege of Jerusalem by the enemy, atrocities were committed by the people therein. They did not turn to God in righteous obedience with faith and certainty. They pleaded with God to deliver them, not to His ways, but back to their wicked lives. The passage uses flowery words to describe an horrific scene. A siege of a city is when the attacking armies surround it and let no one out and nothing in. They cut off all supply lines to the place. The goal is to kill all the people by starvation. Naturally, the weak, old, and young are the first to perish. Jeremiah witnessed this siege from beginning to end. These two verses sanitize the horror of what happened inside Jerusalem’s walls because the people of that city would not return to God.
13 How shall I admonish you? To what shall I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I liken you as I comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is as vast as the sea; Who can heal you?
Lamentations 2:13 (NASB)
God can, and from history, we know He does. But, this unhappy time in Israel’s history is here recorded. We are reminded of this sad time as a warning, a watchword to help us avoid a similar fate. We read this not to commemorate the horror but to motivate our actions to avoid it. How? By digging into His Word to find out what His ways are, we can move our lives closer to His ways and walk His path.
14 Your prophets have seen for you False and foolish visions; And they have not exposed your iniquity So as to restore you from captivity, But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.
Lamentations 2:14 (NASB)
False teachers appear in any age. They lead many astray to their destruction while living a life of ease and plenty. How do we defend against being led astray? Read scripture for ourselves. Study it to discern its meaning on our own. Ask for counsel from trusted Christians walking God’s path already. Meet in fellowship with one another and hold each other accountable for our individual actions so that when one lamb begins to stray from the flock, the others can help draw that lamb back into safety. Ravening wolves roam at the edges of the flock, looking for those being led away from that they can single out, cull away from the truth, and devour. Do not be that lamb.
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
Matthew 7:15-20 (NASB)
Know them by their fruits. How do they live their lives? What do they do with their increase? Where do they spend their free time? In short, character matters. The idea that a person’s character is separate from their job and has no influence over how they perform their job or the decisions they will make while fulfilling that job is laughable. The leadership we tolerate reflects who we are as individuals. Do not throw your support to a leader at any level you would not stand before God and vouch for.
15 All who pass along the way Clap their hands in derision at you; They hiss and shake their heads At the daughter of Jerusalem, “Is this the city of which they said, ‘The perfection of beauty, A joy to all the earth’?”
16 All your enemies Have opened their mouths wide against you; They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day for which we waited; We have reached it, we have seen it.”
Lamentations 2:15-16 (NASB)
These two verses list two separate groups of people laughing and deriding Jerusalem, but I list them here together to juxtapose the groups. Verse fifteen are the people who know God, know His ways, and still keep them. They saw what was happening to Jerusalem and avoided that fate because, like Jeremiah, they took no part in it. Verse sixteen are the people who don’t just not know God but reject him and are enemies of the Children of God. The enemies rejoice at the downfall of those who claimed the title of God’s people but only in name. They did not put their time, effort, and treasure into His ways.
17 The LORD has done what He purposed; He has accomplished His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has thrown down without sparing, And He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries.
Lamentations 2:17 (NASB)
Jeremiah leaves no question about why this happened. Jerusalem deserved it because they angered God.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, Let your tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief, Let your eyes have no rest.
19 “Arise, cry aloud in the night At the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water Before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him For the life of your little ones Who are faint because of hunger At the head of every street.”
Lamentations 2:18-19 (NASB)
Our hearts are moved by displays of sincere sorrow. Why does God not move to help these people as they bemoan the situation, the desperation they are in? The image of a child starving moves us even today in television advertisements for hunger relief in various parts of the world. Why did this appeal not move God to help? The answer comes next.
20 See, O LORD, and look! With whom have You dealt thus? Should women eat their offspring, The little ones who were born healthy? Should priest and prophet be slain In the sanctuary of the Lord?
Lamentations 2:20 (NASB)
“Should women eat their offspring, The little ones who were born healthy?” The siege lasted for so long, and the hunger among the people was so great that they ate their own children rather than turn to God for relief. Jerusalem was destroyed because, among other reasons, the populace no longer held a child’s life in any regard. Not only that, but they selfishly put their own survival over the survival of the children. I cannot fathom that, and I find the justification for the killing of children to be abhorrent.
21 On the ground in the streets Lie young and old; My virgins and my young men Have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered, not sparing.
22 You called as in the day of an appointed feast My terrors on every side; And there was no one who escaped or survived In the day of the LORD’S anger. Those whom I bore and reared, My enemy annihilated them.
Lamentations 2:21-22 (NASB)
These last verses are a warning to those who come after. “…and there was no one who escaped or survived in the day of the LORD’S anger.” No one. If we allow or put up with or make excuses for the act of destroying children, we are following in the footsteps of the people of Jerusalem before they were mercilessly and brutally slain because they angered God. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I do not want to make choices that make God angry.