1How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion
with the cloud of his anger!
He has hurled down the splendor of Israel
from heaven to earth;
he has not remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.
2Without pity the Lord has swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has torn down
the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah.
He has brought her kingdom and its princes
down to the ground in dishonor.
3In fierce anger he has cut off
every horn of Israel.
He has withdrawn his right hand
at the approach of the enemy.
He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
that consumes everything around it.
4Like an enemy he has strung his bow;
his right hand is ready.
Like a foe he has slain
all who were pleasing to the eye;
he has poured out his wrath like fire
on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.
5The Lord is like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces
and destroyed her strongholds.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
for the Daughter of Judah.
6He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;
he has destroyed his place of meeting.
The LORD has made Zion forget
her appointed feasts and her Sabbaths;
in his fierce anger he has spurned
both king and priest.
7The Lord has rejected his altar
and abandoned his sanctuary.
He has handed over to the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
they have raised a shout in the house of the LORD
as on the day of an appointed feast.
8The LORD determined to tear down
the wall around the Daughter of Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line
and did not withhold his hand from destroying.
He made ramparts and walls lament;
together they wasted away.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground;
their bars he has broken and destroyed.
Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,
the law is no more,
and her prophets no longer find
visions from the LORD.
10The elders of the Daughter of Zion
sit on the ground in silence;
they have sprinkled dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
11My eyes fail from weeping,
I am in torment within,
my heart is poured out on the ground
because my people are destroyed,
because children and infants faint
in the streets of the city.
12They say to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like wounded men
in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb away
in their mothers’ arms.
13What can I say for you?
With what can I compare you,
O Daughter of Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you,
that I may comfort you,
O Virgin Daughter of Zion?
Your wound is as deep as the sea.
Who can heal you?
14The visions of your prophets
were false and worthless;
they did not expose your sin
to ward off your captivity.
The oracles they gave you
were false and misleading.
15All who pass your way
clap their hands at you;
they scoff and shake their heads
at the Daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth?”
16All your enemies open their mouths
wide against you;
they scoff and gnash their teeth
and say, “We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for;
we have lived to see it.”
17The LORD has done what he planned;
he has fulfilled his word,
which he decreed long ago.
He has overthrown you without pity,
he has let the enemy gloat over you,
he has exalted the horn of your foes.
18The hearts of the people
cry out to the Lord.
O wall of the Daughter of Zion,
let your tears flow like a river
day and night;
give yourself no relief,
your eyes no rest.
19Arise, cry out in the night,
as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
for the lives of your children,
who faint from hunger
at the head of every street.
20“Look, O LORD, and consider:
Whom have you ever treated like this?
Should women eat their offspring,
the children they have cared for?
Should priest and prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21“Young and old lie together
in the dust of the streets;
my young men and maidens
have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of your anger;
you have slaughtered them without pity.
22“As you summon to a feast day,
so you summoned against me terrors on every side.
In the day of the LORD’s anger
no one escaped or survived;
those I cared for and reared,
my enemy has destroyed.”
Original Meaning
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUES the mournful tone of the previous chapter. The poet again frequently refers to Jerusalem as “Daughter,”1 and the pronoun “her” is used throughout to designate things that belong to or are associated with the city. Covenant terms such as Jacob and Israel also occur (2:1–3) to refer to those whom God has judged. Each of these terms emphasizes that the city, the state, and their inhabitants were and are members of God’s people.
Careful examination of chapter 2 reveals several changes in the speaker’s form of address. Verses 1–10 describe, in the third person, the suffering and anguish of the city through what God has done to them. God has covered the city with “the cloud of his anger” (2:1); he has “burned in Jacob like a flaming fire” (2:3; cf. 2:5); God has “handed over to the enemy the walls of her palaces” (2:7); and so on. Verses 9–10 describe Jerusalem in her pathetic state.
In verse 11 the poet uses the first-person “I” to describe his weeping and torment with respect to the awful condition of “my people.” This is a most interesting verse, since the pattern from chapter 1 suggests that the first-person speech belongs to that of personified Jerusalem. Indeed, some commentators take it that way. However, the first person of 2:13 is that of the poet addressing Jerusalem, and it seems best overall to take 2:11 as also the voice of the poet. The alternation between description and first-person lament gives poignancy to the circumstances of Jerusalem’s humiliation.
First-person references come also in verses 13 and 22. The former is the voice of the poet addressing Jerusalem, but verses 20–22 are perhaps better taken as the voice of Jerusalem. Verse 22 refers to those whom the speaker has cared for and raised—verbs associated with child-rearing. Since Jerusalem is frequently personified as a mother, it seems best to see her as the final speaker of chapter 2. In fact, verses 18–19 seem to address the wall(s) of Jerusalem with the urge to cry out. If correct—and verse 18 is textually difficult—this call to the wall(s) of Jerusalem is an example of metonymy, a literary device whereby something is represented or personified by a constituent part.
We may therefore set out the chapter’s voices as follows:
A. Verses 1–10 are the poet’s description of Jerusalem’s anguish and humiliation.
B. Verses 11–13 are the poet’s first-person response to Jerusalem’s wretchedness.
C. Verses 14–17 are again the poet’s description of Jerusalem.
D. Verses 18–19 are a call to Jerusalem’s walls to cry out to God.
E. Verses 20–22 are addressed to God by Jerusalem (perhaps more specifically her “walls”; cf. v. 18).
Both the city (2:13–19) and God (2:20–21) are addressed directly. These are second-person references (“you … your”). The effect overall of this chapter is to move beyond a surface description to give a more nuanced and personal portrait of those judged and bereaved and to ask God about the rightness of the devastation.
The great distinction of Zion’s calling is reflected in Lam. 2:1. She is the “splendor” (tip’eret) of Israel. This word can be used of an ornament or jewel. In Isaiah 60:7 God describes the temple as “my glorious house” (bet tip’arti). In Psalm 99:5 the ark of the covenant is described as God’s “footstool,” a term also used in in Lam. 2:1 in parallel with Israel’s splendor. The city was “the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth” (2:15; cf. Ps. 48:2), until it came crashing down.
In 2:3 the poet laments the fact that God has “cut off every horn of Israel.” The term horn can be used as a metaphor for strength or honor, though it can also refer to the upraised corner or protrusions at the ends of a sacrificial altar (Ex. 29:12; Lev. 4:7; Ps. 118:27). It was customary in Israel that those who “grasped the horns of the altar” had asylum and would not be slain (cf. 1 Kings 1:49–53). Thus the comment that God has cut off every horn in Israel can mean that God has destroyed the pride and nobility of the people and/or that God has removed any means of seeking asylum from the judgment fallen on Jerusalem and Judah.
God is so angry with Jerusalem that he is destroying “his” things that are within her. God has “laid waste his dwelling” and “destroyed his place of meeting” (Lam. 2:6). Verse 7 elaborates on this matter: God has “rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary.” The presence of the sacred temple in the midst of Jerusalem was no guarantee of God’s benevolence or protection. The so-called “temple sermon” of Jeremiah made this view quite clear (Jer. 7 and 26). Even parts of the city are personified to underscore the horror of what has befallen God’s jewel. The walls of the city lament and weep over their destruction (Lam. 2:8, 18).
Judgment is unsparing on those leaders who should have led the people in a different direction. The king is rejected and exiled (2:6, 9); the visionary task of the prophets failed them and their people (2:9, 14, 20). Priests are spurned, and now Torah is gone (2:6, 9, 20).
God used the enemy to judge his people and his city. In remarkably pointed and anguished language, the poet asks God whether he has ever treated anyone else like this (2:20). It is as if God has become the enemy by using the enemy.
Bridging Contexts
THE LANGUAGE OF JUDGMENT and destruction in Lamentations is almost a mirror image, a tragic reversal, of the language of the Zion psalms. Those psalms celebrate the greatness of Jerusalem as an agent of God’s election and as the secure home of the faithful. A refrain from Psalm 46 says, “The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (46:7, 11; cf. 46:1). God is in the midst of the holy city; she shall not be moved (46:5). In the midst of the temple precincts, a worshiper ponders God’s steadfast love (48:9). Visitors are encouraged to walk around the ramparts of Jerusalem in order to tell the next generation that “this is God” (48:12–14). But now the security of the city of God has been rolled away by God himself, who has aided Jerusalem’s enemies in destroying the city.
The function of this mirror image is to critique a theology of election as privilege and to underscore the necessity of responsibility. Here is a hermeneutical clue for one way to read the book of Lamentations, broadly speaking, and more particularly, to appropriate Lamentations 2. As with the harsh words of Jeremiah 7, Lamentations confesses that one cannot assume God will protect his own at all cost. No one can stand on holy ground and assert that nothing will overcome it/them. The fall of the city in 586 B.C. is proof of that. Chapter 2 portrays the royal city of God as destitute because of her failures.
Within the language of pain and despair are references to familiar failures. The leadership of God’s people has failed miserably to educate and to serve the people responsibly. Here is a theme with wide scriptural endorsement—one that is of paramount concern in any age. It is important to note, however, that with all the language of failure and even accusatory language toward God, there is no suggestion that God has brought into being a turn of events incompatible with his will.
Certainly it is also important to note that modern readers should not universalize from the historical experience of 586 B.C. and the poetry of despair it produced. Not every situation of despair, whether of a group of people or an individual, is God’s judging hand. Moreover, the almost defiant tone one picks up among the laments can be a spur to resist attempts to be defined solely as victims seeking pity. Defining oneself or one’s group as victims with trampled rights can be both accurate and proper, but such defining can also lead to self-righteousness.
Contemporary Significance
LAMENTATIONS 2 TEACHES both an important historical lesson and one way to pray. The historical lesson, stated succinctly, is that nothing made by human hands can save—not even something as significant as the house of the Lord. Yes, God can give up on an institution founded at his instruction and capable of mediating his grace to generations of worshipers. God can even make war against it. That somber news is tempered by the truth that God can raise the dead and that God’s ultimate will to save cannot be thwarted by the historical demise of a central “saving” institution. Congregations, denominations, and nations (including the modern state of Israel) need to hear this. They should hear both tones of the lesson. They are not indispensable to God, but God is gracious nevertheless.
The frankness of the language in Lamentations should persuade people that God is open to their real feelings and their honest reactions to tragedy. There is no “answer” in the immediacy of overwhelming tragedy, and one’s prayers ought to reflect that. The great miracle of the gospel is that the One to whom despair and bitterness are directed is the One whose only Son suffered the travail of the cross. God, who strove against Jerusalem and Judah, also engaged the principalities and powers to gain an eternal victory for his people.
Yes! All things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). His purpose is to conform us to the image of his Son. That means quite a bit of chiseling and disciplining for us. Not everything is good, but things that happen work toward the good purpose of our incorporation into Christ.