Deeper Commentary
Lamentations 2:1 How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a
cloud in His anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of
Israel, and hasn’t remembered His footstool in the day of His anger- It
was Jeremiah who was angry (see on Lam. 1:22). But he seems to transfer that
anger onto God, and he implies that this Divine anger was too fierce and
therefore unmerited. Despite having so often himself demonstrated why God's
anger was appropriate and deserved. He was focusing on just one part of the
whole picture and obsessing about it. Which is typical depressive behaviour.
The cloud between God and Israel was the cloud of their own sins. And Israel
had used her "beauty" for prostitution and unfaithfulness to Him. Israel had
refused to serve Him, preferring the service of idols and the Gentiles; and
so they were hardly His footstool.
Lamentations 2:2 The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and
has not pitied- Jer. 16:5 had explained why God appeared to have
withdrawn His pity. The reason
was that
God's covenant, referred to as "kindness and mercy", was broken; they were
not at peace with Him. And so they should not be pitied in their death. And
yet although the covenant was broken by Israel, and God broke His side of it
in response to that... He in fact still treated them as His covenant people.
This is not to say that God is not serious about His statements. He is; but
His love, grace and pity is displayed as the more extraordinary, in that it
leads Him to break the words and threats spoken in justifiable and
understandable wrath. For the same Hebrew phrase "loving kindness and tender
mercies" is used again by Jeremiah in Lam. 3:22, where he reflects that
these have not been withdrawn from God's people, even though Zion is now in
ruins.
He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground- Yet it was Jeremiah who had specifically "thrown down" Jerusalem and her fortifications through his prophetic word; see on Jer. 1:10, where the same word is used. His lament is therefore at best an indication that like us, he failed to realize the huge potential in God's word that he was preaching, and the eternal consequences which arise from someone hearing it.
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes- But they had profaned themselves; and the princes were those who had conspired to kill Jeremiah (Jer. 37:15; 38:4,25,27) as they did other prophets (Jer. 26:21). It is to Jeremiah's spiritual credit that he did not rejoice at all in the fall of his enemies but rather shared God's broken heart for the lost and the evil.
Lamentations 2:3 He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He
has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy- Jeremiah was
willfully ignorant of the obvious truth of Ps. 75:10: "I will cut off all
the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted
up".
He has burned up Jacob
like a flaming fire, which devours all around-
Lamentations 2:4 He has bent His bow like an enemy, He has stood with His
right hand as an adversary, has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: in
the tent of the daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire-
see on Lam. 3:13. Jeremiah appears now to be more angry with God than with
the Babylonians, who had literally bent their bows and destroyed the
temple. Jeremiah himself had been full of God's wrath and had poured it
out upon the people in his prophetic words (Jer. 6:11). And now he
apparently laments that, as if he was almost negating his own prophetic
calling. It's as if he had then been on God's side, but was now too much
on the side of his sinful people. What had once been deep within him he
now as it were distances himself from.
Lamentations 2:5 The Lord has become as an enemy, He has swallowed up
Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, He has destroyed his
strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and
lamentation- The image of swallowing up portrays God as a beast,
angry and judgmental upon His own people. It was the beast of Babylon who
"swallowed up" Israel (Jer. 51:34 s.w.). The palaces, the great houses of
the wealthy in Jerusalem, had been built on the back of abused labour, as
Jeremiah had pointed out; and those houses were destroyed because
offerings to idols had been made upon their roofs (Jer. 19:13).
Lamentations 2:6 He has violently taken away His tent, as if it were just
in a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly: Yahweh has caused
solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion- This again is a
very positive take on the gatherings held in the temple. Ezekiel was shown
in vision how the priests and elders were solemnly worshipping idols
within the temple. And so God said that He "hated" their "solemn
assemblies" (s.w. Is. 1:14). Yet in depression, Jeremiah laments that
these "solemn assemblies" were no more (Lam. 1:4; 2:6).
And has despised in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest- "Despise" is usually translated "provoke". Jeremiah was really hurt and provoked by the opposition of his family (Jer. 23:17); and in that again he manifested Yahweh, who was likewise provoked by Israel (s.w. Dt. 31:20; 32:19). So Jeremiah seems to have forgotten all that and appears to object to God being provoked by His people; even though he had earlier lived out the same feelings of being provoked by the same group. Again we have the impression that now he is out of step with Yahweh, and yet even in this, he is manifesting the unreasonable pity of Yahweh for His condemned people.
Lamentations 2:7 The Lord has cast off His altar, He has abhorred His
sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her
palaces: they have made a noise in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a
solemn assembly- As explained on :6, the feasts and holy place had
been abused by Judah. They had made it no longer a "sanctuary", a holy
place, but rather a profane place. Jeremiah himself had made that point in
his prophecies (e.g. Jer. 7:11-14). But he chose, in his depression, to
hold on to the old narrative, as we all do- in this case, that the temple
site was holy space, and God had been wrong to allow the Gentiles to enter
and profane it. But Isaiah as well as Jeremiah had often demonstrated that
the holy place was within human hearts, and not any more to be understood
in physical terms. Because the holy space had been made unholy by Israel.
Jeremiah had taught in Jer. 7:12 and often that they were wrong to
consider the temple a sacred space which somehow automatically preserved
them from any prosecution for their sins. They had been reminded that God
doesn't operate sacred spaces like that. God's earlier sacred space in
Shiloh had been destroyed because of the wickedness of the people, and the
Jerusalem temple was not going to be any different.
We note here and in :8 Jeremiah's particular concern for the walls of the temple being destroyed, the wall of Zion (:8). But Ez. 23:14 says that they had used those walls to portray images of their idols. Jeremiah surely knew this. He was intent upon seeing just one aspect of a picture, repeating to himself a narrative which was seriously incomplete to the point of being wrong; and that was what his people were also doing.
Lamentations 2:8 Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter
of Zion-
He has stretched out the line, He has not withdrawn His hand from
destroying-
He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together-
The Biblical record contains a large number of references to the
frequent tears of God’s people, both in bleeding hearts for other people,
and in recognition of their own sin. And as we have seen, these things are
related. Consider:
- “My eye pours out tears to God” [i.e. in repentance?]
(Job 16:20)
- Isaiah drenches Moab with tears (Is. 16:9)
- Jeremiah is a fountain of tears for his people (Jer. 9:1;
Lam. 2:8)
- David’s eyes shed streams of tears for his sins (Ps.
119:136; 6:6; 42:3)
- Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Mt. 23:37)
- Blessed are those who weep (Lk. 6:21)
- Mary washed the Lord’s feet with her tears (Lk. 7:36-50)
- Paul wept for the Ephesians daily (Acts 20:19,31).
We have to ask whether there are any tears, indeed any true emotion, in
our walk with our Lord. Those who go through life with dry eyes are surely
to be pitied. Surely, in the light of the above testimony, we are merely
hiding behind a smokescreen if we excuse ourselves by thinking that we’re
not the emotional type. Nobody can truly go through life humming to
themselves “I am a rock, I am an island…and an island never cries”. The
very emotional center of our lives must be touched. The tragedy of our
sin, the urgency of the world’s salvation, the amazing potential provided
and secured in the cross of Christ…surely we cannot be passive to these
things. We live in a world where emotion and passion are decreasing. Being
politically correct, looking right to others… these things are becoming of
paramount importance in all levels of society. The passionless,
postmodernist life can’t be for us, who have been moved and touched at our
very core by the work and call and love of Christ to us. For us there must
still be what Walter Brueggemann called “the gift of amazement”, that
ability to feel and say “Wow!” to God’s grace and plan of salvation for
us.
Lamentations 2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and
broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the nations where the
law is not; yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh- It was
little use lamenting that Israel were now amongst those who didn't live by
Yahweh's law; for they had despised that law, and broken it completely-
bearing in mind that it was the marriage contract between God and
themselves. The silence of Yahweh through the prophets is unsurprising.
And yet God had spoken at length through Jeremiah as a prophet. But here
he seems to mentally associate himself completely with the people in their
unGodly self lamentation.
Lamentations 2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground,
they keep silence; they have cast up dust on their heads; they have
clothed themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down
their heads to the ground- see on Job 2:12. The elders here are of
Zion rather than of Jerusalem, so perhaps the priesthood is in view.
Jeremiah had frequently denounced them, and they had plotted his death.
But now his heart bleeds for them- perhaps because as a priest he was
related to them. Their grief for the loss of their temple was real enough.
But they treated it as a mere talisman; Jeremiah had almost mocked their
attachment to it earlier, in
Jer. 7:4 Don’t trust in lying words by saying, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s
temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these". But now he feels so heartbroken for
those who thought and felt like that. His identification at this time is
completely with the people and not with the Divine, prophetic perspective.
And yet it was this identification with them which led him to spurn the
good life in Babylon and instead choose to live and die with the
impenitent people in Egypt. We too are caught between our natural
identification with humanity, and our knowledge of their sin and rejection
of God's ways.
Lamentations 2:11 My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; my
liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter
of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the
streets of the city- This and :12 appear to refer to the sufferings
of the people during the famine in the siege, which Jeremiah himself had
prophesied several times. His ministry had begun with the assurance that
his words would have the power of destruction; and he had been
psychologically strengthened for that ministry. But now the reality of
what he preached swamped him to the point of apparent regret he had had
anything to do with this destruction. The obvious, glaring point is that
the people had willfully ignored all his appeals for repentance, had
despised God's patience and grace- and so this had come because of that.
Lamentations 2:12 They ask their mothers for grain and wine, whilst they
swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, with their soul poured
out into their mothers’ bosom- We must remember that Jer. 7:11 and
several times in Ezekiel have convicted the people of offering
their children as sacrifices to idols in Yahweh's temple. The tragic
picture painted here of suffering children and distressed parents must be
balanced by that fact; a society who allowed that to happen and trusted in
those idols was now receiving an appropriate judgment. But Jeremiah
struggles with this. He focuses on the narrative formed by his own gut
reactions, rather than the prophetic word he had himself uttered.
Lamentations 2:13 What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you,
daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort
you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who
can heal you?-
Jeremiah earnestly wishes to comfort them, and is frustrated that he cannot- despite surely being aware of Isaiah's prophecy that Yahweh would comfort Zion at the restoration (s.w. Is. 51:3,12 "I, even I, am He that comforts you"; Is. 66:13 "so will I comfort you"; Is. 40:1; 49:13; 52:9). "Comfort" is the same word as "repent"; and God had said that He would repent (s.w.) if Judah repented (Jer. 18:8; 26:3). The real problem was that Judah had not repented, and Jeremiah refused to factor that into his feelings; see on Lam. 1:9.
Lamentations 2:14 Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish
visions; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity, but have
seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment- There were many false prophets at the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel;
when in fact the true word of prophecy could have 'turned away' the
captivity, if the exiles and the people left in Judah had responded to it
(Lam. 2:14). Indeed it could have been that Zedekiah returned as "the
prince" of the restored kingdom; see on Ez. 12:12. Ezekiel prophesied to
the exiles in Babylon of what was going to happen to the Jews still in the
land, exactly so that the exiles' repentance might avert those in the land
suffering further. An ameliorated program of judgment and events would
have been possible if they had repented.
This is one of many cases of self-justification in Lamentations (Lam. 1:2,19; Lam. 2:14; 4:13; 5:7), which contradicts the prophetic position, whereby blame is placed upon Judah, whereas now Jeremiah laments the situation as if Judah is being hard done by, with the masses suffering because of their false prophets- when Jeremiah himself has earlier said that the masses were as guilty as the false prophets, who only taught what the people wanted to hear.
The whole exile and return need never have happened- the prophecies of this need not have come true in the way they did, for even before the Babylonian invasion, Judah had been offered the prospect of eternally remaining in their land, if they repented (Jer. 7:7). And after it happened, Jeremiah commented: “Your prophets… did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity” (Lam. 2:14 NIV). It could have been ‘warded off’ by the peoples’ repentance. Note how Jeremiah, himself a prophet at the time, so wishes to take the blame upon himself for not pleading more powerfully with the people. Perhaps we will have similar feelings when the time of tribulation breaks forth in the very last days.
Lamentations 2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and
wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem saying, Is this the city that
men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole land?-
Jeremiah had foretold this (Jer. 19:8; 22:8), but now he seems stunned to
see it happen. And yet he was so certain of the fulfillments of the
prophecies that he often speaks in the past tense of those things which
were yet future.
Lamentations 2:16 All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against
you; 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!- But Jeremiah earlier had portrayed these enemies as the "lovers"
of Judah, to whom they had desperately prostituted themselves. They had
sought their help against Babylon, making exclusive covenants with each of
them, promising to worship their gods in the Jerusalem temple. And then
the lovers realized that they were not the exclusive love of Judah, and
therefore in anger turned against her and joined the Babylonians in
destroying the temple which symbolized her adultery and unfaithfulness,
both to God and man. But here again, Jeremiah is seeing things only from
the perspective of what is immediately before his eyes; all he saw was
these people as angry, exalting enemies. He shut his mind to the reasons
why and the background. He is really a case study of man in depression.
Clearly Solomon was disobedient, and so the promise that people would "hiss" at the temple would obviously be fulfilled (1 Kings 9:8). Yet Jeremiah laments bitterly that men were 'hissing' at the ruined temple (Lam. 2:15,16) and complains God has been unreasonable. Jeremiah had clearly failed to accept the real extent of Judah's sin, and had shared in David and Solomon's wilful misunderstanding that the temple would be eternal. He failed to accept that Divine judgment is just, because he devalued human sin. And that is the root cause for all human complaint about suffering in this world.
Lamentations 2:17 Yahweh has done that which He purposed; He has fulfilled
His word that He commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has
not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you- The purpose
of God to do these things had been expressed by Jeremiah himself. But he
somehow distances himself from that, saying that this was stated "in the
days of old". He imagines that it was the curses of Moses which were
coming true. And that was long ago; and likewise he must have seen his own
words of judgment as uttered as it were in another life, in olden days. He
had forgotten his own prophetic mission.
He has exalted the horn of your adversaries- "Exalted" is the Hebrew word which forms part of the name "Jeremiah", 'Yah will exalt'. Jeremiah in depression is as it were mocking his own name, which he had assumed meant that Yahweh would finally exalt Israel, when now it seemed He was exalting her enemies. For "thrown down", see on :2.
Lamentations 2:18 Their heart cried to the Lord: wall of the daughter of
Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no
respite; don’t let the apple of your eye cease- Here we see a
movement towards a more spiritual pole after the self absorption of the
previous verses. But he doesn't yet make explicit that the crying
to the Lord should be in repentance, not simply for relief from present
suffering.
Jeremiah wanted his
grief to be reflective of the grieving prayer of the remnant to their God:
“Cry aloud to the Lord! O wall of daughter Zion! Let tears stream down
like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no
respite!” (Lam. 2:18 RSV). His grief really was and is to be the pattern
for others. Doubtless it influenced the Lord Himself, who wept over Zion
(Lk. 19:41), inevitably holding Jeremiah in His mind.
Isaiah had prophesied that God would not rest until Zion be restored.
Watchmen would be set upon Zion’s walls who would give Him no rest until
the walls be rebuilt (Is. 62:1,6,7). At this time, Zion was felt by God to
be the “apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). This prophesy started to be
fulfilled straight after the Babylonian invasion when Jeremiah urged the
desolated people to pray: “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” (Lam. 2:18). The prayerful remnant gave themselves
no rest; and thus was fulfilled the prophecy that God would
have no rest. Sincere prayer according to God’s will meant that there was
a strange mutuality between the Father and those who prayed to Him. Both
He and they considered Zion to be the apple of their eye; and thus the
prayers were ultimately answered and Zion was restored.
Lamentations 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night, at 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 your young children, that faint
for hunger at the head of every street-
Uplifted hands spoke of intense prayer.
It is fitting that the Lord
died with hands and arms lifted up above his head, rather than spread out
in a crucifix form, seeing that uplifted hands is a symbol of God's
promises being confirmed (Ez. 20:5,6,15; 36:7; 47:14), as well as intense
prayer (Lam. 2:19; 1 Tim. 2:8; 2 Chron. 6:12,13; Ps. 28:2), which Christ
was engaged in on the cross (Heb. 5:7).
And yet the intense prayer was for the lives of their children, rather than in repentance. As the Lamentations progress, the desire to pray to God becomes more focused upon repentance, and comes to a climax at the very end in Lam. 5:16-21. Jeremiah had a lot to say about children in his prophecies, especially about the way the people offered their infants to the idols, and the way in which Zedekiah's refusal to repent would lead to the suffering of innocent children. Although Jeremiah is getting 'warmer' by appealing for prayer to God, he is still not asking for the repentance toward God which was so essential. But as the Lamentations progress, that will come.
Lamentations 2:20 Look, Yahweh, and see to whom You have done thus! Shall
the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?
Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?-
This seems a placing of false guilt on God. The Jeremiah prophecies
have repeatedly stated that judgment was really but an extension of the
things they themselves did. They had offered their children to Gentile
idols, and so their children would be slain by the Gentiles. The women
were driven to eating their children in the famine, but they had earlier
sacrificed their children to Baal. The prophets in view were the false
prophets, who were responsible for teaching Judah to sin; and who had
tried to murder Jeremiah. Jeremiah flips back into seeing things solely
from the point of view of human tragedy, without factoring in all the
background which he himself had been preaching for some years.
Lamentations 2:21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the
streets; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have
killed them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered, and not
pitied- This had been the specific fate predicted by Jeremiah for
their choosing to listen to false prophets rather than to him (Jer. 14:16).
Lamentations 2:22 You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my
terrors on every side; there was none that escaped or remained in the day
of Yahweh’s anger: those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy
consumed- Perhaps Jeremiah lost his own children, hence his
bitterness. But he could still be understood here as being totally
identified with his own people, feeling their suffering as if it were his
very own. Although in a sense he goes too far in this, his sense of
identity with his sinful people is in another sense commendable. Seeing he
had suffered so much from them and very nearly died at their hands, his
love and identity toward them is a reflection of a truly spiritual heart.
The terrors on every side were God's judgments on the people for how they
had treated Jeremiah. Jer. 20:10
"Terror
everywhere (GNB) / on every side" is one meaning of "Magormissabib "in
Jer. 20:3. The terror to come upon Judah was partly because of their
defamation of Jeremiah, who had spoken God's word to them.
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