Lamentations 2:4

4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow; With His right hand, like an adversary, He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye; On the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire.

Lamentations 2:4 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 2:4

He hath bent his bow like an enemy
God sometimes appears as if he was an enemy to his people, when he is not, by his conduct and behaviour; by the dispensations of his providence they take him to be so, as Job did, ( Job 16:9 Job 16:10 Job 16:13 Job 16:14 ) ; he bends his bow, or treads it, for the bending or stretching the bow was done by the foot; and as the Targum,

``and threw his arrows at me:''
he stood with his right hand as an adversary;
with arrows in it, to put into his bow or with his sword drawn, as an adversary does. The Targum is,
``he stood at the right hand of Nebuchadnezzar and helped him, when he distressed his people Israel:''
and slew all [that were] pleasant to the eye;
princes and priests, husbands and wives, parents and children, young men and maids; desirable to their friends and relations, and to the commonwealth: in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury like
fire;
that is, either in the temple, or in the city of Jerusalem, or both, which were burnt with fire, as the effect of divine wrath and fury; and which itself is comparable to fire; like a burning lamp of fire, as the Targum; or rather like a burning furnace or mountain; see ( Nahum 1:6 ) .

Lamentations 2:4 In-Context

2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied All the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in His wrath The strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger Every horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand From before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire Devouring all around.
4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow; With His right hand, like an adversary, He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye; On the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds, And has increased mourning and lamentation In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence to His tabernacle, As if it were a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly; The Lord has caused The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion. In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.