Ekhah 2:4

4 He hath bent His keshet (bow) like an oyev; He took His stand with His right hand as an adversary, and slaughtered all that were pleasant to the eye in the ohel Bat Tziyon; He poured out His fury like eish.

Ekhah 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 ) .

Ekhah 2:4 In-Context

2 Adonoi hath swallowed up all the habitations of Ya’akov, and hath not pitied; He hath torn down in His Wrath the strongholds of Bat Yehudah; He hath brought them down to the ground; chillel (He hath defiled) the mamlachah and the sarim (princes) thereof.

3 He hath cut off in His fierce anger kol keren Yisroel; He hath drawn back His right hand from before the oyev, and He burned against Ya’akov like a flaming eish, which devoureth all around.

4 He hath bent His keshet (bow) like an oyev; He took His stand with His right hand as an adversary, and slaughtered all that were pleasant to the eye in the ohel Bat Tziyon; He poured out His fury like eish.

5 Adonoi was like an oyev; He hath swallowed up Yisroel, He hath swallowed up all her armonot (palaces); He hath destroyed His strongholds, and hath increased in Bat Yehudah mourning and lamentation.

6 And He hath violently destroyed His sukkah, as if it were of a gan (garden); He hath laid waste His Mo’ed; Hashem hath caused Mo’ed and Shabbos to be forgotten in Tziyon, and in the indignation of His anger hath spurned Melech and Kohen.