Lamentations 2:1-11

Judgment on Jerusalem

Alef

1 How the Lord has overshadowed Daughter Zion with His anger! He has thrown down Israel's glory from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool^[a][b] in the day of His anger.^[c]

Bet

2 Without compassion^[d] the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities^[e] of Daughter Judah. He brought [them] to the ground and defiled the kingdom and its leaders.^[f]

Gimel

3 He has cut off every horn^[g] of Israel in His burning anger and withdrawn His right hand in the presence of the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything [in its path].

Dalet

4 Like an enemy He has bent His bow;^[h] His right hand is positioned like an adversary. He has killed everyone who was loved,^[i] pouring out His wrath like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion.

He

5 The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all its palaces and destroyed its fortified cities. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation within Daughter Judah.^[j]

Vav

6 He has done violence to His temple^[k] as if [it were] a garden [booth], destroying His place of meeting.^[l] The Lord has abolished appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion. He has despised king and priest in His fierce anger.

Zayin

7 The Lord has rejected His altar, repudiated His sanctuary;^[m] He has handed the walls of her palaces over to the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed festival.

Khet

8 The Lord determined to destroy the wall of Daughter Zion. He stretched out a measuring line^[n] and did not restrain Himself from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls grieve; together they waste away.

Tet

9 Zion's gates have fallen to the ground;^[o] He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her [gates]. Her king and her leaders [live] among the nations, instruction^[p] is no more, and even her prophets receive no vision from the Lord.^[q]

Yod

10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads^[r] and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.^[s]

Kaf

11 My eyes are worn out from weeping;^[t] I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief^[u][v] because of the destruction of my dear people,^[w] because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

Lamentations 2:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 2

This chapter contains another alphabet, in which the Prophet Jeremiah, or those he represents, lament the sad condition of Jerusalem; the destruction of the city and temple, and of all persons and things relative to them, and to its civil or church state; and that as being from the hand of the Lord himself, who is represented all along as the author thereof, because of their sins, La 2:1-9; and then the elders and virgins of Zion are represented as in great distress, and weeping for those desolations; which were very much owing to the false prophets, that had deceived them, La 2:10-14; and all this occasioned great rejoicing in the enemies of Zion, La 2:15-17; but sorrow of heart to Zion herself, who is called to weeping, La 2:18,19; and the chapter is concluded with an address to the Lord, to take this her sorrowful case into consideration, and show pity and compassion, La 2:20-22.

Footnotes

• [a] Either the ark of the covenant or the temple
• [b] 1 Ch 28:2; Ps 99:5; 132:7
• [c] Jb 20:28; Ps 110:5; Zph 2:2-3
• [d] Lm 3:43; Jb 16:13; Ezk 8:18
• [e] Isa 2:12,15
• [f] Ps 89:39; Isa 43:28; 47:6
• [g] Ps 75:5,10; Jr 48:25
• [h] Lm 3:12; Ps 7:12
• [i] Lit killed all the delights of the eye; Ezk 24:16
• [j] Isa 29:2
• [k] Lit booth
• [l] Ps 74:4
• [m] Ps 89:39
• [n] 2 Kg 21:13; Isa 28:17; 34:11,17
• [o] Neh 1:3; Jr 14:2
• [p] Or the law
• [q] Ezk 7:26; Mc 3:6
• [r] Jos 7:6; Jb 2:12; Ezk 27:30
• [s] Jb 10:15; Isa 58:5
• [t] Ps 69:3
• [u] Lit My liver is poured out on the ground
• [v] Ps 22:14
• [w] Lm 3:48