Lamentations 2:21

21 CHSEN. The child and old man have lain down in the street: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity: thou hast slain with the sword and with famine; in the day of thy wrath thou hast mangled , thou has not spared.

Lamentations 2:21 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 2:21

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets
Young men and old men, virgins and aged women; these promiscuously lay on the ground in the public streets, fainting and dying for want of food; or lay killed there by the sword of the enemy; the Chaldeans sparing neither age nor sex. The Targum interprets it of their sleeping on the ground,

``young men slept on the ground in the villages, and old men who used to lie on pillows of fine wool, and on beds of ivory;''

but the former sense is confirmed by what follows: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
by the sword of the Chaldeans, when they entered the city: thou hast slain [them] in the day of thine anger: thou hast killed,
[and] not pitied;
the Chaldeans were only instruments; it was the Lord's doing; it was according to his will; it was what he had purposed and decreed; what he had solemnly declared and threatened; and now in his providence brought about, for the sins of the Jews, by which he was provoked to anger; and so gave them up into the hands of their enemies, to slay them without mercy; and which is here owned; the church takes notice of the hand of God in all this.

Lamentations 2:21 In-Context

19 KOPH. Arise, rejoice in the night at the beginning of thy watch: pour out thy heart as water before the face of the Lord; lift up thy hands to him for the life of thine infants, who faint for hunger at the top of all the streets.

20 RHECHS. Behold, O Lord, and see for whom thou has gathered thus. Shall the women eat the fruit of their womb? the cook has made a gathering: shall the infants sucking at the breasts be slain? wilt thou slay the priest and prophet in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 CHSEN. The child and old man have lain down in the street: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity: thou hast slain with the sword and with famine; in the day of thy wrath thou hast mangled , thou has not spared.

22 THAU. He has called my sojourners round about to a solemn day, and there was not in the day of the wrath of the Lord any one that escaped or was left; whereas I have strengthened and multiplied all mine enemies.