Lamentations 2:8

8 God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion. He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it. Total demolition! The stones wept!

Lamentations 2:8 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 2:8

The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of
Zion
Either the wall of the city, as Aben Ezra; or the wall that encompassed the temple, and all the outward courts of it, as Dr. Lightfoot ^F19 thinks; this the Lord had determined to destroy, and according to his purposes did destroy it, or suffer it to be demolished; and so all were laid open for the enemy to enter: he hath stretched out a line;
a line of destruction, to mark out how far the destruction should go, and bow much should be laid in ruins; all being as exactly done, according to the purpose and counsel of God, as if it was done by line and rule; see ( Isaiah 34:11 ) ; he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying;
till he made a full end of the city and temple, as he first designed: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament:
the "chel" and the wall; all that space between the courts of the temple and the wall that surrounded it was called the "chel"; and so the Targum, the circumference or enclosure; and these were laid waste together, and so said to lament: according to others they were two walls, a wall the son of a wall, as Jarchi interprets it; an outward and an inward wall, one higher than another; a low wall over against a high wall; which was as a rampart or bulwark, for the strength and support of it: they languished together;
or fell together, as persons in a fit faint away and full to the ground.

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FOOTNOTES:

F19 Prospect of the Temple, c. 17. p. 1089.

Lamentations 2:8 In-Context

6 He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous. God wiped out Zion's memories of feast days and Sabbaths, angrily sacked king and priest alike.

7 God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple and turned the fortifications over to the enemy. As they cheered in God's Temple, you'd have thought it was a feast day!

8 God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion. He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it. Total demolition! The stones wept!

9 Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble: her kings and princes off to exile - no one left to instruct or lead; her prophets useless - they neither saw nor heard anything from God.

10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground. They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap - the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.