Lamentations 2:21

21 On the ground in the streets Lie 1young and old; My 2virgins and my young men Have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered, 3not sparing.

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 "Arise, cry aloud in the night At the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water Before the presence of the Lord ; Lift up your hands to Him For the life of your little ones Who are faint because of hunger At the head of every street."
20 See, O LORD , and look! With whom have You dealt thus? Should women eat their offspring, The little ones who were born healthy? Should priest and prophet be slain In the sanctuary of the Lord ?
21 On the ground in the streets Lie young and old; My virgins and my young men Have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered, not sparing.
22 You called as in the day of an appointed feast My terrors on every side; And there was no one who escaped or survived In the day of the LORD'S anger. Those whom I bore and reared, My enemy annihilated them.

Cross References 3

  • 1. 2 Chronicles 36:17; Jeremiah 6:11
  • 2. Psalms 78:62, 63
  • 3. Jeremiah 13:14; Zechariah 11:6
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