Lamentations 2:21

21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; thou hast slain [them] in the day of thy anger; thou hast killed, [and] not pitied.

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 out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands towards him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; thou hast slain [them] in the day of thy anger; thou hast killed, [and] not pitied.

22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors around, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up, hath my enemy consumed.