Lamentations 2

of his people (Jer. 9:1, 18; 13:17; 14:17), but they wouldn’t listen to God’s Word.

Once again, the sufferers called out for any passing stranger to show them sympathy and bring them help (v. 18), but nobody could save them. The rulers of Judah had sought help from their Gentile allies, especially Egypt and Assyria, but their friends and lovers had failed them and did not keep their promises. Isaiah had told them not to trust Egypt (Isa. 31), and Jeremiah had echoed that same message (Jer. 2:18, 36). What a tragedy it is when God’s people look to the world for help instead of seeking the face of the Lord!

The Babylonian soldiers had no mercy for religious leaders, like the priests, or for older people, like the elders (v. 19; 2:10; 4:16; 5:12, 14). The priests were fed from the offerings of the people, but there could be no more offerings; and the elders were cared for by the younger people who had either been slain or deported to Babylon. All this was a fulfillment of the warnings in the covenant (Deut. 28:32, 50). Food became so scarce that mothers killed and ate their own children!

The prayer of the city (vv. 20–22). Each of the first three chapters ends with a prayer (1:20–22; 2:20–22; 3:50–66), and the entire fifth chapter is a prayer. The sufferers had cried out to God, “O Lord, behold my affliction” (v. 9), and to the passersby, “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow” (v. 12), and now they pray, “Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress” (v. 20). They were tormented in their bodies, but even more in their hearts, for they had sinned. If they left the city, they would be slain by the sword; if they remained in the city, they would starve to death. (See Ezek. 7, especially v. 15.) Not only did Judah’s allies (“lovers, friends”) refuse to help them, but they even rejoiced that the kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem had been taken by the Babylonians. (See Ps. 35:15; Jer. 48:27; 50:11.)

Their prayer was that the Lord would “bring the day that He had announced” through the prophets, the day when Babylon would be defeated (Isa. 13—14; Jer. 50—51). But this prayer may also include God’s promise that after seventy years, the Jews would be set free from captivity and allowed to return to their land and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple (Jer. 25:1–14; see Dan. 9:20–27). Now that they were in trouble, the Jews were turning back to God’s Word. It’s too bad they didn’t pay attention to that Word much earlier and keep the trouble from coming! “Do to them as you have done to us!” is not exactly a Christian prayer, but it represented their true feelings (see Ps. 137:7–9).

That the God of Israel would ever permit the Gentiles, and especially the Babylonians, to enter and destroy Jerusalem and the temple was something inconceivable to the Jewish people (see Hab. 1). By ignoring the covenant and depending on the presence of the temple and its sacred furnishings, especially the ark, the leaders and most of the people had replaced living faith with dead superstition. However, this was not the first time Jerusalem had been invaded. As a warning to His sinful people, the Lord had allowed other enemies to enter the city and plunder it: Egypt (1 Kings 14:25–26; 2 Kings 23:31–35), Israel, the northern kingdom (2 Kings 14:13–14; 2 Chron. 25:22–24), and the Philistines and Arabs (2 Chron. 21:16–17). Had Israel listened to her prophets and returned to the Lord, she would have been spared the humiliation and suffering of destruction and deportation.

The cloud of anger (vv. 1–9). In the previous chapter, we found the word anger only once (v. 12), but in this chapter the word comfort is found only one time (v. 13), while anger and wrath are found eight times (vv. 1 [twice], 2, 3, 4, 6, 21, 22). The nation had once followed a cloud of glory in the wilderness (Ex. 13:21), and the glory of God had filled the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34) and the temple (1 Kings 8:11); but now God had sent them a cloud of His anger. Not only was there a storm cloud of judgment, but Zion was cast down like a falling star, thrown down her buildings and walls and brought down the nation and its leaders (vv. 1–2). “His footstool” refers not only to Zion itself (Ps. 99:5, 9) but also to the temple (Ps. 132:7) and the ark of the covenant, the throne of God that stood in the Holy of Holies (1 Chron. 28:2).

God also put a cloud between Himself and His people so that their prayers would not reach Him (3:44). He had told Jeremiah not to pray for the people because they were so wicked that they were beyond his intercession (Jer. 7:16; 11:14; 14:11). In fact, it was futile for them even to pray for themselves (11:11). God had dishonored (“polluted”) His people and their leaders in a way that couldn’t be hidden. All the nations could see what the Lord had done to the people and the city.

“Every horn” in verse 3 means “every strength,” that is, everything that Israel trusted: their king, their leaders, their walled city, and even their religion. The “right hand of God” represents His great power (Ex. 15:6, 12; Ps. 17:7; 44:3; 74:11), but that power had been withdrawn. Instead of using His right hand to defeat the enemy, God used it to chasten His people (v. 4). God “swallowed up” His people in terrible judgment (vv. 2, 5), although the attacking nations took credit for the victory (v. 16).

Jeremiah described the destruction of the buildings, especially the palaces, strongholds, and the temple itself (v. 5). The Babylonians treated the temple like a booth in a garden and not like the dwelling place of the Lord, but the Jews hadn’t done much better. They polluted the sanctuary by their sin and hypocrisy (Isa. 1), and this led to the destruction of the temple. The altar and other furnishings were gone, the priests were gone, and there could be no more observance of the high and holy days. The outer and inner walls of the city, and the city gates, were destroyed as well. When the Jews built their temple, they used measuring lines to be sure they were accurately following God’s plans, but now the Lord had used a measuring line to be just as accurate in destroying the temple and the city (Isa. 28:17; Amos 7:7–8).

The summary in verse 9 declares that the Jews had lost everything that was precious to them: the gates and walls, the leaders, the law, and the prophets. God sent no vision to the people to show them what to do. How gracious God had been to His people in giving them so many blessings (Rom. 9:1–5)! But they had taken these blessings for granted and now had lost them.

The suffering people (vv. 10–17). Both old (elders) and young (virgins), male and female, felt the suffering together. Instead of sitting at the gate in honor and managing the affairs of the city, the elders sat on the ground as in mourning, too overwhelmed to utter a word. The virgins (1:4) walked about in sorrow, with their eyes to the ground, knowing that they would never be married and have children. As Jeremiah beheld the suffering of the little children in the streets, he was consumed with agony and wept copiously. (See 4:3,6, 10.) If Israel had obeyed the covenant, there would have been no invasion and the people would have enjoyed plenty of food and drink (Deut. 28:1–14; Lev. 26:1–13). But now there was a famine so severe, the mothers even killed and ate their own children (Lam. 4:10; Deut. 28:56–57).

The suffering was so intense that the prophet ran out of things to say and comparisons to make (v. 13). He could neither comfort the people nor himself. God would have buried the nation’s sins in the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:19), but instead, their wound was as deep as the sea and incurable. What had caused such calamity and tragedy? The spiritual leaders had given the people a false message and they had believed it (v. 14; 4:13). For forty years, Jeremiah had openly opposed the false prophets who proclaimed, “Peace, peace when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14; 8:11). They preached a popular message that the people wanted to hear (5:12; 14:13–16; 27:8–9; 28:1–17), while Jeremiah proclaimed the true message of the Lord and was rejected and persecuted. Jeremiah compared the false prophets to deceitful physicians (6:14; 8:11), empty wind (5:13), peddlers of chaff (23:28), selfish shepherds (23:1–4), and toxic people spreading deadly infection (23: niv).

The false prophets refused to expose the sins of the people and call the nation to repentance. The prophet Ezekiel, with the captives in Babylon, compared them to men who whitewashed the wall instead of exposing its weaknesses and repairing it (Ezek. 13:10–16; 22:28). But even today we have religious leaders like these false prophets, people who want to be popular with the crowd instead of pleasing to God. Instead of getting their messages from God’s Word, they dream up their own messages and lead people astray. Jesus called them “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 7:15) and Paul used similar language (Acts 20:28–31).

One of the deepest cuts of all was the mockery of the Gentiles who walked past the devastated city (vv. 16–17). The Jews were proud of Jerusalem and called it “the perfection of beauty” (v. 15; Ps. 48:2; 50:2; Ezek. 16:14), but now it was a heap of rubble. The Gentiles vented their hatred against the Jews. “This is the day we have waited for,” they shouted jubilantly, forgetting that God promised to curse all those who cursed His people (Gen. 12:1–3). All that the pious Jews could reply was, “The Lord has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His word which He commanded in days of old” (v. 17 nkjv). Israel knew the terms of the covenant and had violated them. Now they were paying the price of having their own way and rejecting the messengers of the Lord.

The plea for help (vv. 18–22). But God’s people don’t live on explanations; they live on promises. The people knew they were guilty of breaking the covenant, so all they could do was turn to the Lord and cry out to Him. The promise of forgiveness and restoration was also a part of God’s covenant (Lev. 26:27–29; Deut. 28:53–57; 30:1–10), and seventy years later, God would bring His people back to their land (Jer. 25:1–14; Dan. 9:1ff.). Meanwhile, all they could do was cry out for mercy to the God whose Word they had spurned.

The sight of the suffering children broke their hearts, because it’s the children who too often suffer most from the sins of the parents. The priests and prophets had sinned, and many of them were slain; but the children were innocent and deserved no punishment. Israel was suffering in the day of God’s anger because they had sinned away the day of God’s grace. God was calling various terrors to come to Jerusalem, just as if He were inviting them to a feast. The feast was an image of judgment. (See Jer. 51:39; Ezek. 39:17–20; Rev. 19:17–21.) The people were starving, but God’s terrors were feasting on the people.

God’s ear is open to the cries of His people, but He doesn’t answer until His hand is finished with the discipline He promised (Heb. 12). “The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:30–31).