19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
Trust in him at all times, ye people; Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah
With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee earnestly: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before Jehovah.
I anticipated the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy words. Mine eyes anticipated the night-watches, That I might meditate on thy word.
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God.
`Yet' Jehovah will command his lovingkindness in the day-time; And in the night his song shall be with me, `Even' a prayer unto the God of my life.
So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outermost part of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, when they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake in pieces the pitchers that were in their hands.
And they gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before Jehovah, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against Jehovah. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.
For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.
And in the fourth watch of the night he came unto them, walking upon the sea.
And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose up and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed.
And it came to pass in these days, that he went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God.
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary, And bless ye Jehovah.
I desire therefore that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and disputing.
when I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread;
How is the gold become dim! `how' is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid upon her. Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
Let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee; The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Lamentations 2
Commentary on Lamentations 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
The second alphabetical elegy is set to the same mournful tune with the former, and the substance of it is much the same; it begins with Ecah, as that did, "How sad is our case! Alas for us!'
The hand that wounded must make whole.
Lam 2:1-9
It is a very sad representation which is here made of the state of God's church, of Jacob and Israel, of Zion and Jerusalem; but the emphasis in these verses seems to be laid all along upon the hand of God in the calamities which they were groaning under. The grief is not so much that such and such things are done as that God has done them, that he appears angry with them; it is he that chastens them, and chastens them in wrath and in his hot displeasure; he has become their enemy, and fights against them; and this, this is the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery.
Lam 2:10-22
Justly are these called Lamentations, and they are very pathetic ones, the expressions of grief in perfection, mourning and woe, and nothing else, like the contents of Ezekiel's roll, Eze. 2:10.