10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence; they have cast dust upon their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their head to the ground.
and her gates shall lament and mourn; and, stripped, she shall sit upon the ground.
In their streets they are girded with sackcloth; on their roofs, and in their broadways, every one howleth, melted into tears.
And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept. And they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward the heavens. And they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights; and none spoke a word to him; for they saw that [his] anguish was very great.
And the songs of the palace shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah. The dead bodies shall be many; in every place they shall be cast forth. Silence!
And they shall gird on sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly: all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are in grief; and as for her, she is in bitterness.
How doth the city sit solitary [that] was full of people! She that was great among the nations is become as a widow; the princess among the provinces is become tributary!
And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of Jehovah until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, and threw dust upon their heads.
In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst;
And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her vest of many colours which was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went away, crying out as she went.
Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in this time; for it is an evil time.
And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird themselves with sackcloth; and they shall weep for thee in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning.
The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.
The face of Jehovah hath divided them; he will no more regard them. They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the aged.
They that fed delicately are desolate in the streets; they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dung-hills.
Sit silent, and get thee into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called, Mistress of kingdoms.
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.