2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob, and hath not spared; he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah: he hath brought [them] down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.
Thou hast covered thyself with anger, and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not spared.
Jehovah hath done what he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word which he had commanded from the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
And I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the ban, and Israel to reproaches.
And the fortress of the high defences of thy walls will he bring down, lay low, bring to the ground, into the dust.
And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense their way upon their head.
The child and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain [them] in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, thou hast not spared.
For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low, he layeth it low to the ground, he bringeth it even to the dust.
If Edom say, We are broken down, but we will build again the ruined places, -- thus saith Jehovah of hosts: They shall build, but I will throw down; and [men] shall call them the territory of wickedness, and the people against whom Jehovah hath indignation for ever.
shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-bondman, as *I* also had compassion on thee?
And Jehovah said to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and abstaineth from evil? and still he remaineth firm in his integrity, though thou movedst me against him, to swallow him up without cause.
whose possessors slay them without being held guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be Jehovah! for I am become rich; and their own shepherds pity them not. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah, and behold, I will deliver men, every one into his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his king; and they shall smite the land, and I will not deliver out of their hand.
And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and overthrow all thy strongholds. And I will cut off sorceries out of thy hand; and thou shalt have no soothsayers.
And I also will deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.
And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity; but I will bring thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah.
Wherefore, [as] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, verily because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also withdraw mine eye, and it shall not spare, nor will I have any pity.
And afterwards, saith Jehovah, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life, and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword: he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.
And I will dash them one against another, both the fathers and the sons together, saith Jehovah; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy so as not to destroy them.
Go up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end; take away her battlements, for they are not Jehovah's.
When its branches are withered they shall be broken off; women shall come [and] set them on fire. For it is a people of no intelligence; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will shew them no favour.
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.