19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Selah.
With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you earnestly: for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Hannah answered, 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 Yahweh.
I rise before dawn and cry for help. I put my hope in your words. My eyes stay open through the night watches, That I might meditate on your word.
My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city. They tell 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.
Your 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 Yahweh, the rebuke of your God.
Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: A prayer to the God of my life.
They gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before Yahweh, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against Yahweh. Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.
For my sighing comes before I eat, My groanings are poured out like water.
In the fourth watch of the night,{The night was equally divided into four watches, so the fourth watch is approximately 3:00 A. M. to sunrise.} Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.
Early in the night, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there.
It happened in these days, that he went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God.
I desire therefore that the men in every place pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine on 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 cleaves to the roof of his mouth for thirst: The young children ask bread, and no man breaks it to them. Those who did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: Those who 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 on 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 cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
Let my prayer be set before you like incense; The lifting up of my hands like 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.