9 Sunk into the earth have her gates, He hath destroyed and broken her bars, Her king and her princes `are' among the nations, There is no law, also her prophets Have not found vision from Jehovah.
For many days remain do the sons of Israel without a king, and there is no prince, and there is no sacrifice, and there is no standing pillar, and there is no ephod and teraphim.
Mischief on mischief cometh, and report is on report, And they have sought a vision from a prophet, And law doth perish from the priest, And counsel from the elders,
and many days `are' to Israel without a true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law,
Therefore a night ye have without vision, And darkness ye have without divination, And gone in hath the sun on the prophets, And black over them hath been the day. And ashamed have been the seers, And confounded have been the diviners, And covered their lip have all of them, For their is no answer, O God.
Lo, days are coming, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, And I have sent a famine into the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water But of hearing the words of Jehovah. And they have wandered from sea unto sea, And from north even unto east, They go to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, And they do not find.
Ceased have the mighty of Babylon to fight, They have remained in strongholds, Failed hath their might, they have become woman, They have burnt her tabernacles, Broken have been her bars.
Our ensigns we have not seen, There is no more a prophet, Nor with us is one knowing how long.
And I have spread My net for him, and he hath been caught in My snare, and I have brought him in to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, and it he doth not see -- and there doth he die.
And I have spread out for him My snare, And he hath been caught in My net, And I have brought him in to Babylon, And pleaded with him there his trespass, That he hath trespassed against Me.
and Jehoiachin king of Judah goeth out unto the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his chiefs, and his eunuchs, and the king of Babylon taketh him in the eighth year of his reign, and bringeth out thence all the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the house of the king, and cutteth in pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon king of Israel made in the temple of Jehovah, as Jehovah had spoken. And he hath removed all Jerusalem, and all the chiefs, and all the mighty ones of valour -- ten thousand `is' the removal -- and every artificer and smith, none hath been left save the poor of the people of the land. And he removeth Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the mother of the king, and the wives of the king, and his eunuchs, and the mighty ones of the land -- he hath caused a removal to go from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the men of valour seven thousand, and the artificers and the smiths a thousand, the whole `are' mighty men, warriors; and the king of Babylon bringeth them in a captivity to Babylon.
The breath of our nostrils -- the anointed of Jehovah, Hath been captured in their pits, of whom we said: `In his shadow we do live among nations.'
`Turn aside -- unclean,' they called to them, `Turn aside, turn aside, touch not,' For they fled -- yea, they have wandered, They have said among nations: `They do not add to sojourn.'
and all the walls of Jerusalem round about broken down have all the forces of the Chaldeans that `are' with the chief of the executioners.
And the forces of the Chaldeans pursue after the king, and overtake Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his forces have been scattered from him, and they capture the king, and bring him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah, in the land of Hamath, and he speaketh with him -- judgments.
in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, in the ninth of the month, hath the city been broken up;
And Jehovah saith unto me: Falsehood the prophets are prophesying in My name, I did not send them, nor command them, Nor have I spoken unto them: A false vision, and divination, and vanity, And the deceit of their own heart, they are prophesying to you.
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.