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© Family Times | About Us | Donate | Contact Us
Search for sermons by: Commentaries | Scripture search | Topics
Lamentations 2:1–10
» View this passage in NIV (Bible Gateway)
As a passenger boarded the Los Angeles-to-New York plane, he told the flight attendant to wake him and make sure he got off in Dallas. The passenger awoke just as the plane was landing in New York. Furious, he called the flight attendant and demanded an explanation. The fellow mu … More
Charles Swindoll has appropriately titled this chapter “Words from the Woodshed.” The first 10 verses depict the anger of God as He systematically destroys the city in judgement. The destruction included the physical dwellings (v. 2), palaces (vv. 5,7) and strongholds (vv. 2,5), but it also included its leaders, her kingdom and its princes (v. 2). The leadership was devastated by Babylon; God removed all those to whom the people looked for guidance and leadership. Because of this destruction God seemed to Judah like a fire (vv. 3-4). Just as the walls around Jerusalem were destroyed (vv. 8-9a) her human wall of leadership was dismantles (vv. 9b-10). The king and her priests were exiled, the Davidic dynasty was removed from its throne.
Their suffering is excruciating, their agony is beyond description. Dark clouds of divine indignation have covered them. Their beauty has vanished (v. 1). Their strongholds have been pitilessly torn downs (v. 2). God has allowed their enemies to advance unmolested, for His anger against Judah burns like fire (v. 3). The Lord is Himself her fiery foe (v. 4). He leveled her palaces and strongholds and caused mourning (v. 5). He abhorred and ruined her temple, abolished her feasts and despised her rulers (vv. 6-7).
He demolished Jerusalem’s walls, dismantled her gates and broke down her bars (vv. 8-9). Because of His anger she had been taken into captivity, her laws had become meaningless, her prophets had proved futile (v. 9), her elders were in despair and her virgins were disgraced (v. 10). The humiliation of Judah, which had been a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex 19:6), was how reduced to a position below all the other nations. As a consuming fire (Heb 12:29, Deut 4:24) the Lord had taken away every means of both offense and defense available to the kingdom (v. 3).
Application
God was not Judah’s enemy, but he couldn’t permit her wickedness to go unchecked. Neither will he allow my sins to go unchecked without my paying the consequences.
Lamentations 2:1-10 (English Standard Version)
How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers. He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around. He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire. The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the LORD has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest. The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the LORD as on the day of festival. The LORD determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
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