Lamentations 2:1-22. God's judgements upon the city. Lamentation. Supplication This ch., together with ch. 4, stands on a higher level of poetic merit than ch. 1, and the writer is almost certainly shewn by the graphic character of his language to have been an eye-witness of the wretchedness which... [ Continue Reading ]
_How_ See on ch. Lamentations 1:1. _the beauty of Israel_ possibly the Temple, as in Isaiah 64:2, or Jerusalem, but more naturally the illustrious ones of the nation (cp. "thy glory" in 2 Samuel 1:19), or even Israel as a whole, once high in the favour of Jehovah. _his footstool_ here again the Tem... [ Continue Reading ]
Löhr restores the triple metre by some condensation and transposition. _habitations_ The word is that which is used for the dwellings and pasture grounds of shepherds, and thus refers to the country parts of Judaea, as opposed to the fortresses, "strong holds," that follow. _hath profaned_ By thei... [ Continue Reading ]
Jehovah has (_a_) cut off the mighty ones of Israel, (_b_) withdrawn His own protection from His people, (_c_) taken the offensive against them. _all the horn_ mg. _every horn_, the horn being the symbol of power. _burned up Jacob_ He has carried destruction into the heart of the nation.... [ Continue Reading ]
Jehovah is likened to an archer (cp. Job 16:13), aiming His bow with deadly effect against the goodliest of the people. The metre is incomplete, a part of the third line having apparently been lost. We should (with Löhr) read as the second line, "And hath slain … daughter of Zion." _with his right... [ Continue Reading ]
_her palaces … his strong holds_ In "her" Jeremiah was thinking of the city, in "his" of the people at large; hence the change in the gender of the pronouns. _mourning and lamentation groaning and moaning_, or better (as Cheyne) _moaning and bemoaning_. The original words are substantives from the... [ Continue Reading ]
_And he hath violently … of a garden_ The expression is obscure. The natural sense of the Eng. would be that He has taken away His tabernacle (the Temple) out of Jerusalem as unconcernedly as a pleasure booth might be removed from a garden (cp. Job 27:18). But _as a garden_is a better rendering of t... [ Continue Reading ]
_her palaces_ As this word is nowhere else applied to the Temple, it seems best (though parallelism of clauses suggests otherwise) to give the expression its natural sense, as in Lamentations 2:5. Although the text seems to have suffered some corruption, no correction that can claim to be self-evide... [ Continue Reading ]
_stretched out the line_ i.e. marked for destruction. Cp. 2 Kings 21:13; Isaiah 34:2; Amos 7:7 ff. _destroying_ lit. as mg. _swallowing up_. _they languish together_ For the personification of rampart and wall cp. Lamentations 2:18 and Jeremiah 14:2.... [ Continue Reading ]
The walls were broken down and the gates removed (2 Kings 25:10; Jeremiah 52:14) to preclude rebellion. Cp. Ezra 4:12 ff.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Her gates, etc_.] The Targ. preserves a tradition that the enemy slew a pig and sprinkled the blood over them. _destroyed and broken_ One of the verbs must be struck out for the sake of metre. _Her king … from the Lord_ We should (correcting the Mass. punctuation) read the latter part of the secon... [ Continue Reading ]
In this and the two following _vv_. we have the picture of the state of things in Jerusalem after the king, etc. (Lamentations 2:9) had been carried into exile. The half-starving people are left behind in their sufferings. _They have cast up dust upon their heads_ Cp. 2 Samuel 13:19; Job 2:12. _sa... [ Continue Reading ]
_my bowels are troubled_ See on ch. Lamentations 1:20. _My liver is poured upon the earth_ The liver seems to have been looked upon, as were the rest of the vitals, as the seat of the emotions, and hence the expression in the text merely denotes strong and painful excitement. Cp. pouring out the he... [ Continue Reading ]
Lament over Zion's exposure to the mockery of her enemies.... [ Continue Reading ]
_corn and wine_ Omit "and wine," not only from the nature of the case, and for the sake of correct metre, but because the Heb. word is not that elsewhere used in combination with "corn." _their soul is poured out, etc_.] They swoon as the unhappy mother clasps them in her arms.... [ Continue Reading ]
_shall I testify unto thee_ or, as mg. _take to witness for thee_. If the MT. be right, we can only explain it as meaning, Of what shall I assure thee? But it is better, specially in view of the parallel clause, to read with an inconsiderable change in the original (_"e-ĕrôk_for _"ă-îdçk_), for "tes... [ Continue Reading ]
The thought that the false prophets are worthy of condemnation for buoying the people up with vain hopes is distinctly in Jeremiah's manner (cp. Ezekiel 12:24; Ezekiel 13:6 f., Ezekiel 22:28). It is true that we here wholly lack the vehement rebukes which he administered to the people and the priest... [ Continue Reading ]
_They hiss and wag their head_ expressions denoting amazement mixed with contempt. Cp. Jeremiah 18:16; 2 Kings 19:21; Job 27:23; Psalms 22:7; Zephaniah 2:15. _that men called_ These words (as Löhr, following J. D. Michaelis, points out) should for metrical reasons be omitted. _The perfection of bea... [ Continue Reading ]
For the inverted order of the initial letters in the Heb. of this and the next _v_., see Intr., p. 321. _All thine enemies … against thee_ almost identical with Lamentations 3:46. Löhr refers for the expression to Psalms 22:13; Psalms 35:21. _gnash the teeth_ in fierce hatred. Cp. Psalms 35:16; Ps... [ Continue Reading ]
_fulfilled_ mg. _finished_. Cp. the same Heb. verb in Isaiah 10:12 "perform." _in the days of old_ That which had happened was in fulfilment of the warnings of Leviticus 26:14 ff., Deuteronomy 28:15, as well as of the prophets. _He hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries_ See on Lamentations 2:3... [ Continue Reading ]
"Their" has no antecedent, and the beginning of the _v_. is evidently corrupt in its harsh combination of assertion and exhortation, although the corruption, supported as it is by LXX and Syr. (so Vulg.), must be of long standing. The best emendation seems to be that of Ewald, who has the imperative... [ Continue Reading ]
The _v_. consists of _four_lines. Ewald and Budde (followed by Löhr) conclude independently that the last is a gloss suggested by Lamentations 2:12. _at the beginning of the watches_ i.e. of each watch. In New Testament times the Jews had adopted the Roman division of the night into four watches of... [ Continue Reading ]
Here begins the prayer made in response to the prophet's exhortation. The questions are rhetorical and mean (although the verbs are in the future), Wilt thou look with unconcern at the things which _have been_done? For the state of things (foretold Jeremiah 19:9; Deuteronomy 28:53) cp. 2 Kings 6:25-... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side_ i.e. Jehovah has summoned for my destruction the sword, famine, and pestilence. For the comparison with a solemn assembly cp. Lamentations 2:7; Lamentations 1:15. The LXX (and similarly Targ.) render instead of "terrors... [ Continue Reading ]