Lamentations 2: 1 – 22
How can I comfort you?
1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel and did not remember His footstool in the day of His anger. 2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. 3 He has cut off in fierce anger every horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire devouring all around. 4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow; With His right hand, like an adversary, He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye; On the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire. 5 The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds and has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah. 6 He has done violence to His tabernacle, as if it were a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly; The LORD has caused the appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion. In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest. 7 The Lord has spurned His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD as on the day of a set feast. 8 The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying; Therefore, He has caused the rampart and wall to lament; They languished together. 9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The Law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD. 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground and keep silence; They throw dust on their heads and gird themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground. 11 My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My bile is poured on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the infants faint in the streets of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they swoon like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out in their mothers’ bosom. 13 How shall I console you? To what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is spread wide as the sea; Who can heal you? 14 Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions. 15 All who pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that is calle ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?” 16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have waited for; We have found it, we have seen it!” 17 The LORD has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His word which He commanded in days of old. He has thrown down and has not pitied, and He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the horn of your adversaries. 18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief; Give your eyes no rest. 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 your hands toward Him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.” 20 “See, O LORD, and consider! To whom have You done this? Should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? Should the priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 “Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered and not pitied. 22 “You have invited as to a feast day the terrors that surround me. In the day of the LORD’s anger there was no refugee or survivor. Those whom I have borne and brought up my enemies have destroyed.”
When things go wrong, many people turn to their friends for comfort and support. Are you the kind of person your friends trust to be there for them when they’re feeling down? If you aren’t sure, don’t worry – comforting people is a skill that you can learn. You might feel awkward or nervous about comforting a sad friend at first, but with a little practice, you won’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing or making the situation worse. When one of your friends is upset, help them by being there for them, finding the right things to say, and avoiding common mistakes.
Comfort your friend according to how upset they seem to be. If they seem to be very troubled, it may take more effort on your part to help them. If something is bothering them, but they aren’t too upset, be there for them without overreacting. If they are in a critical state encourage them to see their doctor.
You might upset your friend further if you overreact or under-react to their problem, so use their behavior as your guide for how to proceed.
Find out what’s wrong. Before you say anything, try to figure out what the problem is. This will help you know what to say and what not to say. If you try to talk to your friend without knowing the situation first, you could end up with your foot in your mouth. Say something like, “What’s going on?” or, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
If your friend is too upset to talk, don’t push them for an explanation. Just stay with them until they calm down. Your presence will be comforting, even if you don’t say much.
Give your friend a hug. A kind touch will do wonders for your friend, even if you don’t know what they’re upset about. You can also put your arm around your friend or pat them gently on the shoulder. If your friend doesn’t like hugs, don’t force one. Just sit near them and keep them company. Say something like, “I’ll just sit here with you.”
Let your friend vent. If your friend needs to get their sadness or anger out, let them. Pay attention and don’t interrupt. Encourage them to express themselves fully. For instance, you could say, “Tell me more about that,” or, “How does that make you feel?” During pauses, you might add something like, “I’m listening.”
Your friend needs someone to listen compassionately to them, so focus on doing that. Be patient and non-judgmental. Encourage them to keep talking as long as they need to. Don’t act bored or try to change the subject.
Put your phone on silent mode so you and your friend won’t be interrupted. If you need to get to an appointment or you’re not in a good environment to talk, gently let your friend know by saying something like, “I think we should talk somewhere else,” or, “Can we continue this later? I need to go somewhere, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Make sure your friend understands that you really do want to listen to them.
What should you do if your friend is too upset to tell you what's wrong? Keep trying to get them to tell you. If your friend is too upset to tell you what happened, repeated attempts to get them to open up aren't going to be helpful. Trust that your friend will talk to you when they can, and for now, don't push it.
Leaving your friend alone for a while may seem like the easiest—or even the kindest—thing to do, but unless they indicate that you should leave, it's better to stick around. Your friend could use your support.
Unless your friend tells you to leave, just stay quietly with them until they calm down. Having someone there who cares about them can be helpful even if you don't talk.
Empathize with your friend. Try to put yourself in your friend’s shoes, and let your friend know that you understand their emotions.
Don’t say “I know how you feel” to someone who’s upset, since that can seem dismissive. Even if you really do empathize with your friend, saying that you know how they feel can be dismissive of their feelings. Instead, try to affirm that it's okay for them to feel the specific emotions they're dealing with.
It's possible that you went through something practically identical to what's going on with your friend. Even then, though, a blanket comparison of the two situations isn't that helpful. If all you say is that you know how your friend feels, you're not shifting the conversational focus. You should avoid talking about yourself in general when comforting a friend, though. Derailing the conversation with a story about yourself won’t solve your friend’s problems – it will just make them feel like you aren’t listening to them.
Keep the advice to yourself also. You can’t solve your friend’s problems for them, as much as you might want to. Offering advice might also make your friend feel like you’re brushing their feelings aside. Focus on helping them feel understood and supported instead. It’s fine to offer advice if your friend asks for it. Just don’t push your ideas on them when they’re feeling miserable.
Ask your friend what they need. If you don’t know how to help your friend, ask. Tell them that you want them to feel better and you’re willing to do whatever they need. Say something like, “What do you need from me right now?” or “How can I help?”
Some people don’t like asking others for favors or support. If your friend is like this, take the initiative so they don’t have to ask. Offer to get together again soon. For instance, say, “I’ll call you when I get home tonight, OK?”
Don’t feel like you must talk. If your friend isn’t talking much, don’t feel pressured to fill in the silences, especially if nothing you say will make the situation better. Just sitting quietly with your friend will help them feel supported.
Tell your friend it’s OK to cry if they need to. Sometimes crying is more cathartic than talking.
Avoid trivializing your friend’s pain. Don’t dismiss your friend’s feelings or resort to using clichés, even if you don’t know what to tell them. Saying something like, “Everything happens for a reason,” or, “Come on, it’s not so bad,” will only make your friend feel worse. Take their sadness seriously and, if you don’t know what to say, stay quiet.
Tone down your positivity. Avoid reassuring your friend that everything will be fine, and don’t compliment them to cheer them up. When someone is feeling down in the dumps, telling them to look on the bright side won’t help, and compliments may just seem empty and fake.
We have covered some points on how to comfort a friend but consider trying to console a whole nation. This is the heartache that Jeremiah is wanting to deal with.
This chapter also divides up into sections. In the first 9 versus the prophet describes in forceful detail what ‘the Sovereign Lord’ (adonai) has done against Jerusalem and Judah, and he follows this up in verses 10-12 with a picture of Jerusalem’s inhabitants (elders, virgins, young children) revealing how all this has affected them (they keep silence and mourn, they hang their heads, the children complain of hunger). Then in verses 13-19 he addresses the inhabitants of Jerusalem directly, outlining what has come upon them and calling on them to seek to YHWH for help, finishing it all off in verses 20-22 with a direct appeal to YHWH to see what the situation is.
As we begin please take note of the emphasis in the first six verses on the wrath, fury and anger of the Lord/YHWH His people had defied Him and disregarded His loving covenant for too long. They had rejected the pleas of His prophets. And there comes a time when even God’s patience is at an end and He becomes relentless. The results of that anger were plain to see in the ruined Temple, the destroyed city, and the relatively empty and devastated land. (It should, however, be noted from the human point of view that it was not YHWH Himself Who had done this, but the Babylonian contingents. God works through history and the sinfulness of man. He had simply withdrawn His hand of protection because of His antipathy towards His people’s sin, letting men loose in their viciousness).
In these verses we have a description of how in His ‘anger’ (antipathy towards sin) the Lord has brought destruction on Judah and Jerusalem both politically and religiously. He is seen as the cause of the Babylonian activity. It is a reminder to us that behind what often seems to be the meaningless flow of history God is at work.
1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel and did not remember His footstool in the day of His anger.
In the first five verses of this chapter all the activity is seen as that of ‘the Sovereign Lord’ acting against those who were once His people. In this first verse a threefold activity is depicted. The Sovereign Lord has:
. Covered the Daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger.
. Cast down from Heaven to earth the Beauty of Israel.
. Not remembered His Footstool in the day of His anger.
The first statement is clear. The Sovereign Lord has, in His anger, covered the daughter of Zion (Jerusalem) with a storm-cloud. This is the very opposite to the way in which, in earlier days, YHWH had manifested Himself in a cloud. That had been protective, indicating His presence with them. Now the swirling storm-cloud is seen to be one of judgment and fierce anger.
The phrase ‘He has ‘cast down the Beauty of Israel from Heaven to earth’ is descriptive of a fall from high honor.
It would appear to us therefore that the Beauty of Israel was the Davidic king, whose status was beautiful, but who was brought low by the Lord.
It was the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH that was mainly seen as YHWH’s footstool (1 Chronicles 28.2, “Then King David rose to his feet and said, “Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it.). This was presumably because it was the place where YHWH manifested Himself on earth, as He sat on His throne in Heaven whilst His feet rested on the ark. Though hidden behind the curtain in the tabernacle/temple the Ark was how, through their high priest, Israel felt that they could directly meet with God. And that ark was now to be ‘not remembered’ by Him, something apparent when it was either destroyed or carried off to Babylon. It had become simply a treasure and would no longer be able to fulfil its function. What had been sacred for so long was now to be irrelevant.
Jerusalem had been covered by His storm-cloud, as His anger rested on it; the membership of the Davidic royal house had been cast from Heaven to earth (removed from its high status and profaned - verse 2), because it had been disobedient to YHWH and could therefore no longer represent Him; and the Ark had become ‘not remembered’ because it had been carried off (or destroyed) and could no longer function.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
The word for ‘habitations’ is mainly used for the habitations of shepherds. Thus, what are initially seen as swallowed up by the invaders are the smaller towns and villages which were not ‘built up’ and were without walls, thus being easy targets. The larger towns and cities are covered by the idea of ‘strongholds. They have been thrown down in His wrath. Indeed, they have been brought down to the ground.
And at the same time ‘the kingdom, and its princes’ have been ‘profaned’, that is, have been rendered or treated as unclean and defiled, being treated as though they were an ordinary kingdom and ordinary princes and not YHWH’s chosen. In the case of the princes they have also been slain by the swords of profane men. There is a recognition here of the fact that the princes were seen to have had a special recognition by God as being His anointed princes, and this was especially so of the king who was YHWH’s Anointed (4.20). But that special recognition had not prevented the Lord from allowing them to be profaned by foreign swords or by equally foreign instruments for blinding.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger every horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire devouring all around.
Here the prophet makes clear how God accomplishes His work. He allows the evil of man free rein, withdrawing His protection from His people (drawing back His right hand). By this means He has cut off ‘all the horn of Israel’. The horn was the symbol of an animal’s power and strength, and when men wished to render it ‘harmless’ they cut off its horn. This was what YHWH had metaphorically done to Israel. Note the mention of ‘Israel’. The prophet saw Judah as representing Israel, and indeed it did so, for it contained a mixture of the ‘twelve tribes’, many of whom had fled or migrated from the north.
And the consequence was that ‘Jacob’ (Abraham’s grandson was called both Jacob and Israel) had literally been ‘burned up like a flaming fire’, as the fierce invaders had set light to its towns and cities. But the thought is wider than that of just literal fire. The prophet sees the ability of fire to eat up everything as the symbol of destruction.
4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow; With His right hand, like an adversary, He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye; On the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire.
The Lord is seen as being like an archer who picks off the enemy one by one, and a swordsman who slays with his right hand, in this case ‘all who were pleasant to the eye’ in Judah. This may refer to Judah’s young men and women in their prime, or it may refer to the royal house and the aristocracy. Or indeed to both. For His wrath is like a fire that devours all before it.
5 The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds and has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
Woe betide the nation or the individual to whom the Lord becomes ‘as an enemy’. And that is what had happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of their disdain for His covenant and their love of false religion. In the city that He had set apart for Himself as a witness to the world, they had profaned His Name, and despised His covenant, giving a false message to the world. The result was that He had become their enemy and had swallowed them up, along with their palaces and their strongholds, and had filled the whole place with mourning, weeping and lamentation.
6 He has done violence to His tabernacle, as if it were a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly; The LORD has caused the appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion. In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
YHWH had done the unthinkable. Judah had been so sure that He would not allow His Temple to be destroyed, but that is precisely what He had done. Judah had maintained the trappings of Yahwism, but their hearts had been set on other things. Now they were to see that their sacred Temple meant nothing to God if it was not filled with true worshippers.
God does not honor buildings, or sites. He honors people. But not if they dishonor Him. And that is what Judah had constantly done.
And so YHWH had removed from them the trappings of their religion which they still considered as so important. He had violently taken away their Temple which was, in their eyes, His dwelling place (tabernacle) with the same casualness as a man would remove a temporary shed from his garden when it had lost its usefulness. In those days ‘buildings’ erected in gardens were of a temporary and makeshift nature. He had destroyed the very place in which men had gathered to worship at their festivals. And the result was that the festivals and the sabbath were now ‘forgotten in Zion’. They were simply unobserved.
Furthermore, He had dealt severely with ‘the king and the priest’. He has ‘despised them’, ignoring any demands that they might have thought that they had on Him. So the whole point of this verse is that YHWH Himself has eradicated all the places and people involved nominally in worshipping Him. They had proved false, and instead of glorying in them He had therefore despised them and rooted them out. God wants no false or nominal religion.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD as on the day of a set feast.
The very altar had been cast off by Him, and He had abhorred His sanctuary, the two most sacred things in Jerusalem. He had wanted nothing to do with either and had handed them over to the enemy. The language is very forceful and emphasizes the fact that even the holiest of things are nothing unless those who use and frequent them are genuine worshippers.
And at the same time, He had handed over the walls of her palaces. The enemy had even been allowed to come into the house of YHWH, their voices ringing out with a similar noise to that heard at a solemn assembly, but instead of cries of worship it was the with the sound of their victory and their gloating over the treasures that they found.
8 The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying; Therefore, He has caused the rampart and wall to lament; They languished together.
YHWH Himself has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. Jerusalem’s walls were to be levelled to the ground. YHWH had even measured them up in readiness, demonstrating the thoroughness with which He was carrying out His purpose. Both rampart and wall would be destroyed. They would lament and languish together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The Law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
Finally, He has dealt with the gates of Jerusalem. Her gates are sunk into the ground, buried in the rubble, and the bars which fastened them have been destroyed and broken. The city is defenseless. And meanwhile her king and nobles (the princes were dead) are scattered among the nations where His Law is not revered, and her prophets are silenced without any vision from YHWH. They have lost both the rule of the Law and the illumination of prophecy.
Of course, the Law was being revered by those of the Dispersion who still held even more firmly to it, but it was only among themselves. It was ignored by outsiders.
The prophet now describes in retrospect the sad state of the people of Jerusalem during and after the terrible siege. The elders were in mourning, the virgins hung their heads to the ground, the young children and babes collapsed with hunger crying out, ‘where is our food?’
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground and keep silence; They throw dust on their heads and gird themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.
The elders were the leaders and the old men, those who were the most respected by society, and to whom the people looked for guidance. But now they had nothing to say or offer. They sat in silence, covered their heads with ashes and put on sackcloth (both signs of deep mourning).
The virgins are mentioned as being the most joyous of people, with their timbrels and dances, full of expectancy for the future. But now all that they could do was hang their heads to the ground. This may have been because they had been raped by the invaders, or simply because they now had no expectations.
11 My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My bile is poured on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.
What the prophet saw moved him to anguish. His eyes failed with tears, his heart (mind) was troubled, his liver (probably seen as the center of pain or of emotion) was poured forth on the earth. And why? Because he was witnessing the destruction of ‘the daughter of my people’, in other words either Jerusalem, or the people of Jerusalem. And because he was seeing young children and babes fainting with hunger in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they swoon like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out in their mothers’ bosom.
The prophet draws a sad picture of the children crying out to their mothers for food, puzzled as why she cannot feed them as they faint from hunger in the streets and cling tightly to their mothers’ breasts. The picture is a piteous one, the fruit of man’s inhumanity.
The prophet sees the people of Jerusalem as being in a state never experienced and as being unhealable. This is because their prophets are offering them foolishness, passers-by are looking at, and exclaiming in amazement at, what has happened to them, and their enemies are gloating over them, viewing what has happened to them as a triumph.
13 How shall I console you? To what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is spread wide as the sea; Who can heal you?
The prophet can think of no comparison that he can draw on so that he can comfort the people of Jerusalem. He does not know how to speak to them and advise them. Such is the situation that he does not know what to say. Never had they found themselves so bereft. He sees them as unhealable. Their ‘breach’ being great like the sea indicates a gaping wound, which is seemingly unhealable. But the word is regularly translated as ‘destruction’, and that is favored by many.
14 Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.
Their dilemma was partly due to their prophets who had seen for them false and foolish visions which had resulted in their banishment. Jeremiah had regularly had to counteract them. They had failed to uncover the iniquity of the people which alone could have prevented their captivity and could even have once more restored them to their land. This was why they were in the state that they were.
15 All who pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that is calle ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”
Their state was such that passers-by marveled and demonstrated by their actions their feelings at what had happened to Jerusalem They clapped their hands in glee, hissed in derision, and wagged their heads in amazement, asking each other (and Jerusalem), “Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?” For ‘the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’. The city had been beautiful to behold. But now it was a heap of ruins.
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have waited for; We have found it, we have seen it!”
Finally, their open enemies had opened their mouths against them, hissed and gnashed their teeth, all indications of their hatred. And as they did so they had gloated, declaring that they had swallowed her up, and rejoicing because it was the day that they had looked for, the day which they had at last found so that they could see Jerusalem’s demise.
17 The LORD has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His word which He commanded in days of old. He has thrown down and has not pitied, and He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
But it is now emphasized that it was not really the enemy who had done this. It was YHWH Who had accomplished a purpose determined long before. It was He Who had thrown them down. And He had not pitied them. He it was Who had caused their enemies to rejoice over them and had given those enemies strength by making their horns victorious.
Yet in this lay hope. If it was YHWH Who had done it, YHWH could reverse it if only they sought Him in repentance.
The change between verse 17 and verse 18 is abrupt. But the acrostic confirms that they are united. Verse 18 begins with a heading defining what is happening, ‘their heart cried to the Sovereign Lord’, and this is followed immediately by the people’s plea to the wall of the daughter of Zion not to refrain from crying out on their behalf and especially on behalf of the starving children. This is a retrospective plea made as if the wall were still standing with the siege continuing.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief; Give your eyes no rest.
The wall was, of course, the place where the watchmen stood as they watched over the city day and night. The thought is therefore that the watchmen should plead on behalf of the city continuously. They are called on to weep copiously with their tears running down like a river, and to do it day and night giving themselves no respite, their pupils never being allowed to dry.
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 your hands toward Him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
The watchmen are called on to arise and cry in the night, and to do it also at the beginning of the watches, pouring out their heart like water before the face of the Lord, and lifting up their hands (the usual attitude of prayer) for the life of their young children who, at the head of every street, were fainting with hunger.
20 “See, O LORD, and consider! To whom have You done this? Should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? Should the priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
They are to call on YHWH to consider what He is doing. Does He really want the mothers to eat the very children that they have nurtured? (Note that this was something God had warned them about in the curses in Leviticus 26.26; Deuteronomy 28.57. Now it was happening) Does He really want the priest and the prophet to be slain in His sanctuary?
The two things described were the greatest horrors that the prophet could think of, mothers eating their own children, and the desecration of the Temple by the slaughter in it of YHWH’s priests and prophets, who were, of course, seen as holy. we must recognize, however, that both mothers, and priest and prophets, had brought it on themselves by their behavior to observe the covenant.
21 “Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered and not pitied.
But the cry is unavailing. Both youth and old man lie dead in the streets. The virgins and young men of the city lie slain by the sword. For YHWH has slain them in the day of His anger and shown no pity. He has allowed the invaders free rein. It is a reminder to all that one-day God’s patience will run out.
22 “You have invited as to a feast day the terrors that surround me. In the day of the LORD’s anger there was no refugee or survivor. Those whom I have borne and brought up my enemies have destroyed.”
For it is YHWH Himself Who, as though He was calling them to a festival, has summoned the terrors that have come upon them, so that none have escaped or remained. It is the day of His anger, something which is the theme of the lament. The contrast between the normal summons to a joyful feast, and the summoning of ‘terrors on every side’ is striking.
‘My terrors on every side’ is a typical Jeremiah description, the ‘my’ referring to Jerusalem. And Jerusalem goes on to complain because those whom it had bounced on its knees had been consumed by its enemy. Note how the chapter which commenced with a series of references to YHWH’s anger now ends on the same note. The whole chapter is expressing the fact of YHWH’s anger against Jerusalem, and against His people, because of their extremes of idolatry and continuing disobedience of His commandments.
