THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 7 – THE LORD DESTROYED JUDAH PERMISSIVELY – SIN REAPS JUDGEMENT - CHAPTER 2:2-5
[1]. THE LORD HAS WROUGHT A COMPLETE DESTRUCTION
{{Lamentations 2:2 “The Lord HAS SWALLOWED up. He HAS NOT SPARED ALL the habitations of Jacob. In His wrath HE HAS THROWN down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. HE HAS BROUGHT them down to the ground. HE HAS PROFANED the kingdom and its princes.”}}
This verse contains 5 statements aimed at the LORD emphatically stating that HE HAS done these things. The LORD directly did them. Of course we know the background of why they were done, but in Jeremiah’s lament he puts it at the LORD’S door. The sin of the nation was the culprit.
I have highlighted three words here, suggestive of the intensity of this judgement. The LORD did this. He has swallowed up and that means He has devoured it. It reminds me of a whale with its mouth opened wide moving along swallowing all the krill it can hold. Another image is that of a vacuum cleaner that swallows up a pile of dirt and debris.
In doing the swallowing up, the LORD did not spare the Jews, descendants of Jacob, and of Abraham for that matter. “All” speaks of the thoroughness of it all. They were not spared. They all suffered either death or displacement and loss of everything. It was devastating.
The next description mentions “wrath” which is the way the LORD acted. The wrath of a holy God is a terrible thing. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a God of wrath. Wrath is associated with holiness and is what cleanses sin away. A holy God must destroy sin, but the grace of God and His mercy often delay the fall of the axe. It has been like that in Judah and in our current world, but His wrath eventually comes. It is coming very, very soon.
The LORD’s wrath has brought down all the defences in Judah. He defeated and overthrew all their strength as if it was nothing. These nine verses of the LORD’s actions are full of descriptive expressions to show how complete the destruction was. The survivors of this invasion realised why they were in this situation, such as revealed by 1:18. The first step to restoration is an honest appraisal followed by repentance in humility. I believe that happened in Babylon as the captives returned to the LORD.
In this verse the idea of throwing the strongholds to the ground is the levelling of destruction. Everything comes crashing down. Some versions translate as “fortified cities” for “strongholds”, but under the Babylonians, nothing stopped them because the LORD had withdrawn His hand. Like the walls of Jericho, all came tumbling down.
Right now (as I write) it is the preservation of Israel that is the Lord’s concern. The strongholds of Hamas and Hezbollah come crashing down in this deadly conflict. As we are so close to the start of the Tribulation, Israel will be preserved at this point in time.
It is most interesting that not once in Lamentations does Jeremiah make reference to his ministry and to what he wrote. Something like, “Through me the LORD warned of the destruction if the nation did not repent. I said this is what would happen.” The Spirit of God was not going to let that happen.
The last part of the verse is, “He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.” The word “profaned” has been used in the following ways in scripture - “defile, pollute, desecrate, to profane oneself, defile oneself, pollute oneself, to make common.” {{Isaiah 43:28 “Therefore I HAVE PROFANED THE PRINCES OF THE SANCTUARY, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.”}} There was nothing holy any more about the Temple, the palaces or anything in Judah.
[2]. A FLAMING FIRE OF FIERCE ANGER
{{Lamentations 2:3 “IN FIERCE ANGER HE HAS cut off all the strength of Israel. HE HAS drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and HE HAS BURNED in Jacob like a flaming fire consuming round about.”}}
This verse contains the “accusations” against the LORD for what has happened to Judah. Of course Jeremiah knows the situation exactly, that the fault lies with the people in that they have done this to themselves! As the LORD has watch over His earthly people, then all that happened to them is blamed on the LORD. God allowed it.
There are 3 direct statements that the LORD HAS done these things to Judah and more of this follows in coming verses.
Firstly, the LORD cut off the strength of the nation. I don’t think this was a deliberate action to make them weak for defeat. Rather, I think it means the LORD just did not defend them, and that lines up with the parallelism of the next statement “He has drawn back His right hand.” God allowed the strong enemy to invade and showed no resistance. I believe His resistance is with Israel today, against all her enemies including Iran and Russia.
His great fierce wrath was against the Baals and Ashtoreth and Astarte and Isis and Moloch and all the other forms of idolatry the nation was married to in all the paganism of filthiness and Satanism. It had to be destroyed, and in both the directive and permissive will of God, that happened.
A flaming torch moving all around will burn up the dry grass of idolatry and that is the image. God was going to cleanse the land of its idolatrous worship. After this, the Jews never resorted to the idolatry of wood and stone and silver and gold idols ever again. Other idols or money and materialism may have replaced them especially in modern times.
Anger against sin will always be until the end when Satan and all the demons, and all the unrighteous from the great white throne judgement are cast into the lake of fire. Then sin and evil will be gone forever, and there come into being the new heavens and new earth and righteousness reigns forever. {{Romans 1:18 “THE WRATH OF GOD is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The present world is storing up wrath.”}}
[3]. THE ACTIONS OF THE LORD CONTINUE – THE NATION WAS RAVISHED BY JUDGEMENT
{{Lamentations 2:4 “HE HAS BENT HIS BOW like an enemy. HE HAS set His right hand like an adversary, and slain all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion, HE HAS poured out His wrath like fire.”}}
Three times in the verse it states “He has” placing all the mishap for Judah in the hand of the LORD. The bow, the LORD’s right hand (usually holds the sword in battle) and pouring out wrath are all directive actions against Judah. There was no escape. “Like an enemy; like an adversary” are expressions that know the reality of the LORD’S action, but it was too late for them. Their sins brought them undone under God’s wrath.
Now the survivors pine away, but if I may pick a positive, then it is that there was a turning to the LORD for many of them. They reflected on their sadness – here is a whole Psalm:
{{Psalm 137:1-6 “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps. There our captors demanded of us songs and our tormentors mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill. MAY MY TONGUE CLEAVE TO THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH IF I DO NOT REMEMBER YOU, IF I DO NOT EXALT JERUSALEM ABOVE MY CHIEF JOY.”}}
I see repentance in those verses. It takes strong adversity to waken us from sin’s deceit and turn the human mind to God. Today generally, people’s hearts are hard and they don’t want to know God and they do evil, oblivious of approaching disaster that is coming on this world when the Lord’s removes His precious Bride from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
This current world is not far different from the people Jeremiah ministered to who rejected his message and were the very ones who went into the Babylonian destruction – {{Jeremiah 6:15 “Were they ASHAMED because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all. They did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall. At the time that I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the LORD.”}}
Out of the ashes of destruction comes the renewal of new life. In Israel's case that will be true. The prophets wrote equally of destruction and restoration, for even though God has taken action against His earthly people, He has not abandoned them as the dreadful teaching of Covenant Theology believes. It is most interesting that in Jeremiah’s prophecy dealing with the gross sinfulness of the nation, there is a beacon shining with the greatest brilliance. This is it –
{{Jeremiah 3:22-25 RETURN, O FAITHLESS SONS. I WILL HEAL YOUR FAITHLESSNESS. “Behold, we come to You for You are the LORD our God. Surely, the hills are a deception, a tumult on the mountains. Surely, in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel, but the shameful thing has consumed the labour of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, since our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”}}
I would say it is most likely that this was the confession of the repentant captives as they were carried away into Babylon. That is when reality struck and they were revealed for who they were. That being so, often in prophetic teaching, you have the double fulfillment. These words will also form the repentant confession of the remnant of Israel at the Second Coming when Messiah returns to His people and His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives. {{Zechariah 14:4 “And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.”}}. Then He gathers all His redeemed people of Israel from all over the world to restore them in Israel.
At the Second Coming when the Messiah returns to Israel in the Second Advent, and steps onto the Mount of Olives, then He gathers all His redeemed Jewish saints who endured the Tribulation, from every part of the earth, as a hen gathers her chickens. Mourning and laments will be replaced with expressions of the highest joy.
{{Jeremiah 31:7-9 “For thus says the LORD, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chiefs of the nations. Proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O LORD, save Your people, the remnant of Israel.’ “BEHOLD, I AM BRINGING THEM FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY, AND I WILL GATHER THEM FROM THE REMOTE PARTS OF THE EARTH; among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labour with child, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and by supplication I will lead them. I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born.”
Jeremiah 31:10-12 “Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare in the coastlands afar off, and say, “HE WHO SCATTERED ISRAEL WILL GATHER HIM, and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.” For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he, and they shall come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the bounty of the LORD — over the grain, and the new wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd, and their life shall be like a watered garden, AND THEY SHALL NEVER LANGUISH AGAIN.”}}
[4]. YES, THE LORD DID IT PERMISSIVELY
Lamentations 2:5 “The Lord HAS become like an enemy. He HAS swallowed up Israel. He HAS swallowed up all its palaces. He HAS destroyed its strongholds and multiplied mourning and moaning in the daughter of Judah.”
“Has, has, has, has” - emphatic affirmation that it was the LORD who did this. In the previous verse “He has” was used 3 times, now 4 in this verse. God is not willing that any should perish even His grossly wicked Judah, but sin has consequences, and the reward was paid under Nebuchadnezzar. It was Nebuchadnezzar who did this; it was the sinful people who earned it; but the blame is placed on the LORD.
Well that is fine to do, because as you read Jeremiah, you will see that the LORD often said He would be stepping in, in judgement. {{Jeremiah 5:29 “SHALL I NOT PUNISH THESE PEOPLE?” declares the LORD. “On a nation such as this, SHALL I NOT AVENGE MYSELF?”}} The next passage is a very difficult one (Verse 8) as the language is uncertain – Hebrew, Arabic and possibly some corruption in the translation of verse 8 –
{{Jeremiah 8:16-18 From Dan is heard the snorting of his horses. At the sound of the neighing of his stallions the whole land quakes, for they come and devour the land and its fullness, the city and its inhabitants. “For behold, I AM SENDING SERPENTS AGAINST YOU, adders, for which there is no charm, and they will bite you,” declares the LORD. My sorrow is beyond healing. My heart is faint within me!”}}
In verse 17 it is God who does it. That is why Lamentations 2:5 blames the LORD.
I find the words, “The LORD has become LIKE and enemy” in Lamentations 2:5 very carefully chosen because the LORD is not an enemy of Israel. He is not like Hamas or Iran. It means the LORD is being destructive towards Israel in allowing her enemies, Babylon mainly, to overtake the land. We mentioned in verse 2 about swallowing up the land, and the strongholds also were no deterrent for the approaching enemy. The repetition is because this is so personal and graphic in destruction.
“The daughter of Judah” is a lot more tender expression than just Judah, for the daughter is suffering. She is mourning and moaning her plight and that might give cause to return to the LORD who will forgive and abundantly pardon. The mourning and moaning in the world because of sin is tragic, but how many turn to the Lord in repentance and salvation. The world mourns but refuses God except for the handfuls here and there.
Great evil is overtaking the world. There is philosophy that is godless; men who are violent and nations that are arming themselves for war. Suffering is on the increase. As I edit this – 12 March 2025 - there has been an unspeakable massacre in Syria of an estimated 1300 people – “The authorities characterised many of the killings as executions and massacres, carried out in revenge against the Alawite community, which made up Assad's traditional base of support.” It is regrettable that there were Christians living in that community now murdered and with the Lord. The most unspeakable tragedies are happening in Africa right now, committed by the satanic Islam warmongers bent on world Islamic domination. Satan’s hate for Jews and Christians is being expressed through Islam.
Is it little wonder that the wrath of God will fall soon on the world as it did long ago in Judah. If that does not happen, then God is not God for His holiness and righteousness demand justice be done.
