10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Her gates shall lament and mourn; And she shall be desolate and sit on the ground.
In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth; on their housetops, and in their broad places, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.
When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn't recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day," says the Lord Yahweh. "The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of Yahweh until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.
In that day the beautiful virgins And the young men will faint for thirst.
Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her garment of various colors that was on her; and she laid her hand on her head, and went her way, crying aloud as she went.
Therefore he who is prudent shall keep silence in such a time; For it is an evil time.
and they shall make themselves bald for you, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for you in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning.
The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
The anger of Yahweh has scattered them; he will no more regard them: They didn't respect the persons of the priests, they didn't favor the elders.
Those who did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: Those who were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
Sit you silent, and get you into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called The mistress of kingdoms.
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.