For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, and the particular theme, as with studies elsewhere, each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read on the main Bible page.

Passage:  Lam 2:1-5

1 How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion
    with the cloud of his anger!
He has hurled down the splendor of Israel
    from heaven to earth;
he has not remembered his footstool
    in the day of his anger.

2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up
    all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has torn down
    the strongholds of Daughter Judah.
He has brought her kingdom and its princes
    down to the ground in dishonor.

3 In fierce anger he has cut off
    every horn of Israel.
He has withdrawn his right hand
    at the approach of the enemy.
He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
    that consumes everything around it.

4 Like an enemy he has strung his bow;
    his right hand is ready.
Like a foe he has slain
    all who were pleasing to the eye;
he has poured out his wrath like fire
    on the tent of Daughter Zion.

5 The Lord is like an enemy;
    he has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces
    and destroyed her strongholds.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
    for Daughter Judah.

A. Find Out

• 1. What 3 things has the Lord done? v.1
• 2. What 4 things has he destroyed? v.2
• 3. What 2 ways of destruction are given? v.3
• 4. What 2 further ways of destruction are mentioned? v.4
• 5. What further analogy is given for the destruction

B. Think:

• 1. How was the Lord’s activity both negative and positive?
• 2. How does the prophet convey the Lord’s destruction?
• 3. What feeling are you left with?

C. Comment:

When we read Scripture, especially the historical narrative, it is so easy just to take in the bare facts but without any sense of the awfulness of what was happening. The destruction of Jerusalem was perhaps the classic example of this. It is only when we get the insight of the prophet, left at Jerusalem after the destruction has taken place, that we begin to catch anything thing of how terrible this was.

These verses emphasise the Lord’s destructive activity. It’s like, the prophet starts, an awful cloud of God’s anger broke over Jerusalem and hurled down on her destroying everything (rather like massive hailstones would [our analogy]). He didn’t holdback because this was His point of contact with the earth, but instead He came and destroyed houses, the army garrison, everything. The kingdom that reigned from here was destroyed and the young princes who might have been the future were carried away. 

When the enemy came the Lord stood back and gave them full access to Jerusalem. In fact he joined in and fire and destruction reigned down on her. It was as if he stood there and picked off everyone, making sure none were missed, His fire destroying everything in sight. One minute it was all there, the next it was all gone, like it had been swallowed up. All that was left in the ruins was mourning and anguish. How terrible a picture!

D. Application:

• 1. If God judges He does it thoroughly. No one sneaks away.
• 2. Yet God’s chosen ones will escape His wrath on the rest.

Passage:  Lam 2:6-9

6 He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;
    he has destroyed his place of meeting.
The Lord has made Zion forget
    her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;
in his fierce anger he has spurned
    both king and priest.

7 The Lord has rejected his altar
    and abandoned his sanctuary.
He has given the walls of her palaces
    into the hands of the enemy;
they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
    as on the day of an appointed festival.

8 The Lord determined to tear down
    the wall around Daughter Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line
    and did not withhold his hand from destroying.
He made ramparts and walls lament;
    together they wasted away.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    their bars he has broken and destroyed.
Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,
    the law is no more,
and her prophets no longer find
    visions from the Lord.

A. Find Out

• 1. What had the Lord destroyed? v.6a,7
• 2. What did this make Jerusalem forget? v.6b
• 3. What had He also done, and how extensively? v.8
• 4. What particular places had been destroyed? v.9a
• 5. So who no longer met there? v.9b

B. Think:

• 1. Read Jer 7:4,14
• 2. What unthinkable thing had now happened?

3. Why was this so devastating?

C. Comment:

Consider Israel’s history: they were taken out of Egypt miraculously by the Lord, they met Him at Sinai, they were led by Him for forty years in the desert, led by Him to conquer the land, led by Him through the centuries. Their history was one of encounter with the Lord and the focus of that encounter was first the Tabernacle and then the Temple. The Temple had stood there for centuries, the place of meeting with God. Its very presence reminded them of their covenant with the Divine. It was the most stable, lasting feature of their national life. Its possible removal could not be contemplated. It would be their end.

Now it has gone! God has destroyed it. The enemy came into it and plundered it, destroyed the altar and destroyed the building and then went on and destroyed the walls of Jerusalem that surrounded it. If Israel had any doubts up to that point about their future, the destruction of the Temple did away with them. They have no future. The feasts that celebrated their relationship with the Lord were swept away with the removal of the Temple.

All signs of their religion have been removed. It is as if the Lord had utterly severed His relationship with them. They have been utterly abandoned by Him. The people have been taken. The gates where the rulers met and prophets prophesied are gone, the leaders are gone, just a remnant remains. This is utter devastation, this is utter desolation. It is the end – or so it seems to them!

D. Application:

• 1. When God cleans out sin, He does a thorough job.
• 2. Death to sin is a precursor to new life with God.

Passage:  Lam 2:10-13

10 The elders of Daughter Zion
    sit on the ground in silence;
they have sprinkled dust on their heads
    and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.

11 My eyes fail from weeping,
    I am in torment within;
my heart is poured out on the ground
    because my people are destroyed,
because children and infants faint
    in the streets of the city.

12 They say to their mothers,
    “Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
    in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb away
    in their mothers’ arms.

13 What can I say for you?
    With what can I compare you,
    Daughter Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you,
    that I may comfort you,
    Virgin Daughter Zion?
Your wound is as deep as the sea.
    Who can heal you?

A. Find Out

• 1. Who sit in dust? v.10a,b
• 2. Who also bow their heads? v.10c
• 3. What was happening to infants? v.11b,12
• 4. What effect did that have on the prophet? v.11a
• 5. How did he speak of Jerusalem’s wound? v.13

B. Think:

• 1. How does this section differ from the previous one?
• 2. What therefore is the focus of anguish here?

C. Comment:

Different parts of the chapter express different aspects of what has happened. The first five verses were all about the Lord’s anger being expressed. The next verses focused on His having abandoned the Temple, the meeting place with His covenant people, extending to include the destructions of the walls (protection and boundaries delineating extent, distinct from surrounding areas) and the gates (places of authority and government).  That had started to include people affected – kings, princes and prophets. This section goes on to speak of the elders, but then continues with the ordinary people, specifically women and children.

It is not clear whether this is what happened before the city fell or after it. The elders, the senior members of ordinary society sit in silence in the dust. There is nothing they can say or do to change this situation. They simply mourn. They are the first group who are usually heard who are silenced. Then there are the young women, another group that are usually heard chattering or giggling around the streets.

They too are silenced and just hang their heads in dejection. When it comes to the noisiest group, the children, they are weak from hunger and the young ones were even dying in their mothers’ arms. This is indeed a picture of utter desolation and in response the prophet, speaking on behalf of the city weeps in torment and anguish. It seems that the destruction, the wound, is so deep it can never be healed.

D. Application:

• 1. Catch the seriousness of God’s judgement. Never be casual about it.
• 2. God is a God of healing and resurrection. Nothing is beyond Him.

Passage:  Lam 2:14-19

14 The visions of your prophets
    were false and worthless;
they did not expose your sin
    to ward off your captivity.
The prophecies they gave you
    were false and misleading.

15 All who pass your way
    clap their hands at you;
they scoff and shake their heads
    at Daughter Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
    the perfection of beauty,
    the joy of the whole earth?”

16 All your enemies open their mouths
    wide against you;
they scoff and gnash their teeth
    and say, “We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for;
    we have lived to see it.”

17 The Lord has done what he planned;
    he has fulfilled his word,
    which he decreed long ago.
He has overthrown you without pity,
    he has let the enemy gloat over you,
    he has exalted the horn of your foes.

18 The hearts of the people
    cry out to the Lord.
You walls of Daughter Zion,
    let your tears flow like a river
    day and night;
give yourself no relief,
    your eyes no rest.

19 Arise, cry out in the night,
    as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heart like water
    in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
    for the lives of your children,
who faint from hunger
    at every street corner.

A. Find Out

• 1. How had the prophets failed? v.14
• 2. How do passers by deride the city? v.15
• 3. How are her enemies feeling satisfied? v.16
• 4. What has the Lord done? v.17
• 5. So who cries out and who should weep? v.18
• 6. What is the call to do? v.19

B. Think:

• 1. How are v.14-17 ‘general assessment’ verses?
• 2. How are verses 18 & 19 quite different?

C. Comment:

From the anguish of the people, the writer turns back to the causes of what has happened and the ensuing result. There had been ongoing sin in the city and the prophets of Israel had not spoken out to bring the people to repentance and to avoid the captivity (v.14).

The result of that failure of the prophets to do their job, had been the destruction of the city, so complete that passers by who knew Jerusalem of old would remark at the terrible downfall (v.15). Because she is brought down, the enemies of Jerusalem would feel satisfied and good about it (v.16). The downfall had been what the Lord had warned would happen (v.17) when He established Israel (see Lev 26:1-45 & Deut  28:15-68), if they failed to follow His ways.

Then the tone changes to a call to prayer (v.18,19). The hearts of the people are crying out to the Lord for help. The prophet appeals to the “wall of the daughter of Zion”. Zion is Jerusalem, the daughter of the city is the last generation. The wall, we suggest is the last (outer) remnant of the people who are the last signs of the city, the last inhabitants. Yes weep, says the Lord, for that is appropriate, keep on crying out for the city. Cry out in the night? Night is a time of darkness and surely refers to the present season of anguish after destruction. Pour out your hearts, stretch out your hands in supplication to the Lord. Seek Him, call upon Him for the sake of this starving remnant.

D. Application:

• 1. God always warns before bringing judgement.
• 2. The call to prayer is a call of hope, that God will change this.

Passage:  Lam 2:20-22

20 “Look, Lord, and consider:
    Whom have you ever treated like this?
Should women eat their offspring,
    the children they have cared for?
Should priest and prophet be killed
    in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 “Young and old lie together
    in the dust of the streets;
my young men and young women
    have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of your anger;
    you have slaughtered them without pity.

22 “As you summon to a feast day,
    so you summoned against me terrors on every side.
In the day of the Lord’s anger
    no one escaped or survived;
those I cared for and reared
    my enemy has destroyed.”

A. Find Out

• 1. What does the prophet-writer ask the Lord to do? v.20a
• 2. Who does he ask to be thought about first? v.20b
• 3. Who does he ask about second? v.20c
• 4. Who does he refer to next? v.21
• 5. What two contrasts had the Lord summoned? v.22a
• 6. What was the outcome? v.22b,c

B. Think:

• 1. How does the direction of writing now change?
• 2. What is the prophet’s plea?
• 3. Why do you think he asks this?

C. Comment:

The prophet-writer has just called to the people to pray. Now he turns to face the Lord, so to speak. He asks the Lord to look on what He has done and think about it. Where have you ever done anything like this before?  It is an implied cry for the Lord to back-up from what He’s done. In verse 19 we saw a call to the people to pray. There is no point in praying unless there is a hope that God will answer and do something and change what seems the end to this people. Therefore implied behind this call to the Lord to look again, must also come this hope that the Lord will respond and change things.

Lord, look on all this again. See the women who are starving, being pushed to almost eat their own children to survive. Look into what was your Sanctuary, and see the bodies of priests and prophets, your representatives to the people. Look around the streets and see the bodies of the young people, the next generation, who still lie there.

Lord, it seems you slaughtered them without thought (implied), surely that is not how you work? Lord, you called Israel to be a feasting people in their celebrating of their relationship with you. Now you called for their destruction. Is that really what you want (implied)?  In this the prophet catches the Lord’s heart, for it’s not what He wants. He has more.

D. Application:

• 1. When we pray our aim should be to sense God’s heart.
• 2. Thus, when we pray, we are to catch God’s heart and attention.