15 All who go by make a noise with their hands at you; they make hisses, shaking their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, and saying, Is this the town which was the crown of everything beautiful, the joy of all the earth?
Making their land a thing of wonder, causing sounds of surprise for ever; everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, shaking his head.
Beautiful in its high position, the joy of all the earth, is the mountain of Zion, the mountain of God, the town of the great King.
And I will make this town a thing of wonder and a cause of surprise; everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder and make sounds of surprise, because of all its troubles.
From Zion, most beautiful of places, God has sent out his light.
This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.
I am laughed at by all those who see me: pushing out their lips and shaking their heads they say,
And those who went by made sport of him, shaking their heads, and saying, Ha! you who give the Temple to destruction, and put it up again in three days,
And those who went by said bitter words to him, shaking their heads and saying,
For you have kept the laws of Omri and all the works of the family of Ahab, and you have been guided by their designs: so that I might make you a cause of wonder and your people a cause of hisses; and the shame of my people will be on you.
And future generations, your children coming after you, and travellers from far countries, will say, when they see the punishments of that land and the diseases which the Lord has sent on it; And that all the land is a salt and smoking waste, not planted or giving fruit or clothed with grass, but wasted like Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, on which the Lord sent destruction in the heat of his wrath: Truly all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land? what is the reason for this great and burning wrath? Then men will say, Because they gave up the agreement of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he took them out of the land of Egypt: And they went after other gods and gave them worship, gods who were strange to them, and whom he had not given them: And so the wrath of the Lord was moved against this land, to send on it all the curse recorded in this book: Rooting them out of their land, in the heat of his wrath and passion, and driving them out into another land, as at this day.
Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.
And Babylon will become a mass of broken walls, a hole for jackals, a cause of wonder and surprise, without a living man in it.
I will go after them, attacking them with the sword and with need of food and with disease, and will make them a cause of fear to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a wonder and a surprise and a name of shame among all the nations where I have sent them:
Jerusalem and the towns of Judah and their kings and their princes, to make them a waste place, a cause of fear and surprise and a curse, as it is this day;
See, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and make them come against this land, and against its people, and against all these nations on every side; and I will give them up to complete destruction, and make them a cause of fear and surprise and a waste place for ever.
Our name is a word of shame among the nations, a sign for the shaking of heads among the peoples. My downfall is ever before me, and I am covered with the shame of my face;
God sends his arrows against him without mercy; he goes in flight before his hand. Men make signs of joy because of him, driving him from his place with sounds of hissing.
This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.
Then I will have Israel cut off from the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for myself, I will put away from before my eyes; and Israel will be a public example, and a word of shame among all peoples. And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder at it and make whistling sounds; and they will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house? And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord their God, who took their fathers out of the land of Egypt; they took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why the Lord has sent all this evil on them.
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.