Lamentations · chapter 2 of 5
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Lamentations 2 is the second acrostic poem and describes the destruction of Jerusalem as the work of the Lord's anger, who threw down strongholds, the temple and the festivals and became like an enemy. The poet weeps for the children fainting from hunger, accuses the false prophets of not warning about sin and calls Zion to cry out to the Lord day and night. It ends with the anguished question of whom God has treated this way.
The second poem of Lamentations follows the first in its acrostic structure of twenty-two verses, but with a different tone: in chapter 1 the city appeared weeping, and in this one the poet looks at the destruction as an act of God himself. It is the harshest chapter of the book on divine anger, and also the one that shows most strongly lament and prayer as a response.
The poem begins with a question: how has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger? He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel and has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. He has swallowed up without mercy the habitations of Jacob and the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has bent his bow like an enemy and poured out his fury like fire on the tent of Zion.
The Lord has been like an enemy: he has laid waste his meeting place, made festival and Sabbath be forgotten in Zion and spurned king and priest. He has rejected his altar, disowned his sanctuary and given the walls of her palaces into the enemy's hand. He determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; her gates have sunk, there is no law, and her prophets find no vision. The elders sit on the ground in silence with dust on their heads, clothed in sackcloth.
The poet confesses that his eyes are spent with weeping, because children and infants faint in the streets and ask their mothers where the grain and wine are. He notes that the prophets saw false visions for Zion and did not expose her iniquity. Those who pass by clap and hiss, and the enemies say they have swallowed her. The Lord has done what he purposed, fulfilling his word commanded long ago.
The chapter ends with a call to prayer: let tears stream down like a torrent day and night and let Zion lift her hands to the Lord for the lives of her little ones. Zion asks whom he has treated this way, and concludes that young and old lie on the ground and the Lord summoned terrors on every side as for a festival day.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The Lord covered the daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger and cast down the splendor of Israel. From the beginning the destruction is presented as the work of God, not as a mere accident of war.
The poet's eyes are spent with tears and his stomach churns, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. Grief for the smallest marks the human center of the chapter.
The prophets saw for Jerusalem false and foolish visions and did not expose her sin to change her fortunes. The charge reminds us that silence about sin, even to comfort, helps no one.
The poet calls Zion to rise at night and pour out her heart like water before the Lord, lifting her hands for the lives of the children. Even in catastrophe, prayer is the response that Scripture recommends.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: He covered the daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger and cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel. — Lamentations 2:1
Answer: An enemy who swallowed up Israel and multiplied mourning and lamentation. — Lamentations 2:5
Answer: The festivals and the Sabbath, and he spurned king and priest. — Lamentations 2:6
Answer: On the ground, in silence, with dust on their heads and clothed in sackcloth. — Lamentations 2:10
Answer: False and foolish visions, and they did not expose her iniquity. — Lamentations 2:14
Answer: Pour it out like water before the Lord and lift her hands to him for the lives of the children. — Lamentations 2:19
Lamentations 2 shows that the Bible does not fear speaking of God's judgment or of human pain. In a study group it can be useful to read verses 1-10 slowly and acknowledge that God's anger is serious, and that in Christ he bore the judgment we deserved. That does not remove the weight of the text, but reads it in the light of the gospel.
The chapter also condemns those who teach to console without telling the truth about sin. For leaders and teachers it is a reminder that compassion includes warning. And it invites all of us to what the poet asks: to weep, to pray day and night and to intercede for the smallest, without letting grief pull us away from God.
Lamentations 2 leaves the city in silence, with the elders sitting in the dust, and with an unanswered question: whom has God treated this way. Chapter 3 will change the voice: a man will speak of his own affliction and, in the midst of it, name hope in the Lord's steadfast love.
Because the poet understands that God himself, who had promised to protect Jerusalem, let the city fall because of the sin of its people, as he had warned in his law and through the prophets. It is the language of grief, not an accusation of injustice. That is why the poem ends by crying out to God, not turning away from him.
It is an expression for the temple or the ark, the place where God made himself present among his people, which the Old Testament describes as his footstool, for example in Psalm 132:7. The poet is shocked that God did not protect it.
The twenty-two verses begin with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order, though in this chapter and in chapters 3 and 4 the letter pe comes before ayin, a change of order that has been explained in several ways. What matters is that grief is expressed in an ordered and complete way.