Tyndale Open Study NotesLamentations 2

This chapter vividly shows the Lord acting as the one who destroys Jerusalem.

• heaven: Jerusalem’s buildings were beautiful and impressive. Some were covered with precious metals and decorated with jewels. The city was known as the sacred city of the Lord.

• his footstool: Compare 1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalms 99:5; 132:7.

bent His bow: In the past, the Lord had been a powerful warrior for Israel (see Exodus 14:13–15:21; Joshua 23:9–11; Judges 7; 2 Kings 19:32–35). Now he waged war against Jerusalem (see Isaiah 63:10; Ezekiel 24:25).

A garden shelter was a temporary structure that harvesters set up to provide shade. God had promised to care for his temple forever (1 Kings 9:3), but now it seemed he had abandoned it.

The temple was destroyed because the priests and the people sinned inside it. Their sins made the temple ceremonially unclean and brought God’s judgment on it (see Jeremiah 7:3–15; 26:3–6, 12–13; Ezekiel 24:21).

Ramparts were stone walls or earth mounds built around a city to protect it from enemy attacks.

no vision: Daniel and Ezekiel were prophets of the Lord. They had visions while living among the exiles far from Judah (Ezekiel 1:1; Daniel 7:1). This verse, however, speaks about prophets in Jerusalem. These prophets claimed to receive visions from God, but their visions were false.

• Burlap, also known as sackcloth, was made from goat or camel hair. People often used it for grain sacks or to carry items on pack animals. Poor people wore it as clothing because it was cheap. People in mourning wore it to show their deep sorrow. Its dark color matched their mood, and its roughness matched their discomfort.

• Throwing dust on their heads and clothing signaled to neighbors that a family member had died.

Who can ever heal you?: There was no one left who could bring healing. The prophets and healers who were trusted by the people had spoken lies and given false hope (Jeremiah 6:13–14).

Their enemies were glad that Jerusalem was defeated.

His decree, which He ordained in days of old: God's promises of blessings depended on Israel's obedience to the law (Deuteronomy 8). He had promised to destroy them if they disobeyed it (Leviticus 26).

Repentance and prayer are the proper responses when facing the devastation of God’s judgment.

Jeremiah had warned that the same cannibalism (people eating human flesh during extreme hunger) that happened during the siege of Samaria (2 Kings 6:28–29) would also happen in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 19:9; see also Lamentations 4:10; Ezekiel 5:10; compare Deuteronomy 28:53–57).

summoned … for the day of an appointed feast: The poet compares Jerusalem's destruction to a feast where war, famine, wild animals, and sickness consume the wicked in Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 28:15–68; compare Revelation 19:17–21).