Lamentations 2
Lutheran reading notes
In Lamentations chapter 2, the prophetic message continues to reveal themes of lament over Jerusalem’s destruction and hope in God's mercy. Lutheran interpretation often emphasizes the contrast between divine law, which exposes sin, and the promise of grace through God's future redemption. The chapter illustrates both warning and hope within God's covenant relationship.
1
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, {and} cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
Lamentations 2:1 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
2
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought {them} down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. {brought...: Heb. made to touch}
Lamentations 2:2 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
3
He hath cut off in {his} fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, {which} devoureth round about.
Lamentations 2:3 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
4
He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all {that were} pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire. {all...: Heb. all the desirable of the eye}
Lamentations 2:4 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
5
The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
Lamentations 2:5 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
6
And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as {if it were of} a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. {tabernacle: or, hedge}
Lamentations 2:6 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
7
The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast. {given up: Heb. shut up}
Lamentations 2:7 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
8
The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. {destroying: Heb. swallowing up}
Lamentations 2:8 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
9
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes {are} among the Gentiles: the law {is} no {more}; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
Lamentations 2:9 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
10
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, {and} keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Lamentations 2:10 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
11
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. {swoon: or, faint}
Lamentations 2:11 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
12
They say to their mothers, Where {is} corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
Lamentations 2:12 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
13
What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach {is} great like the sea: who can heal thee?
Lamentations 2:13 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
14
Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
Lamentations 2:14 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
15
All that pass by clap {their} hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, {saying, Is} this the city that {men} call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? {by: Heb. by the way}
Lamentations 2:15 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
16
All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed {her} up: certainly this {is} the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen {it}.
Lamentations 2:16 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
17
The LORD hath done {that} which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused {thine} enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
Lamentations 2:17 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
18
Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
Lamentations 2:18 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
19
Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
Lamentations 2:19 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
20
Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, {and} children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? {of a span...: or, swaddled with their hands?}
Lamentations 2:20 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
21
The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain {them} in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, {and} not pitied.
Lamentations 2:21 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.
22
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
Lamentations 2:22 highlights prophetic call to repentance and hope with emphasis on law, gospel, grace, and faith.