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Lamentations 2

KJV · Chapter 2/5

1How 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!

2The 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.

3He 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.

4He 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.

5The 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.

6And 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.

7The 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.

8The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

9Her 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.

10The 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.

11Mine 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.

12They 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.

13What 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?

14Thy 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.

15All 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?

16All 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.

17The 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.

18Their 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.

19Arise, 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.

20Behold, 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?

21The 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.

22Thou 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.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

The poet describes how the Lord himself, in his wrath, destroyed the strongholds, the temple, and the leaders of Judah, treating his people 'as an enemy.' The scene is one of constant weeping, children fainting from hunger in the streets, and mothers who have nothing to feed their children.

Explanation

Unlike chapter 1, which focuses on the suffering of the personified city, this chapter attributes the destruction directly to God — an intense Hebrew way of acknowledging that divine judgment stood behind the historical events, even while using the Babylonian army as its instrument. The description of children fainting from hunger in their mothers' arms is one of the most painful images in the entire Bible, portraying with brutal honesty the real human cost of war and of a city under siege. The poet also laments that the people's prophets 'did not expose their iniquity' — that is, they failed to warn of the danger before it was too late. The practical application today is recognizing the real gravity of the consequences of wrong collective decisions, and the importance of honest prophetic voices that warn in time.

Fun facts

  • The mention of mothers cooking their own children during the famine of the siege (revisited in more detail in chapter 4) is confirmed as a documented practice in other severe ancient sieges, including accounts of the Roman siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 recorded by the historian Flavius Josephus.
  • The acrostic structure of this chapter, like the first, rigorously followed the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet — an extremely disciplined poetic exercise used to express a grief that seemed to have no limits.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Lamentations 2:1Unlike what one might expect, the poem doesn't blame only the Babylonians for the destruction — it insists that the Lord Himself acted as an enemy against His own city (verse 5). It's a way of facing the catastrophe without attributing everything to chance or only to foreign military force.
  2. Lamentations 2:2Describes God 'swallowing up' the very dwellings of the people (Jacob/Judah) without pity, throwing down strongholds and treating even the kingdom and its princes as something profane — the temple and the monarchy torn down together.
  3. Lamentations 2:3Uses the image of God withdrawing His own right hand of protection right at the moment of the enemy's attack, and burning against the people like a fire that consumes everything around it without stopping.
  4. Lamentations 2:4The chapter's most shocking image: God is described bending His own bow 'like an enemy,' aiming at everything most beautiful in Jerusalem and pouring out fury like fire inside the city itself.
  5. Lamentations 2:5Repeats the comparison of God acting 'like an enemy,' swallowing up palaces and strongholds of Israel — the text insists it wasn't only the Babylonians, it was God Himself who carried out this destruction.
  6. Lamentations 2:6Comparing the temple to a garden hut, torn down with ease, is shocking for a building that was supposed to be eternal. Saying God rejected the sabbath, the priest, and the king shows that not even Judah's most sacred institutions were spared from the collapse.
  7. Lamentations 2:7God rejects His own altar and abhors His own sanctuary, handing over the walls of the palaces to the enemy — the scene describes shouts of war inside the temple, as if it were a festival day turned upside down.
  8. Lamentations 2:8Uses the image of a mason's measuring line stretched out to precisely mark where to tear down Jerusalem's wall — God measures and destroys methodically, until both the outer rampart and the main wall are weakened.
  9. Lamentations 2:9The city gates are broken down, the king and princes go into exile among the nations, and worst of all: neither the law nor prophetic vision remain available anymore — a complete spiritual void.
  10. Lamentations 2:10The elders sit on the ground in total silence, covered in dust and wearing sackcloth, traditional signs of deep mourning, while the young women of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground in shame and pain.
  11. Lamentations 2:11The scene of children fainting from hunger in their mothers' arms, in the streets, is described without any filter. The poem doesn't soften the physical suffering of the siege, and this insistence on showing children and infants makes the disaster impossible to abstract or minimize.
  12. Lamentations 2:12Starving children ask their mothers where to find food, fainting like the wounded in the streets, literally dying in their mothers' laps — one of the harshest images in the entire book.
  13. Lamentations 2:13The poet admits he can't find any comparison big enough for the size of Jerusalem's pain — the wound is described as 'great like the sea,' impossible to heal with any comfort available.
  14. Lamentations 2:14Directly blames the false prophets for failing to warn about the people's real wrongdoing, offering instead empty, deceptive visions that failed to prevent, and perhaps even hastened, the disaster.
  15. Lamentations 2:15Describes foreigners mocking as they pass by Jerusalem, clapping their hands and shaking their heads in scorn, ironically repeating the city's old praise as 'the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth.'
  16. Lamentations 2:16The enemies open their mouths in open mockery, gnashing their teeth in satisfaction at finally reaching the day they had waited for to devour the city.
  17. Lamentations 2:17Acknowledges that everything happened because God fulfilled what He had decreed long ago, without pity, and let the enemies' power be exalted over Jerusalem.
  18. Lamentations 2:18Calls on the people's own heart, represented by the wall, almost personified, to weep without stopping, day and night, giving the eyes no rest.
  19. Lamentations 2:19Asks that the crying happen even at night, pouring out the heart like water before God, lifting up hands especially for the lives of the children fainting from hunger on the city's street corners.
  20. Lamentations 2:20The rhetorical question about mothers eating the fruit of their own bodies prepares the reader for what chapter 4 will report as an accomplished fact. Here it's still a shocking question directed at God, a way of saying: look how far this has gone.
  21. Lamentations 2:21Describes the bodies of young and old, girls and young men, fallen in the streets by the sword — God is directly held responsible for killing without pity on the day of His own anger.
  22. Lamentations 2:22Closes the chapter saying the terrors were summoned from every side like a festival day turned upside down, and that no one escaped on the day of wrath — even those Jerusalem herself raised and nurtured were consumed by the enemy.

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