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2. Lord's Anger Against His People

¹ This chapter is an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion
   with the cloud of his anger Or How the Lord in his anger / has treated Daughter Zion with contempt!
He has hurled down the splendor of Israel
   from heaven to earth;
he has not remembered his footstool
   in the day of his anger.

    ² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up
   all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has torn down
   the strongholds of Daughter Judah.
He has brought her kingdom and its princes
   down to the ground in dishonor.

    ³ In fierce anger he has cut off
   every horn Or off / all the strength; or every king Horn here symbolizes strength. of Israel.
He has withdrawn his right hand
   at the approach of the enemy.
He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
   that consumes everything around it.

    ⁴ Like an enemy he has strung his bow;
   his right hand is ready.
Like a foe he has slain
   all who were pleasing to the eye;
he has poured out his wrath like fire
   on the tent of Daughter Zion.

    ⁵ The Lord is like an enemy;
   he has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces
   and destroyed her strongholds.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
   for Daughter Judah.

    ⁶ He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;
   he has destroyed his place of meeting.
The LORD has made Zion forget
   her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;
in his fierce anger he has spurned
   both king and priest.

    ⁷ The Lord has rejected his altar
   and abandoned his sanctuary.
He has given the walls of her palaces
   into the hands of the enemy;
they have raised a shout in the house of the LORD
   as on the day of an appointed festival.

    ⁸ The LORD determined to tear down
   the wall around Daughter Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line
   and did not withhold his hand from destroying.
He made ramparts and walls lament;
   together they wasted away.

    ⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground;
   their bars he has broken and destroyed.
Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,
   the law is no more,
and her prophets no longer find
   visions from the LORD.

    ¹⁰ The elders of Daughter Zion
   sit on the ground in silence;
they have sprinkled dust on their heads
   and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
   have bowed their heads to the ground.

    ¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping,
   I am in torment within;
my heart is poured out on the ground
   because my people are destroyed,
because children and infants faint
   in the streets of the city.

    ¹² They say to their mothers,
   “Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
   in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb away
   in their mothers’ arms.

    ¹³ What can I say for you?
   With what can I compare you,
   Daughter Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you,
   that I may comfort you,
   Virgin Daughter Zion?
Your wound is as deep as the sea.
   Who can heal you?

    ¹⁴ The visions of your prophets
   were false and worthless;
they did not expose your sin
   to ward off your captivity.
The prophecies they gave you
   were false and misleading.

    ¹⁵ All who pass your way
   clap their hands at you;
they scoff and shake their heads
   at Daughter Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
   the perfection of beauty,
   the joy of the whole earth?”

    ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths
   wide against you;
they scoff and gnash their teeth
   and say, “We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for;
   we have lived to see it.”

    ¹⁷ The LORD has done what he planned;
   he has fulfilled his word,
   which he decreed long ago.
He has overthrown you without pity,
   he has let the enemy gloat over you,
   he has exalted the horn Horn here symbolizes strength. of your foes.

    ¹⁸ The hearts of the people
   cry out to the Lord.
You walls of Daughter Zion,
   let your tears flow like a river
   day and night;
give yourself no relief,
   your eyes no rest.

    ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night,
   as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heart like water
   in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
   for the lives of your children,
who faint from hunger
   at every street corner.

    ²⁰ “Look, LORD, and consider:
   Whom have you ever treated like this?
Should women eat their offspring,
   the children they have cared for?
Should priest and prophet be killed
   in the sanctuary of the Lord?

    ²¹ “Young and old lie together
   in the dust of the streets;
my young men and young women
   have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of your anger;
   you have slaughtered them without pity.

    ²² “As you summon to a feast day,
   so you summoned against me terrors on every side.
In the day of the LORD’s anger
   no one escaped or survived;
those I cared for and reared
   my enemy has destroyed.”

These words might seem superfluous, since the Prophet has often repeated, that God was become an enemy to his own people; but we shall hereafter see, that though they were extremely afflicted, they yet did not rightly consider whence their calamity arose. As, then, they had become so stupified by their evils, that they did not turn their eyes to God, they were on this account often urged and stimulated, that they might at length understand by their evils that God was a judge. Now, as it was difficult to convince them of this truth, the Prophet did not think it enough briefly to touch on it, but found it necessary to dwell on it at large, so that the people might at length be roused from their insensibility.

He then says that God himself was to them as an enemy, lest the Israelites should fix their eyes on the Chaldeans, and thus think that they had been the chief movers of the war. He therefore says, that they had undertaken that war through the secret influence of God, and had carried it on successfully, because God endued them with his own power. And hence the faithful ought to have concluded, that nothing could have been more grievous than to have God as their adversary; for as long as they had suffered themselves to be defended by the hand of God, they were victorious, we know, over all their enemies, so that they could then brave all dangers with impunity. The Prophet now reminds them, that as they had been successful and prosperous under the defense and protection of God, so now they were miserable, for no other reason but that God fought against them. But we ought at the same time to bear in mind the truth, which we have noticed, that God is never angry with men without reason; and since he was especially inclined to shew favor to his people, we must understand that he would not have been thus indignant, had not necessity constrained him.

He has destroyed Israel, he says; he has destroyed all his palaces; and afterwards, he has dissipated or demolished all his fortresses; and finally, he has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation; תאניה ואניה tanie veanie, words derived from the same root, but joined together for the sake of amplifying, not only in this place, but also in the twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah, and in other places. The meaning is, that God had not put an end to his vengeance, because the people had not resolved to put an end to their obstinate wickedness. He afterwards adds, —