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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He has withdrawn his right hand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.”

He proceeds with the same subject, and adopts similar words. He says first, that God had abominated his altar; ¹⁵²¹⁵² Our version, “cast off,” gives the real meaning of the verb. — Ed. an expression not strictly proper, but the Prophet could not otherwise fully shew to the Jews what they deserved; for had he only spoken of the city, of the lands, of the palaces, of the vineyards, and, in short, of all their possessions, it would have been a much lighter matter; but when he says that God had counted as nothing all their sacred things, — the altar, the Temple, the ark of the covenant, and festive days, — when, therefore, he says, that God had not only disregarded, but had also cast away from him these things, which yet especially availed to conciliate his favor, the people must have hence perceived, except they were beyond measure stupid, how grievously they had provoked God’s wrath against themselves; for this was the same as though heaven and earth were blended together. Had there been an upsetting of all things, had the sun left its place and sunk into darkness, had the earth heaved upwards, the confusion would have hardly been more dreadful, than when God put forth thus his hand against the sanctuary, the altar, the festal days, and all their sacred things. But we must refer to the reason why this was done, even because the Temple had been long polluted by the iniquities of the people, and because all sacred things had been wickedly and disgracefully profaned. We now, then, understand the reason why the Prophet enlarged so much on a subject in itself sufficiently plain.

He afterwards adds, He hath delivered all the palaces, etc.; as though he had said, that the city had not been taken by the valor of enemies, but that the Chaldeans had fought under the authority and banner of God. He, in short, intimates that the Jews had miserably perished, because they perished through their own fault; and that the Chaldeans had proved victorious in battle, and had taken the city, not through their own courage or skill, but because God had resolved to punish that ungodly and wicked people.

It follows in the last place, that the enemies had made a noise in the temple of God as in the day of solemnity. Here also the Prophet shews, that God would have never suffered the enemies insolently to exult and to revel in the very Temple, had not the Israelites deserved all this; for the insolence of their enemies was not unknown to God, and he might have easily checked it if he pleased. Why, then, did he grant so much license to these profane enemies? even because the Jews themselves had previously polluted the Temple, so that he abhorred all their solemn assemblies, as also he declares by Isaiah, that he detested their festivals, Sabbaths, and new moons. (Isaiah 1:13, 14.) But it was a shocking change, when enemies entered the place which God had consecrated for himself, and there insolently boasted and uttered base and wicked calumnies against God! But the sadder the spectacle, the more detestable appeared the impiety of the people, which had been the cause of so great evils. For we ought ever to remember what I have often stated, that these circumstances were noticed by the Prophet, that the people might at length acknowledge themselves guilty as to all these evils, which they would have otherwise ascribed to the Chaldeans. That, then, the Chaldeans polluted the Temple, that they trod under foot all sacred things, all this the Prophet shews was to be ascribed to the Jews themselves, who had, through their own conduct, opened the Temple to the Chaldeans, who had exposed all sacred things to their will and pleasure. It follows, —