--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 3 of 769 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/3/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation, section 3. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/3/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 2 of 2. ## 3. Lamentations · 3 of 9 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/3/#p-N [¶0] So Milton - " - Despair [¶1] Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch; [¶2] And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook." [¶3] Par. Lost, B. 11:489. [¶4] Jeremiah, [Jer 9:21], uses the same image: - [¶5] Death is come up into our windows: [¶6] He hath entered our palaces, [¶7] To cut off the infants without, [¶8] And the young men in our streets. [¶9] So Silius Italicus, II. 548: - [¶10] Mors graditur, vasto pandens cava guttura rletu, [¶11] Casuroque inhians populo. "Death stalks along, and opens his hideous throat to gulp down the people." ### Verse 21 [¶13] They have heard that I sigh - My affliction is public enough; but no one comes to comfort me. [¶14] They are glad that thou hast done it - On the contrary, they exult in my misery; and they see that Thou hast done what they were incapable of performing. [¶15] Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me - Babylon shall be visited in her turn; and thy judgments poured out upon her shall equal her state with my own. See the last six chapters of the preceding prophecy for the accomplishment of this prediction. ### Verse 22 [¶17] Let all their wickedness come before thee - That is, Thou wilt call their crimes also into remembrance; and thou wilt do unto them by siege, sword, famine, and captivity, what thou hast done to me. Though thy judgments, because of thy long-suffering, are slow; yet, because of thy righteousness, they are sure. [¶18] For my sighs are many - My desolations continue; and my heart is faint - my political and physical strength almost totally destroyed. [¶19] Imprecations in the sacred writings are generally to be understood as declarative of the evils they indicate; or, that such evils will take place. No prophet of God ever wished desolation on those against whom he was directed to prophesy. ### Introduction [¶21] The prophet shows the dire effects of the Divine anger in the miseries brought on his country; the unparalleled calamities of which he charges, on a great measure, on the false prophets, [Lam 2:1-14]. In thus desperate condition, the astonishment and by-word of all who see her, Jerusalem is directed to sue earnestly for mercy and pardon, [Lam 2:15-22]. ### Verse 1 [¶23] How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud - The women in the eastern countries wear veils, and often very costly ones. Here, Zion is represented as being veiled by the hand of God's judgment. And what is the veil? A dark cloud, by which she is entirely obscured. [¶24] Instead of אדני Adonai, lord, twenty-four of Dr. Kennicott's MSS., and some of the most ancient of my own, read יהוה Yehovah, Lord, as in [Lam 2:2]. [¶25] The beauty of Israel - His Temple. [¶26] His footstool - The ark of the covenant, often so called. The rendering of my old MS. Bible is curious: - [¶27] And record not of his litil steging-stole of his feet, in the dai of his woodnesse. [¶28] To be wood signifies, in our ancient language, to be mad. ### Verse 2 [¶30] The Lord hath swallowed up - It is a strange figure when thus applied: but Jehovah is here represented as having swallowed down Jerusalem and all the cities and fortifications in the land: that is, he has permitted them to be destroyed. See [Lam 2:6]. ### Verse 3 [¶32] The horn of Israel - His power and strength. It is a metaphor taken from cattle, whose principal strength lies in their horns. [¶33] Hath drawn back his right hand - He did not support us when our enemies came against us. ### Verse 4 [¶35] He hath bent his bow - he stood with his right hand - This is the attitude of the archer. He first bends his bow; then sets his arrow upon the string; and, lastly, placing his right hand on the lower end of the arrow, in connection with the string, takes his aim, and prepares to let fly. ### Verse 6 [¶37] As if it were of a garden - "As it were the garden of his own hedging." - Blayney. [¶38] The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts - By delivering us up into the hands of the enemy our religious worship is not only suspended, but all Divine ordinances are destroyed. ### Verse 7 [¶40] They have made a noise in the house of the Lord - Instead of the silver trumpets of the sanctuary, nothing but the sounds of warlike instruments are to be heard. ### Verse 8 [¶42] He hath stretched out a line - The line of devastation; marking what was to be pulled down and demolished. ### Verse 9 [¶44] Her gates are sunk into the ground - The consequence of their being long thrown down and neglected. From this it appears that the captivity had already lasted a considerable time.