Chapter (elegy) 2
[La 2:1-22].
Aleph.
1. How--The title of the collection repeated here, and in [La 4:1].
covered ... with a cloud--that is, with the darkness of ignominy.
cast down from heaven unto ... earth--([Mt 11:23]); dashed down from the highest prosperity to the lowest misery.
beauty of Israel--the beautiful temple ([Psa 29:2]; ; , Margin; [Is 60:7]; ).
his footstool--the ark (compare [1Ch 28:2], with [Psa 99:5]; ). They once had gloried more in the ark than in the God whose symbol it was; they now feel it was but His "footstool," yet that it had been a great glory to them that God deigned to use it as such.
Beth.
2. polluted--by delivering it into the hands of the profane foe. Compare [Psa 89:39], "profaned ... crown."
Gimel.
3. horn--worn in the East as an ornament on the forehead, and an emblem of power and majesty ([1Sa 2:10]; [Psa 132:17]; see on [Jr 48:25]).
drawn back ... fight hand--([Psa 74:11]). God has withdrawn the help which He before gave them. Not as Henderson, "He has turned back his (Israel's) right hand" ([Psa 89:43]).
Daleth.
4. ([Is 63:10]).
stood with ... right hand--He took His stand so as to use His right hand as an adversary. Henderson makes the image to be that of an archer steadying his right hand to take aim. Not only did He withdraw His help, but also took arms against Israel.
all ... pleasant to ... eye--([Eze 24:25]). All that were conspicuous for youth, beauty, and rank.
in ... tabernacle--the dwellings of Jerusalem.
He.
5. an enemy--([Jr 30:14]).
mourning and lamentation--There is a play of similar sounds in the original, "sorrow and sadness," to heighten the effect ([Job 30:3], Hebrew; [Eze 35:3], Margin).
Vau.
6. tabernacle--rather, "He hath violently taken away His hedge (the hedge of the place sacred to Him, [Psa 80:12]; ; [Is 5:5]), as that of a garden" [Maurer]. Calvin supports English Version, "His tabernacle (that is, temple) as (one would take away the temporary cottage or booth) of a garden." [Is 1:8] accords with this ([Job 27:18]).
places of ... assembly--the temple and synagogues ([Psa 74:7], ).
solemn feasts--([La 1:4]).
Zain.
7. they ... made a noise in ... house of ... Lord, as in ... feast--The foe's shout of triumph in the captured temple bore a resemblance (but oh, how sad a contrast as to the occasion of it!) to the joyous thanksgivings we used to offer in the same place at our "solemn feasts" (compare [La 2:22]).
Cheth.
8. stretched ... a line--The Easterns used a measuring-line not merely in building, but in destroying edifices ([2Ki 21:13]; [Is 34:11]); implying here the unsparing rigidness with which He would exact punishment.
Teth.
9. Her gates cannot oppose the entrance of the foe into the city, for they are sunk under a mass of rubbish and earth.
broken ... bars--([Jr 51:30]).
her king ... among ... Gentiles--([De 28:36]).
law ... no more--([2Ch 15:3]). The civil and religious laws were one under the theocracy. "All the legal ordinances (prophetical as well as priestly) of the theocracy, are no more" ([Psa 74:9]; [Eze 7:26]).
Jod.
10. ([Job 2:12], ). The "elders," by their example, would draw the others to violent grief.
the virgins--who usually are so anxious to set off their personal appearances to advantage.
Caph.
11. liver is poured, &c.--that is, as the liver was thought to be the seat of the passions, "all my feelings are poured out and prostrated for," &c. The "liver," is here put for the bile ("gall," [Job 16:13]; "bowels," [Psa 22:14]) in a bladder on the surface of the liver, copiously discharged when the passions are agitated.
swoon--through faintness from the effects of hunger.
Lamed.
12. as the wounded--famine being as deadly as the sword ([Jr 52:6]).
soul ... poured ... into ... mothers bosom--Instinctively turning to their mother's bosom, but finding no milk there, they breathe out their life as it were "into her bosom."
Mem.
13. What thing shall I take to witness--What can I bring forward as a witness, or instance, to prove that others have sustained as grievous ills as thou? I cannot console thee as mourners are often consoled by showing that thy lot is only what others, too, suffer. The "sea" affords the only suitable emblem of thy woes, by its boundless extent and depth ([La 1:12]; [Da 9:12]).
Nun.