A. God as Jerusalem’s adversary.
1. The Lord is the enemy of Jerusalem, 1–5.
a. When the Lord was furious, He covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud. In earlier centuries, Jerusalem had witnessed the glory of God’s cloud (1 Kings 8:10-12). Ezekiel witnessed the judgment’s cloud of splendor leave the city (Ezekiel 10). The cloud that Jeremiah is now lamenting is an angry cloud, not one of splendor.
● “Women in eastern countries frequently wear very expensive veils. Zion is portrayed in this passage as being covered by God’s wrath. What exactly is the veil? She is completely hidden by a thick cloud.”
● “The earth is called the Lord’s footstool, Isaiah 66:1 Matthew 5:35 Acts 7:49, but here plainly the temple is understood, called God’s footstool, 1 Chronicles 28:2; and the entire temple seems rather to be understood than the ark,” the Bible says.
b. The first of many He has declarations is, “He has cast down in His fury the strongholds of the daughter of Judah.” The idea that God is ultimately responsible for all of this destruction, even if He used the Babylonian army as a tool, is once again emphasized.
● The titles “daughter of Zion” and “daughter of Judah” are honorific, yet they come with a tremendous deal of duty. The people of God for many generations solely considered their privileges, ignoring their responsibilities. The nation believed it was in a special position because of its covenant relationship with God, but it was apparently unaware that this status came with significant moral and spiritual obligations.
● Due to the fact that Capernaum had also rejected the challenge of God’s redeeming works, she was promised (Matthew 11:21ff) a role in the fate of Chorazin and Bethsaida.
c. Jeremiah observed that God treated Jerusalem as an enemy and an adversary, standing like an enemy, and bending His bow. His right hand’s talent and strength were not on his side; they were working against him.
● God was fighting against his people in a weird twist on the Old Testament concept of the divine warrior.
● That is, God, whom they had provoked and turned against them through their sins, behaved in a hostile manner by bending his bow and reaching out his right hand to kill their attractive young men and women. He also brought judgments upon them in the form of fire, which consumes without regard for gender.
2. The Lord burns His own tabernacle in verses 6-7.
a. He has violated His tabernacle: In this instance, the temple was referred to as a tabernacle, just as the latter was occasionally done with the former. They were merely numerous metaphors for God’s temple, where He assembles His people.
b. The fixed feasts and Sabbaths in Zion have been forgotten by the LORD because the city’s temple and all of the associated rituals and institutions were destroyed at the same time.
● Sabbaths and feasts were no longer kept.
● His altar was sent away.
● His sanctuary had been forgotten.
● Her palaces were turned over to the enemy.
c. They have made noise in the temple of the LORD: On the day of a fixed feast, yelling, tumult, and noise were typical sounds. They are now aware of the enemy noise that has subjugated the city.
B. The response of a city to God’s wrath.
1. The city’s defenders respond (8–9a).
a. The wall that protected Jerusalem has been specifically targeted by the LORD for destruction. After the wall was taken down, the city became a target for everyone and anything. God intended to destroy, and Lamentations 2:17 declares that the intention has been accomplished.
b. The implication is that God performed His work with meticulous measurement and precision. He has extended out a line. There was nothing unplanned or
● “Of destruction, or a leveling line,” the line reads. See Isaiah 34:11 and 2 Kings 21:13. Jerusalem was constructed line by line, and by doing everything in terms of number, weight, and measure, it was destroyed.
● “God had been as meticulous in the operation of demolition to guarantee that one stone did not stand upon another,” said the author. “Just as a builder measures levels carefully in the process of construction.”
c. Her gates are buried in the earth; the city’s defenses, including its walls and gates, were all breached.
2. The citizens of the city respond
a. The royalty and nobility have been brought to Babylon, and her king and princes are among the other nations. Governmental agencies had vanished and were no longer useful.
b. The Law is no longer in effect, and her prophets are unable to see any signs from the LORD because the spiritual institutions had also failed and were helpless. The prophets remained silent, and there were no obedient priests to impart the Law.
● “Jeremiah was by himself and likely decided to stop prophesying after seeing everything destroyed. Daniel and Ezekiel lived far apart. This affliction, which is complained of here, was not slight.
c. The community’s leaders were stunned into silence and were helpless as the elders of the daughter of Zion sat motionless on the ground. All they could do was weep (throw dust on their heads).
d. Jerusalem’s virgins bow their heads to the ground and lament that the younger generation offered no assistance. All they could manage was to sigh helplessly and lower their heads to the ground.
● The phrase “elders” and “young women” undoubtedly refers to the entire population that is still alive.
3. The prophet responds (11–12).
a. His heart broke, his eyes welled up with tears, and he became nauseous. He was moved to act in this way when he watched the destruction of the city, especially how it affected the young children and newborns.
● The prophet wept until he was nearly blind, his passion disturbed his bodily humours to the point that his bowels were troubled, and his gall, which was under his liver, was disturbed and vomited up as a result. This entire verse is only an expression of the prophet’s great affliction for the misfortunes that have befallen the Jews.
● My bile is spilled on the ground: Bile is actually liver, to put it simply. As the body’s most weighty organ, the liver (MT kabed, “heavy”) was thought to be one of the sites of psychic existence in antiquity since it was linked to intense emotional responses that were typically depressing in nature.
b. Jeremiah witnessed youngsters stumbling to the ground as if they had been pierced by arrows. They swoon like the wounded. As their life was being poured out in their moms’
C. Yearning to console a deserted city.
1. False prophets are unable to console Jerusalem (13–14).
a. What can I do to comfort you? Jeremiah frequently lamented Jerusalem’s lack of comfort. He is now powerless to console the shattered city. The destruction of Jerusalem is unavoidable and extends as far as the ocean.
● Zion has experienced divine vengeance in a way similar to how the tide breaks through a hole in a defensive wall.
b. Your prophets have seen for you misleading and deceptive visions: Jeremiah and Ezekiel both mention numerous false prophets in Judah’s final days. They assured you that God would deliver Judah and Jerusalem from the Babylonians and would swiftly return your prisoners. All of them were fabrications and fantasies.
3. The suffering of the vanishing city
a. Whom did You do this for? God was pleaded with in agony by Jerusalem to think about the people and city He had loved. He pleaded with God to take into account the depths of their suffering, which included cannibalism (the women devour their own children) and the deaths of the priest and prophet.
● The women eat their children: “From this query it appears that they did so during the Chaldean siege of Jerusalem. They behaved in the same way during the Samaritan famine that Joram caused, [2 Kings 6:28–29] as well as during the final Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the siege of Sancerra in France in AD. 1572.”
b. They were killed on the day of Your wrath, and Jerusalem personified understood it was all just punishment from God. A gang of tyrants were summoned by Yahweh to encircle Jerusalem. All of Jerusalem’s supporters (including those I was pregnant with and raised) were wiped out by her adversaries.
● My virgins and my youth have perished at the sword’s edge: “The massacre of the youth was particularly tragic because it
● You have sent an invitation to a feast day with the following statement: “Perhaps the figure is the gathering of the people in Jerusalem on one of the solemn annual feasts. Similar to how people from all around the country gather for one of those major festivals, God has gathered terrors