UNROLL
The burned temple height of ruined Jerusalem beneath a low, heavy, still gray cloud: the platform’s cut stones dark with soot, the house roofless, the bronze pillars gone.

The Lord’s anger

Lamentations 2

What do you do when God feels like your enemy?

22 verses≈ 6 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1The lonely cityZion weeps, and no one comforts her
  2. 2The Lord’s angerWalls, altar and gates thrown downChapter 2
  3. 3New every morningThe afflicted man finds hope in the LORD
  4. 4The gold grown dimSiege and famine, the king taken, Edom warned
  5. 5Restore us, O LORDThe people’s prayer from the ruins

God’s Anger over Jerusalem

The poet

How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion

with the cloud of His anger!

He has cast the glory of Israel

from heaven to earth.

He has abandoned His footstool

in the day of His anger.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

The poet
The poet

Without pity the Lord has swallowed up

all the dwellings of Jacob.

In His wrath He has demolished

the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah.

He brought to the ground and defiled

her kingdom and its princes.

The poet
The poet

In fierce anger He has cut off

every horn of Israel

and withdrawn His right hand

at the approach of the enemy.

He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire

that consumes everything around it.

The poet

He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

The poet

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 the Daughter of Judah.

Question

Quick question

The poem opens with the temple under a cloud. Read verse 1 again before you answer.

What does the poet call the temple in 2:1?

The poet
The poet

He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth;

He has destroyed His place of meeting.

The LORD has made Zion forget

her appointed feasts and Sabbaths.

In His fierce anger

He has despised both king and priest.

The poet
The poet
The poet

The elders of the Daughter of Zion

sit on the ground in silence.

They have thrown dust on their heads

and put on sackcloth.

The young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their heads to the ground.

The shape of the poem

His anger2:1–10 · walls, altar,gatesMy eyes fail2:11–17 · the poetweepsPour out yourheart2:18–19 · cry to HimLook, O LORD2:20–22 · Zion’s cry

Whiteboard

From what God has done, through tears, to prayer.

The poet

My eyes fail from weeping;

I am churning within.

My heart is poured out in grief

over the destruction of the daughter of my people,

because children and infants faint

in the streets of the city.

The poet

They cry out to their mothers:

“Where is the grain and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

in the streets of the city,

as their lives fade away

in the arms of their mothers.

The poet

What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?

The poet

The visions of your prophets

were empty and deceptive;

they did not expose your guilt

to ward off your captivity.

The burdens they envisioned for you

were empty and misleading.

The poet
From the ridge across the valley, two travelers seen from behind beside a laden donkey, one flinging a hand out toward broken Jerusalem on its two hills.

All who pass by

clap their hands at you in scorn.

They hiss and shake their heads

at the Daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that was called

the perfection of beauty,

the joy of all the earth?”

The poet

All your enemies

open their mouths against you.

They hiss and gnash their teeth,

saying, “We have swallowed her up.

This is the day for which we have waited.

We have lived to see it!”

The poet

The LORD has done what He planned;

He has accomplished His decree,

which He ordained in days of old;

He has overthrown you without pity.

He has let the enemy gloat over you

and exalted the horn of your foes.

The poet
Night on Jerusalem’s broken wall: one small clay oil lamp burning on the flat walkway, the dark ruined city below, early stars above.

The hearts of the people

cry out to the Lord.

O wall of the Daughter of Zion,

let your tears run down like a river

day and night.

Give yourself no relief,

and your eyes no rest.

0:11

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

The poet

Arise, cry out in the night

from the first watch of the night.

The poet

Pour out your heart like water

in the presence of the Lord.

Lamentations 2:19

The poet

Lift up your hands to Him

for the lives of your children

who are fainting from hunger

on the corner of every street.

Daughter Zion

Look, O LORD, and consider:

Whom have You ever treated like this?

Should women eat their offspring,

the infants they have nurtured?

Should priests and prophets be killed

in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Daughter Zion

Both young and old lie together

in the dust of the streets.

My young men and maidens

have fallen by the sword.

You have slain them in the day of Your anger;

You have slaughtered them without compassion.

Daughter Zion

You summoned my terrors on every side,

as for the day of an appointed feast.

In the day of the LORD’s anger

no one escaped or survived;

my enemy has destroyed

those I nurtured and reared.

Pray

Pour it out

The poet says, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.” Tell Him today what you have not said to anyone.

You’ve experienced

Lamentations 2

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A verse to carry with you

Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.

Lamentations 2:19

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