The day of God’s wrath is not a comfortable or popular topic in a culture addicted to hedonism and happiness. In Lamentations 2 God is portrayed as an angry, merciless enemy-warrior attacking his people; a temple demolisher; and a city destroyer. This is hardly an inviting picture of God to share with others! And yet, the image is unavoidable in this chapter. The day of God’s anger bookends the chapter (vv. 1, 21–22), while references to his anger dominate the first half (vv. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6). Reflecting on the day of God’s wrath from a biblical-theological perspective will help to guide application.
The OT records a number of “judgment days” that are all previews of the one final day of God’s judgment. Beginning in the garden of Eden, there is the “day” about which God forewarned Adam, on which he would die if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). While God delayed that judgment day when Adam sinned (though note that an innocent animal did die that day in his place), God nevertheless visited Adam with another judgment day when he expelled him from the garden (Gen. 3:22–24) and then again when Adam died at the age of 930 years (Gen. 5:5).
It was not the last judgment day for humanity. Many others followed: the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Passover night in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the conquest of Canaan. All these served as foreshadows of the final day of God’s anger. As another judgment day loomed on the horizon for Israel and Judah, God’s prophets assigned it the title “the day of the Lord.” For Jerusalem-Judah, their “day of the Lord” came in the form of the Babylonian invasion and subsequent destruction of temple, city, and countryside in 586 BC. The concept of the “day of the Lord,” or the “day of God’s wrath,” communicates several things, but one of the most basic is that sin has consequences. Sin incurs the wrath of God. This is no less true in our day as it was in Judah’s. The NT speaks of the wrath of God as presently being poured out from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness (Rom. 1:18); it also speaks of a “day of wrath” to come, in which God will pour out his anger against sinners in a final judgment (Rom. 2:5; cf. Eph. 5:6; 2 Thess. 1:5–10; Rev. 19:15).
Our response to this present and future reality should be like that of the old men and young women in Zion—we should express repentance. In their preaching the apostles called on everyone to repent in the light of God’s coming judgment (Acts 17:30–31). Jesus insisted that repentance was also the necessary response when we hear of national atrocities or natural tragedies, which serve as intermittent expressions of God’s judgment on a fallen world (Luke 13:1–5). As C. S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
While the day of God’s wrath against sin is the bad news, expressed so vividly and poignantly in the first half of Lamentations 2, it prepares us for the good news of his day of salvation from sin. Reading Lamentations 2:1–10 from a Christological perspective provides gospel light on an otherwise dark passage of Scripture. The offices of king, priest, and prophet in the theocracy of Israel were all preparatory for Jesus, the one person in whom they would be harmoniously and perfectly executed. God’s temple in Jerusalem symbolized God’s presence with his people, typifying Jesus—Immanuel, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). Indeed, speaking of his own death, Jesus identified himself as the temple of God (John 2:19). Thus we can see how the temple’s destruction on the day of God’s anger, experienced by king, priest, prophet, and people, foreshadowed Jesus as he experienced the day of God’s anger on behalf of his people.
On Calvary Jesus was surrounded by the dark “cloud” of God’s judgment (cf. Lam. 2:1), his “splendor” “cast down” (v. 1), as it were, from heaven to earth—and indeed even lower, to Sheol. On the cross God treated Jesus “without mercy” (v. 2) as he poured out his “fury like fire” upon him (v. 4). He was, like the temple on Judah’s judgment day, “laid waste” (v. 6). He was, like king and priest, “spurned” by God (v. 6), sent into exile (v. 9). Like the altar of sacrifice, he was “scorned” (v. 7), and, like the sanctuary, he was “disowned” by God (v. 7). He was delivered into the hands of the enemy—the Jews, the Romans, Pilate and Herod—and yes, even into the hands of God (v. 7). Indeed, God was determined to “lay [him] in ruins” (v. 8; cf. Acts 2:23). Like the walls of the city, Jesus “lamented” and “languished,” exposed on the cross (Lam. 2:8). In his darkest hour, although he was the Prophet of prophets, he was given “no vision from the Lord” (v. 9) as he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
God’s rejection of Jerusalem-Judah and her temple, her leaders (king, priest, and prophet), and her people (old men and young women) was all preparatory for the rejection of Jesus—the Temple, the King, Priest, and Prophet—the Judahite man. Jerusalem-Judah’s hellish experience, in which they were brought down, down, down to the dust of the earth, was Jesus’ hell experience, in which he was brought down, down, down to the abyss of Sheol. For Jerusalem-Judah it was all deserved—not a bit of it unjust; for Jesus it was all undeserved—not a bit of it just. The only explanation that resolves the so-called injustice is that Jesus willingly died as the innocent substitute for his guilty people, typologically fulfilling offices, nation, and temple on the day of God’s wrath. And from that dark and damnable day came light and salvation for the world. For all who trust in Jesus the coming day of God’s wrath induces no terror nor evokes any fear; rather, because Jesus anticipated the day of God’s wrath, we await only the day of God’s salvation.Lamentations 2:1–10
Lamentations 2:11–17
2:1–5 Verse 1 begins in the same way 1:1 and 4:1 do, with the exclamatory particle (“How!”), conveying shock and horror at Zion’s present situation. The line is doubly marked in Hebrew with the prepositional phrase being fronted before the subject to convey emphasis on God’s anger: “How in his anger the Lord has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!” The title “Lord,” used only three times in chapter 1, dominates in chapter 2 (seven times), highlighting the sovereign hand of God in all that Jerusalem-Judah experiences. Indeed, “the Lord/the Lord/he” is the subject of twenty-eight verbs in verses 1–8, presenting a relentless drumbeat of divine aggression against Israel. The verb “set . . . under a cloud” (ʿawab) only occurs here in the OT, being understood as a verb derived from the noun “cloud” (ʿab). The irony of what God does here may be noted when we recall God’s association with clouds (cf. Pss. 97:2; 104:3). In the exodus the cloud imagery powerfully conveyed God’s presence and protection of his people (Ex. 13:21–22; 19:9; 40:34–38). Yet now God has surrounded his people in a cloud of judgment, not salvation.
In one sense the opening bicolon stands as the governing picture for everything that will be described: God has clouded his people with his anger. The second bicolon (Lam. 2:1b) continues the judgment scene, describing the fall of Israel in cosmic terms. Heaven and earth are used elsewhere as measures of absolute height and depth (Prov. 25:3). The prophet will include the sea in Lamentations 2:13 to convey absolute length and breadth. Here he uses the heavens and the earth as polar opposites to communicate how far Israel has fallen: God has thrown her down from heaven to earth. The “splendor of Israel” is another way of speaking of the “daughter of Zion,” but perhaps with a focus on the most splendid aspect of Israel—her temple in Zion. The reference to “his footstool” in the third bicolon (v. 1c)—a metaphor for the ark and house of God—supports this reading (cf. 1 Chron. 28:2; cf. Pss. 99:5; 132:7).
Thus, the significance of the fall of Israel, and in particular the fall of the temple, has graver ramifications. When the temple was destroyed, the meeting point between heaven and earth—between God and man—was destroyed. The throwing down of the splendor of Israel in a sense constituted the end not only of Israel but of the whole world. The third bicolon underlines the shock (and irony) of God’s action in terms that seem to strike at the very character and covenant of God: “He has not remembered his footstool.” In the OT God is known for “remembering” his people and covenant (e.g., Gen. 8:1; Ex. 2:24; 6:5; cf. Pss. 98:3; 105:8), yet now he seems deliberately to have done the opposite in relation to his temple—the very embodiment of his presence and rule among his people. Finally, the reference to “the day of [God’s] anger” forms an inclusio within the verse, but also within the poem itself (cf. Lam. 2:21–22), highlighting the chapter’s central theme.
In verse 2 the prophet zooms out from the city to the countryside, to “all the habitations of Jacob” and the “strongholds of the daughter of Judah,” showing that the judgment of God was not restricted to one locale, the city of Jerusalem and its temple, but encompassed the whole of Judah. In verse 1 the Lord was portrayed as angry; here he is portrayed as merciless—he devoured towns across the nation “without mercy” (cf. vv. 17, 21). Again there is the negation of a term normally associated with God’s character and covenant (“mercy/compassion”; cf. Ex. 34:6). The prophets often appeal to this characteristic of God as they urge his people toward repentance (Joel 2:18; cf. 2 Chron. 36:15–16). The absence of God’s mercy reveals that the merciful warnings of his messengers have run their course, without result.
The image of the warrior comes to the fore in Lamentations 2:3–4, but some of the verbs in verses 1–2 are preparatory: the Lord is a warrior who has “cast down” (v. 1) and “swallowed up,” “broken down,” and “brought down” (v. 2). The imagery conveys that Judah-Israel are a sinful people hurled from the hands of an angry, merciless God. The terminus of God’s destructive actions is downward, “to earth” (v. 1) and “to the ground” (v. 2). This is where the subsection will end as well: with the gates sunken “into the ground” (v. 9), the elders sitting “on the ground,” and the young women with heads bowed “to the ground” (v. 10). The repetition of the word “ground” stresses the point that God’s people have been brought down, down, down. The one hint of grace is that Israel is thrust to the earth and not to Sheol.
The final line of verse 2 forms a monocolon, which functions as a summary climax to convey the gravity of the situation. The verse could be rendered “He has profaned/dishonored the kingdom and its rulers.” The kingdom of God has fallen, lying in ruins. The prophet will distinguish different categories of rulers (kings and princes, priests and prophets, and elders) in the following verses (vv. 6, 9, 10, 14). Here it is enough to acknowledge that Israel’s leadership structure in general has been profaned by God. The language of defilement is judgment language (cf. Isa. 43:28; 47:5–6; Ezek. 22:16).
Lamentations 2:3–5 returns to the regular pattern of three bicola per stanza, with the image of God as the angry enemy-warrior coming to the fore. Verse 3 speaks of God’s removing Israel’s defenses in his fierce anger. First, God has cut down “all the might [or “horn”] of Israel.” In the OT the horn is a symbol of pride and exalted strength, a weapon of defense, symbolized by the horn of a bull (cf. Pss. 75:10; 89:17). Now that it has been cut off, Israel has no strength or weapon with which to defend herself. Second, God has pulled back his “right hand” in the face of Israel’s enemy. God’s hand, an anthropomorphism used to communicate his power, is used to describe how God redeemed his people from the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. God’s right hand shattered the enemy; he stretched out his right hand and the earth swallowed them up (cf. Ex. 15:6, 12). But now he pulls his hand back—not to become a neutral spectator but rather to reengage his hand in bending his bow against Israel like an enemy (Lam. 2:4a).
Third, God has been like a consuming fire among the people of Jacob, as he had threatened in the covenant curses (Deut. 29:22–23). Fire is a typical element in judgment imagery (cf. Jer. 4:4; 7:20; Amos 5:6). This too is a reversal of Israel’s experience, since God’s fiery presence previously served to guide and protect Israel as they left Egypt (Ex. 13:21–22). Now it consumes them (Lam. 2:3; cf. v. 20). Thus we have a complete reversal in Yahweh’s role as warrior: in Egypt and at the Red Sea he was a loving warrior fighting for Israel; now in his own land and hallowed capital city he is an angry warrior fighting against Israel.
If in verse 3 God the angry warrior had removed Israel’s defenses, in verse 4 he becomes the enemy who attacks Israel with bow and arrow in hand, slaying all in his path. It is as if he shoots multiple arrows at once to inflict the maximum damage on “all” (v. 4). The description of his targets as those who were “delightful in our eyes” echoes the identical terminology of “precious things” in chapter 1 (vv. 7, 10). The pronoun “our” reflects an interpretative decision on the part of the ESV, given there is no pronoun in the Hebrew text. On this rendering it may refer to loved ones and precious possessions. Alternatively, it could mean that God targeted those who were once precious in his eyes, which could fit with the theme of divine reversal already witnessed so far. The third bicolon of verse 4 returns to the temple with a fronted descriptor (“tent of the daughter of Zion”), which amplifies the reality that God’s consuming fire also reached into the holiest place of all in the holy city—the temple itself. The reference to the “tent” recalls the tabernacle era at Sinai and in the wilderness. The mention of fire poured out in the tent of God’s dwelling again creates some irony, given that God’s shekinah glory, his cloud-by-day-and-fire-by-night presence, dwelt in the tabernacle (Ex. 40:38). At that time the fire meant his protective presence; now it means his destructive devouring.
In Lamentations 2:5 the relentless nature of the divine warrior’s aggression against Israel continues as Yahweh is named again as an “enemy” (v. 5). The key verb “swallow” (balaʿ) reappears twice with God as its subject (cf. v. 2). It is rarely used of God, being more often associated with the activity of Israel’s enemies (e.g., Jer. 51:34). It will be used again by the nations who taunt and mock that they have “swallowed” Jerusalem on the day they anticipated (Lam. 2:16). Yahweh is the ultimate devourer of the nations, with Babylon as his mouth and throat, so to speak. However, at this point Yahweh is seen as the sole actor against Israel. What he devours is Israel, though—more particularly, key physical structures in Israel, such as the palaces near the temple in the city as well as the strongholds throughout the countryside (v. 5). There is irony here too, since God was said to protect Zion’s palaces (Ps. 48:3). The land is devastated in every respect, a typical element of the day-of-the-Lord imagery (cf. Joel 1:2–2:11; Amos 4:6–13; Zeph. 2:4–15). The result is a divine multiplication of “mourning and lamentation,” all of which could have been avoided had the people heeded the warnings of Moses (Lev. 26:21–26, 31–32; Deut. 28:20–68; cf. also 1 Kings 9:7–8) and the prophets (Isa. 2:1–4:1; Jer. 4:5–31; Amos 3–5; Zeph. 1:3–3:8). Instead, deservedly, God has multiplied moaning and mourning for Judah.
2:6–7 Continuing the relentless drumbeat of divine activity, Lamentations 2:6–7 introduces us to God the temple demolisher. Five different descriptors are used to refer to the temple in only two verses: it is a “booth” in a garden, “his meeting place” (v. 6), “his altar,” “his sanctuary,” and “the house of the Lord” (v. 7). The temple will be mentioned only once more, near the end of the poem, as Zion makes an appeal to God for what happened in the “sanctuary of the Lord” (v. 20). The verbs used to describe Yahweh’s actions against his own dwelling place are strong and communicate violent destruction and entire rejection: he “laid waste his booth” (v. 6; cf. Isa. 1:8), “laid in ruins his meeting place” (Lam. 2:6; cf. Jer. 7:12–14; 26:6), and “scorned his altar” (Lam. 2:7) and “disowned his sanctuary”—the place where he had chosen to set his name (Deut. 12:5, 11). The temple, with its towering edifice on Mount Zion, seemed so permanent, but with God as its enemy it became so fragile—like an old wooden shack in a garden, easily razed to the ground. The altar, once the place of Judah’s acceptance, is now the place of God’s rejection—the opportunity for forgiveness and fellowship have been eliminated.
However, it was not only physical structures that God laid to ruin; spiritual structures were destroyed too (Lam. 2:6). God caused worship at the temple to cease to the point that those in Zion “forgot” the days of festival and Sabbath celebrations (v. 6; cf. Leviticus 23; Deut. 16:1–17); God also “spurned” Israel’s offices of kingship and priesthood, which he had instituted (Ex. 32:25–29; Deut. 17:14–20). Both were integral to Israel’s existence as a theocratic state: the king was protector, while the priest was instructor. In short, place and people, infrastructure and institution—all sacred to God—were destroyed and rejected by him. Interestingly, God’s covenant name Yahweh (“Lord”) is used for the first time in the second poem at this point (Lam. 2:6), perhaps to underline that what happened to the temple was due to Judah’s breach of his covenant.
While Yahweh is presented as the main actor in these verses, the mention of “the enemy” reveals the agent by which he wreaked such destruction. Historically this was the Babylonians, though other nations were involved too. Not only did they attack the surrounding palaces near the temple sanctuary, but they also entered the temple itself, holding their own noisy “festival” in the house of the Lord (v. 7; Ps. 74:4–5). The prophet marks the occasion for our attention by fronting the word “clamor” in the Hebrew text. The picture is thick with irony. God had brought about the Babylonian destruction of his city and temple because of the witchcraft and idolatrous worship of Judah’s king and people, especially the sins of Manasseh (cf. 2 Kings 21:1–15). And yet, just before the temple fell as a result of Manasseh’s corrupt worship within its four walls, it housed the “unholy din” of a pagan festival, “a kind of witches’ sabbath.” What a parody!
The symbolic import of the temple puts the significance of God’s actions in their full light. As a physical structure the temple was the geographical meeting point between God and Israel; as a religious structure it was the nation’s spiritual center for the worship of God, exhibited most visibly in the celebration of the weekly Sabbaths and annual festivals. It was also the place of forgiveness and fellowship, depicted in the altar and its daily and annual sacrifices. What God does to his own dwelling place, therefore, is of cataclysmic significance for Judah. No more meeting with God. No more worship of God. No more forgiveness from God. The end of the temple was the end of Judah’s world.
2:8–9a Lamentations 2:8–9 enlarges the scene of God’s destructive work, moving out from temple precincts to city defenses. God laid to ruin and broke Zion’s fortifications—wall, rampart, gates, and bars. The opening verb of verse 8 (“determined”) with the complementary infinitive (“to lay in ruins”) firmly situates the devastation of Zion within the sovereign purposes of God. The destruction of Zion was no accident; it was providence—a deliberate, calculated act (cf. 1:17, 21; 2:17). Indeed, it had been foreseen and forewarned by Jeremiah (Jer. 1:10; 18:11–12), and now God has carried it out with determination. The reuse of “Lord” underscores that, while God executed his anger against Judah, he did so in the context of his covenant relationship with her.
Two images in the second bicolon reinforce the purposeful action of God. The image of the measuring line conveys the idea of deliberate plans, as tools of construction are now employed as tools of destruction. The metaphor recalls God’s warning to ungodly Manasseh about an imminent judgment he was planning (cf. 2 Kings 21:13). The second image is that of God’s hand in the “destroying.” In Lamentations 2:3–4 he had withdrawn his right hand from helping Israel and then reemployed it to bend the bow and aim his arrows at her; now it is fully engaged in destroying the wall of Zion. The scene is so devastating that the prophet personifies its objects: God caused rampart and wall to “lament” and “languish” together. The fortress walls of Zion became wailing walls. The focus on Zion’s fortifications spills over into the first bicolon of verse 9. Zion’s gates sank into the ground as God ruined and broke her bars. The fronted prepositional phrase “into the ground” spotlights again how low the city has fallen (cf. vv. 1, 2). Her gates are not simply open; they are buried, her bars broken. The picture is that of a devastated and defenseless city.
2:9b–10 Verse 9 indicates that the destructive work of God is not restricted to physical structures but encompasses spiritual structures as well. The kingship of the theocratic nation is no more, Zion’s kings and their princely heirs being scattered among the nations (cf. Deut. 28:64). The law is no more, implying that the priesthood is shattered (cf. Lam. 2:20), since priests served as Israel’s instructors (cf. Deut. 33:10; Mal. 2:7). And prophetism no longer provided revelation from Yahweh, a mark of the day of the Lord (cf. Amos 8:11–12). Of these three offices—kingly, priestly, and prophetic—the latter was the most important for keeping the nation in fellowship with God. As the ministries of Elijah and Elisha demonstrate—as well as those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets—divinely chosen prophets were God’s means to keep kingship, priesthood, and nation in check. But now even Zion’s prophets find no vision from God, indicating that the time for further warnings is over—it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God. It is not that prophetic visions have ceased entirely; rather, as Lamentations 2:14 indicates, prophets saw false and misleading visions, which they then imparted to the people. The statement about Zion’s prophets is climactic, rounding out her devastating situation. Not only is she physically exposed and defenseless; she is constitutionally and religiously hopeless: her kings are displaced (Lam. 2:9), her priests are dead (vv. 9, 20), and her prophets are deceitful or dumb (v. 9)—and in some cases, even dead (v. 20).
In verse 10 for the first time Yahweh is no longer the main subject of the verbs; now Zion’s citizens are. Yet all they do is “sit” and remain “silent” as they “throw” dust on their heads and “put on sackcloth,” “bowing” their heads to the ground. The noisy and violent behavior of God the warrior-demolisher-destroyer (vv. 1–9) is met with the stillness and silence of old men and young women (v. 10). They are, in a word, dumbstruck at what God has done. The state into which the people have been brought low is also highlighted with the double reference to “the ground,” which forms a neat inclusio with the double reference to “the earth/ground” in verses 1–2. The people have been brought down, down, down into the dust of the earth—dust being a symbol for death itself (cf. Gen. 3:19). Two new categories of people who have been affected are mentioned in Lamentations 2:10: (1) the elders, who represent the aged and wise in the community—they sit in silence, like the priests and prophets, and are dressed in dust and sackcloth—and (2) the young women, who served a cultic role in singing and dancing on religious occasions—they “bow their heads to the ground.” Together these represent the polar opposites of age and gender, forming a merism and symbolizing the community as a whole. Thus the chapter ends with Judah’s king and princes scattered and her people sitting in silence and sackcloth, faces bowed to the ground. Depressing as the picture is, perhaps there is a hint of hope: the clothing of the old men (sackcloth) and the posture of the young women (bowed down) may be the first signs of repentance (cf. Jonah 3:6).