These days God does not really evoke fear in the hearts of many. If people believe that God exists at all, they tend to think of him as a benevolent, old grandfather figure who wishes no harm on anyone and who would alleviate all the suffering in the world if only he could. In stark contrast Lamentations 2 confronts us with a portrait of God as both terrifying and sovereign. The anger of God bookends the chapter and is felt throughout, especially in verses 1–10 and verses 21–22, while his sovereignty is candidly affirmed in the climactic statement of verse 17: Yahweh did what he purposed, and what he purposed was the destruction of his people. The statement raises questions of theodicy (the dilemma of God’s relation to evil), human responsibility (Were the nations responsible for their actions?), and suffering (Why would God plan such atrocities on his own people?). The concerns are alleviated, however, when it is understood that God had forewarned his people of the coming destruction, first through Moses (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28–29) and then later via the prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, Joel, etc.). Indeed, because he had compassion on his people, he persistently sent them messengers to turn them from their sin and delay or remove the possibility of exile (2 Chron. 36:15).
However, they would not listen, which points to the issue of human responsibility. What occurs in Lamentations 2 is not raw determinism but rather real compatibilism. God is sovereign, yes, but the people are also responsible. The false prophets among them were responsible for bringing fraudulent visions to the people that kept them enslaved to their sin and brought them into captivity, and the people were responsible for their own iniquity and for listening to false prophets instead of true prophets like Jeremiah (Lam. 2:14). Their miserable state is their own miserable fault. The nations were also responsible for their part in the atrocities, something they were not shy in admitting, as seen in their boastful mockery (v. 16). However, while acknowledging God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, Lamentations does not minimize human suffering that results from such compatibilism. More so than any other book in the Bible, Lamentations presents the suffering of humanity in the most vivid of pictures among the most vulnerable of people: little children. The fact that God chose to inspire such images in the mind of the writer as he penned these poetic lamentations indicates that he is not a God who is deaf to the cry of his suffering people or his little ones. Indeed, he desires the world to hear those cries, then and now.
Amid the suffering felt by God’s people emerges a prophet who identifies with them and weeps alongside them. In verse 11 the prophet is so moved by what he witnesses that he breaks down in tears and physical convulsions, vomiting his bile onto the streets. The description is not hyperbole but reality and indicates that arising out of this horrific situation is a prophet who sympathizes fully with the plight of his people. Not only that, but he also takes on a kind of advocacy role, wishing to speak for them and bring comfort to them. The weeping prophet is a willing pastor. By chapter 3 he will become their representative as he speaks their collective voice in intercession to God as he suffers on their behalf. He is also a prophet who has not pulled back from uncovering the people’s iniquity (1:5, 8, 14, 18, 20, 22), and thus he has begun to restore their fortunes, as all true prophets ought to do (2:14). In short, while God’s people are under his judgment, God nevertheless provides them with a weeping prophet who seeks to bring them comfort as they live under the miserable burden of their sin.
As such, the prophetic figure of Lamentations points us back to prophetic intercessors such as Moses (cf. Ex. 33:12–16) and also forward to the Intercessor, Jesus Christ. In his role as prophet Jesus assumed the stance of sympathy toward sinners, seeking to bring them comfort from the misery and burden of their sin (Matt. 11:28–30; cf. Heb. 4:14–16). He was most qualified to do so, for he knew what it was to lament over a rebellious city (Lam. 2:11; cf. Luke 13:34; 19:41–44) and to weep in the face of death (Lam. 2:11; cf. John 11:33–38), offering up prayers with loud cries and tears as a weeping prophet (Lam. 2:11; Heb. 5:7). He knew what it was to receive the triumphant, mocking taunts of passersby wagging their heads on the day of God’s anger (Lam. 2:15–16; Matt. 27:39–44). He knew what it was to experience God’s making his enemy rejoice over him and exalt the might of his foes (Lam. 2:17). And he knew what it was, in the midst of great suffering, to ask questions of God but receive no answers. Indeed, his experience of these things was even more intense, for he was the one “without sin” (Heb. 4:15), who “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21)—unlike guilty Zion and unlike guilty people such as you and I. This is the great news of the Christian gospel: as the world awaits the coming judgment of God for its rebellion against him, God has graciously provided a weeping prophet who offers comfort to sin-wearied and misery-burdened people.Lamentations 2:11–17
Lamentations 2:18–22
2:11 This is the major turning point in the chapter, seen in the switch from third to first person as well as the clear shift in emotional tone. The verse introduces the devastating effects of God’s anger against his people. The emotions and intense anguish felt by Lady Zion in chapter 1, of weeping eyes (1:2, 16) and churning stomach (1:20), is now appropriated by the prophet himself. The scene is so horrific that he himself breaks down with a full-body reaction. His eyes are exhausted with tears; his stomach is so internally fermented that he vomits his bile onto the ground—the fifth reference to the ground/earth in this chapter (2:2, 2, 10a, 10c, 11). Clearly he is no longer an objective, neutral observer but now an involved, emotional sympathizer.
Two causal clauses provide the reasons for his extreme reaction. The first is general: his very own people have been destroyed. The second is specific: infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. The latter image would move any observer, but especially one who identifies himself as one of the people. Not only are these people his people, but in a sense these children are his children. The identification of the prophet with the suffering of these little ones is intensified with the repetition of the verb “pour out.” The little ones “pour out” their life “on their mothers’ bosoms” (v. 12) as they starve to death for want of basic food. And this is why the prophet has “poured out” his bile onto the street (v. 11), for he has witnessed such unbearable suffering. Thus the prophet’s identification with the people is not simply ethical; it is experiential. This identification with the people will return in chapter 3, when the prophet begins his representative role on behalf of the people: “I am the man who has seen affliction” (3:1). Indeed, he will be the man who experiences affliction on their behalf (3:19, 33).
2:12 The prophet continues the moving scene of the children and babies by telling us what they cry to their mothers: “Where is bread and wine?” The fronting of the prepositional phrase “to their mothers” emphasizes not so much what they say, as tragic as that is, but to whom they say it. They direct their question about the whereabouts of basic food to the very people they know normally provide it. Yet their mothers have no knowledge of where they can find sustenance. The scene ends in the children’s slow deaths: they faint like wounded men as they pour out their life on their mothers’ bosoms. Note the repetition of the verb “faint” to describe the children’s experience. There is a natural movement toward death: first they faint like wounded soldiers—yet they are only children and nursing infants!—then they expire at the very place where they were first nourished in life—their mothers’ bosoms. Who could not be moved by such a scene of total helplessness and hopelessness, especially when the children belong to your own people?
2:13 Now the prophet makes his first direct address to the bereaved and broken Lady Zion. However, he is lost for words and comparisons, as the three rhetorical questions reveal. The same interrogative pronoun (“What?”) begins each question, its repetition underlining the point that the prophet has only questions and no answers. The prepositional phrase “for you” in the first question (v. 13) suggests that the prophet has become Lady Zion’s advocate with God. Certainly the purpose clause in the final question indicates that he wishes to comfort her. The pastoral intent recalls the depressing refrain of chapter 1: “There is none to comfort her.” At least now someone is trying. The prophet’s vocative addresses to Jerusalem become more tender too: in one she is “daughter”; in the next, “virgin daughter.” The prophet also shifts from what the city is—Jerusalem—to what the city once was or what it might become again—Zion.
The third and final bicolon (2:13c) provides the reason the prophet has no answers to his own questions. Somewhat ironically, he states it in the form of a comparison: “for your ruin is vast as the sea.” The word “ruin” is also used in the context of incurable “wounds” (cf. Jer. 30:12). The statement is marked in the Hebrew text, with emphasis on “great like the sea” in the nominal clause. In Lamentations 2:1 the prophet employed heaven and earth as dimensions for absolute height and depth; here he employs the sea for the dimensions of length and breadth. Zion’s wound is as long and wide as the sea—hence his final question, “Who can heal you?” (cf. Jer. 19:10–11). The question is rhetorical, at least for now. What follows are not negative answers to the question but rather a series of statements about those who have brought her into such a ruinous state. The prophet begins with two of her intermediate agents of destruction (false prophets, Lam. 2:14; and mocking enemies, vv. 15–16); then he ends with the ultimate agent (Yahweh himself; v. 17). In other words verses 14–17 provide an explanation for how the virgin daughter of Zion has reached the state she has.
2:14 Here the phrase “your prophets” is fronted in the Hebrew text to heighten the shock that Judah’s own prophets have actively participated in wounding her (cf. Jer. 14:13–22; Ezek. 13:1–19). The prophets were, humanly speaking, supposed to serve as preventative medicine for the nation. Their whole ministry was about keeping king and nation in check, calling them to repentance for breaches of covenant so that they might avoid God’s covenant curse and instead enjoy his covenant blessing. But Judah’s prophets saw “false and deceptive visions” (Lam. 2:14). As a result they did not uncover her iniquity, which would have restored her fortunes. The purpose infinitive “to restore” spotlights the healing aspect of the prophetic office. Instead, the false prophets kept Lady Zion sick with sin through false and misleading oracles, which eventually led to her captivity. The reference to “false visions” forms a neat inclusio to the beginning of the verse and highlights the point that Zion has been brought to ruin by her very own prophets. Of course, Jeremiah had delivered true and faithful visions to the people for over forty years, but the people chose instead to listen to false prophets who proclaimed superficial healing (“‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace”; Jer. 6:14).
2:15–16 These verses introduce us to the next intermediate agent that brought about Zion’s destruction: her mocking enemies. Because her prophets deceived, her neighbors now mock. The actual mention of their part in Zion’s downfall does not come until the middle bicolon of verse 16: “We have swallowed her!” The verb balaʿ (“swallow”) is used repeatedly of God’s actions against Zion earlier in the chapter (vv. 2, 5). Its use here reveals that, while Yahweh was the ultimate devourer, the enemy nations served as his mouth and throat, so to speak.
The alliance of Yahweh and the enemy against Jerusalem is seen also in the adversary’s mention of “the day” of Jerusalem’s destruction. The day of God’s anger (vv. 2, 21, 22) was also their day, the one they had longed for, found, and now saw with their own eyes (v. 16). The part these enemies played in Zion’s ruined state is dressed in gloating mockery. The enemies mock with physical gestures—clapping hands and wagging heads and gnashing teeth—and with sounds—hissing, repeated for effect. But it is their words that sting the most. They quote back to Zion words from one of her own Songs of Zion collection, about the city being the “perfection of beauty” (Ps. 50:2) and “the joy of all the earth” (Ps. 48:2). Their words add insult to injury, rubbing salt in Zion’s gaping wound. The reversal of fortunes could not be starker: the city was once the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth; now she is a picture of ruins as vast as the sea—beyond healing!
2:17 Now the prophet presents the ultimate agent behind Zion’s ruinous state: Yahweh himself, her covenant God. The verse brings the second half of the poem to a climax before the prophet turns to his exhortation (Lam. 2:18–19).
Thus far Yahweh has been absent from the second half of the poem, but now he is reintroduced as the prophet unveils the ultimate agent behind Zion’s devastated condition. He is the subject of all six verbs in the verse, recalling his relentless action in verses 1–8. The mention of the covenant name of God reveals that, however hard it is for Zion to accept what has happened, Yahweh has only acted according to the terms of the covenant. The verb “purpose” is commonly used of God’s intentional plans to bring disaster on his people because they have provoked him to wrath (Jer. 51:12; Zech. 1:6; 8:14). But the plans were never intended to be kept in secret, as the next two lines reveal (Lam. 2:17). The “word” that God “commanded long ago” refers most likely to the covenant warnings delivered by Moses (e.g., Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28–29), but it may also include the warning of later prophets (2 Chron. 36:15–17), such as Jeremiah (e.g., Jeremiah 4).
The second line of the second bicolon (“he has thrown down without pity”) is really two verbal actions in one colon. The words recall Lamentations 2:2, where the same verb is used (though translated “broken down”); it is accompanied in close proximity by the negated verb “pity, have compassion.” The qualification that God did this “without pity” jars, especially in verse 17, where the covenant name of Yahweh is used. Interestingly, 2 Chronicles 36:15 uses the term as the basis for why God sent prophetic messengers to call his people back to repentance. The point here is not that Yahweh is schizophrenic—one moment acting one way, the next moment acting another; rather, his compassionate warnings by his prophets had run their course, leaving him no other option but judgment. The final colon highlights the twofold nature of the agency behind Zion’s downfall: an enemy was at work, but it was God who had made the enemy rejoice over Zion and had exalted the enemy’s might. In this regard the verse completes the logic of why Zion has found herself in a state of ruin as vast as the sea. And yet, by affirming that it is ultimately Yahweh who has brought such ruin upon her, the prophet begins to provide an answer to his final question in Lamentations 2:13: “Who can heal you?” The answer, as chapter 3 will make clear, is Yahweh. Yet for now Zion must accept that behind her current condition is the hand of her covenant God.