Lam 2:15-22 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 15 The perfection of beauty - This probably only applied to the temple. Jerusalem never was a fine or splendid city; but the temple was most assuredly the most splendid building in the world.

‏ Lamentations 2:15-22

Verse 15

The perfection of beauty - This probably only applied to the temple. Jerusalem never was a fine or splendid city; but the temple was most assuredly the most splendid building in the world. Verse 16

This is the day that we looked for - Jerusalem was the envy of the surrounding nations: they longed for its destruction, and rejoiced when it took place. Verse 17

The Lord hate done that - This and the sixteenth verse should be interchanged, to follow the order of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet; as the sixteenth has פ phe for its acrostic letter, and the seventeenth has ע ain, which should precede the other in the order of the alphabet. Verse 18

O wall of the daughter of Zion - חומת בת ציון chomath bath tsiyon, wall of the daughter of Zion. These words are probably those of the passengers, who appear to be affected by the desolations of the land; and they address the people, and urge them to plead with God day and night for their restoration. But what is the meaning of wall of the daughter of Zion? I answer I do not know. It is certainly harsh to say "O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night." Zion's ways may lament, and her streets mourn; but how the walls can be said to weep is not so easy to be understood, because there is no parallel for it. One of my most ancient MSS. omits the three words; and in it the text stands thus: "Their heart cried unto the Lord, Let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest," etc.

Let not the apple of thine eye cease - בת עין bath ayin means either the pupil of the eye, or the tears. Tears are the produce of the eye, and are here elegantly termed the daughter of the eye. Let not thy tears cease. But with what propriety can we say to the apple or pupil of the eye, Do not cease! Tears are most certainly meant. Verse 19

Arise, cry out in the night - This seems to refer to Jerusalem besieged. Ye who keep the night watches, pour out your hearts before the Lord, instead of calling the time of night, etc.; or, when you call it, send up a fervent prayer to God for the safety and relief of the place. Verse 20

Consider to whom thou hast done this - Perhaps the best sense of this difficult verse is this: "Thou art our Father, we are thy children; wilt thou destroy thy own offspring? Was it ever heard that a mother devoured her own child, a helpless infant of a span long?" That it was foretold that there should be such distress in the siege, - that mothers should be obliged to eat their own children, is evident enough from Lev 26:29; Deu 28:53, Deu 28:56, Deu 28:57; but the former view of the subject seems the most natural and is best supported by the context. The priest and the prophet are slain; the young and old lie on the ground in the streets; the virgins and young men are fallen by the sword. "Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; Thou hast killed, and not pitied." See Deu 4:10. Verse 22

Thou hast called as in a solemn day - It is by thy influence alone that so many enemies are called together at one time; and they have so hemmed us in that none could escape, and none remained unslain or uncaptivated, Perhaps the figure is the collecting of the people in Jerusalem on one of the solemn annual festivals. God has called terrors together to feast on Jerusalem, similar to the convocation of the people from all parts of the land to one of those annual festivals. The indiscriminate slaughter of young and old, priest and prophet, all ranks and conditions, may be illustrated by the following verses from Lucan, which appear as if a translation of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first verses of this chapter: -

Nobilitas cum plebe perit; lateque vagatur

Ensis, et a nullo revocatum est pectore ferrum.

Stat cruor in Templis; multaque rubentia caede

Lubrica saxa madent. Nulli sua profuit aetas.

Non senes extremum piguit vergentibus annis

Praecipitasse diem; nec primo in limine vitae,

Infanti miseri nascentia rumpere fata.

Pharsal. lib. ii., 101. "With what a slide devouring slaughter passed,

And swept promiscuous orders in her haste;

O'er noble and plebeian ranged the sword,

Nor pity nor remorse one pause afford!

The sliding streets with blood were clotted o'er,

And sacred temples stood in pools of gore.

The ruthless steel, impatient of delay,

Forbade the sire to linger out his day:

It struck the bending father to the earth,

And cropped the wailing infant at its birth."

Rowe.