Lamentations 2:10 - Meaning and Application

These are rightly called Lamentations, and they are deeply moving. They are grief expressed at full strength, with nothing but mourning and sorrow, like the message on Ezekiel’s scroll (Ezekiel 2:10).

The chapter gives us pictures of sorrow that look very real. First, the judges and leaders, who once wore robes of honor, have taken them off. Instead, they are dressed like mourners, and the elders no longer sit in the judgment seats, which were like the thrones of David’s house. Now they sit on the ground, with nowhere to rest, much like Job’s friends who sat with him in his pain (Job 2:13). They do not speak in the gate as they once did. They sit in silence, overwhelmed by grief, with dust on their heads and sackcloth around them, because they have lost their power and wealth. Tears over lost property are real tears.

The young women, who once dressed richly and walked with proud bearing (Isaiah 3:16), are also brought low. The virgins of Jerusalem hang their heads to the ground. Those who seemed least likely to know sorrow are now made to feel it deeply.

The prophet himself, Jeremiah, sets the example for mourners in Lamentations 2:11. His eyes are worn out from tears. He has wept until he cannot weep more, almost as if he has wept his eyes blind. His pain is not only on the outside. His inner life is also shaken, just as it was when he saw these troubles coming (Jeremiah 4:19, 20). Even though the suffering was no surprise to him, it still crushed him. He describes himself as if his life had melted away, like the language in Psalm 22:14. Jeremiah had been treated better than his neighbors, and their captivity became his relief. Yet he does not think about his own gain. His heart is swallowed up by concern for the people, and he mourns the ruin of the daughter of his people as if he himself had suffered the worst of it. God’s judgments on a land and nation should be mourned by us, even if we personally escape much of the loss.

The people are also called to keep crying out to the Lord (Lamentations 2:18). Some may have cried out only in bitter complaint, but many likely did call on God in real distress. The prophet tells them to go on mourning. He calls the wall of the daughter of Zion to weep, whether he means the watchmen on the walls (Isaiah 62:6) or the city itself because of the broken wall. They are to let tears run like a river day and night, with no rest, no stopping, and no relief from grief. This shows that the trouble would not end at once, and the people would keep facing fresh reasons to weep. It also shows that they would need to be called again and again to humble themselves, because human hearts can grow dull under God’s hand.

The reasons for mourning are then described in painful detail. Many die from famine, which is one of God’s severe judgments. He had already warned them through a shortage of food during a lack of rain (Jeremiah 14:1), but they did not repent. So now, through the pressure of siege, he brings that judgment to its full strength. Children die for hunger in their mothers’ arms. The children and nursing babies, who should have been helped first, faint in the streets (Lamentations 2:11, 12). They cry for grain and wine, and there is none. They are so weak that they die in their mothers’ arms. This is repeated in Lamentations 2:19, where they faint from hunger at every street corner.

The famine was even worse than that. Some mothers killed and ate their own children (Lamentations 2:20). The shortage was so severe that women ate the fruit of their own bodies, even children who were still tiny, just as God had warned in Deuteronomy 28:53. Something like this also happened in the siege of Samaria (2 Kings 6:29). Hunger drove them to extremes and to terrible acts. In times of plenty, we should thank God that he gives us enough food, not only for ourselves but for our children.

Many also fall by the sword, which does not spare anyone, especially when cruel enemies like the Chaldeans are using it. The sword spares no rank. Even the priest and the prophet, who might seem most likely to receive protection from God and honor from people, are killed. They are not slain out in the field, like Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s corrupt sons, but in the Lord’s sanctuary, the place where they served and where they had hoped for safety. The sword also spares no age. The young, who were not yet old enough for battle, and the old, who had long been dismissed from it, lie dead in the streets until someone buries them. It spares no sex either. The prophet says that his virgins and his young men have fallen by the sword. In many wars, virgins were spared and taken as spoil (Numbers 31:18; Judges 5:30), but here they are killed too.

This was the Lord’s doing. He allowed the Chaldeans, the Babylonian army, to cut down people without distinction. “You have slain them in the day of your anger,” for it is God who gives life and takes it away, and saves alive as he chooses. Yet the next line is very hard: “You have killed and shown no pity,” even though his heart grieved for the misery of Israel.

The enemies who treated them so cruelly were the very ones he had gathered and called against them (Lamentations 2:22). “You have called, as on a solemn day, my terrors all around,” meaning the Chaldeans, who became a terror to Jerusalem. They crowded into the city as thickly as worshipers once gathered for a great feast, so that the city was overwhelmed by numbers. None escaped, and none were left behind. Jerusalem became a place of total slaughter.

Mothers are deeply cut to the heart when those they have cared for and tenderly raised are suddenly destroyed. “Those I swaddled and brought up my enemy has consumed,” as if they had been born only for the murderer, like lambs for the butcher (Hosea 9:13). Zion, who had been a mother to them all, mourned to see those raised in her courts and taught under her holy teaching made prey.

Their false prophets had deceived them (Lamentations 2:14). Jeremiah had grieved over this long before, when he heard the people say, “You will not see the sword” (Jeremiah 14:13). He now includes it in his lament: “Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you.” They claimed to discover God’s mind and speak his word, but all they offered were empty, foolish dreams, likely made up from their own imagination or from a confused mind.

These were your prophets, not God’s prophets. He never sent them, and they were not shepherds after his heart. The people chose them and wanted them to speak pleasing words, so they became prophets after the people’s own desires. Prophets should expose sin and call people to repentance, which could have turned away judgment by turning away guilt. But these men did not uncover your sin, because they knew that would cost them the people’s favor and support.

Prophets should also warn people about coming judgment, but these men saw false messages for them. The warnings they claimed to bring from God were lies they put forward as if they were his word. By soothing the people into false security, they helped bring on the exile that honest warning might have prevented.

Their neighbors mocked them (Lamentations 2:15). “All who pass by clap their hands at you.” Jerusalem had once been a great city, known far and wide and feared by the nations. When it fell, everyone around celebrated, as people often do when a proud city is brought low. They hissed and shook their heads, pleased to see it fall from its former honor.

“Is this the city they called the perfection of beauty?” (Psalm 50:2). “How can it be the perfection of ugliness now?” They asked, “Where is all its beauty now?” They also said, “Is this the city called the joy of the whole earth?” (Psalm 48:2). Where is its joy now, and where is its glory? It is a great sin to make fun of other people’s suffering, and it only adds more pain to those already hurting.

Their enemies also gloated over them (Lamentations 2:16). Those who had wished harm to Jerusalem and her peace now freely showed the hatred they had hidden before. They opened their mouths wide, hissed, and ground their teeth in scorn and anger. They boasted over their victory and the rich spoil they had taken by overpowering Jerusalem.

“We have swallowed her up,” they said. “It is our doing, and our gain. She is ours now. Jerusalem will never again be admired or feared as she once was. This is the day we have long wanted. We have seen it. We have gotten our wish.” The enemies of the church often think its troubles mean its ruin, and they rejoice too soon. But they will be proved wrong, because the gates of hell will not overcome the church.

In all this, God himself was acting against them (Lamentations 2:17). “The Lord has done what he planned.” The destroyers of Jerusalem had no power against her unless it had been given from above. They were only a sword in God’s hand. It was he who threw them down and showed no pity. In this conflict with his people, they had not seen his usual mercy.

He made the enemy rejoice over them (see Job 30:11), and he raised up the power of their adversaries. He gave them both strength and a reason to boast. This is the greatest weight of the sorrow, that God himself had become their enemy. Yet it is also the strongest reason to be patient, because we must submit to what God does.

For one thing, it fulfills his purpose. “The Lord has done what he planned.” He acts with counsel and care, not on a sudden impulse. This was the evil he had prepared (Jeremiah 18:11), and it would match his intention exactly. What God plans against his people is meant for them, and it will prove true in the end.

For another thing, it fulfills his warnings. It is the carrying out of Scripture, the keeping of his word spoken long before. When he gave them his law through Moses, he told them plainly what judgments would come if they broke it. Now they had broken that law, and he had carried out the sentence, according to Leviticus 26:16 and following, and Deuteronomy 28:15.

In all God’s dealings with his church, it is good to notice how he fulfills his word. There is a close match between the judgments of his hand and the judgments of his mouth. When we compare them, each helps explain the other.

The comfort that can heal these laments is now sought and set out. The prophet looks for fitting and hopeful words to speak to Jerusalem: “How can I comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion?” The point is that we should try to comfort those whose trouble we mourn. When our feelings have made things seem worst, wisdom should correct us and help us see the situation as truly as possible.

The two most common ways people try to comfort someone in trouble are both tested here, and both fail. We often say that a person’s case is not unique, that others have suffered more, or at least as much. But Jerusalem’s case does not allow that argument: “What can I compare to you, or what can I equal to you, that I may comfort you?” There is no city or nation whose suffering matches hers. There is no witness we can bring forward to show an example like this, because there is no sorrow like hers, and no honor like the honor she once had.

We also try to comfort people by saying their situation is not hopeless, and that it can easily be fixed. But that will not work here either, at least not by human thinking. Her wound is as vast as the sea, like a break in the sea wall that keeps widening. She is wounded, and no one can heal her. No human wisdom or power can repair such a ruined and shattered condition.

So the only sure remedy is to turn to God. The people must come in repentant prayer and place their case in his hands, praying steadily and earnestly. They are told to rise from their dust and discouragement, cry out in the night, keep watch for prayer, and pray when others sleep. In the night watches, they should pour out their hearts before the Lord, be open and sincere, and lift their hands toward him in hope. They should even beg for the lives of their little children, those helpless lambs who have done nothing to deserve such pain (2 Samuel 24:17).

They are also told to come with words: “Look, O Lord, and consider.” They should remind God whose people they are, the seed of Abraham his friend and Jacob his chosen one. This is not telling God what to do, but bringing their need before his mercy. Prayer is a healing balm for every wound, even the worst one. In prayer, our part is not to direct God, but to submit ourselves to his wisdom and will, and then leave the matter with him. “Lord, look and consider,” and let your will be done.