1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a acloud in His anger! bHe cast down from heaven to the earth cThe beauty of Israel, And did not remember dHis footstool In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has anot pitied All the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in His wrath The strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; bHe has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger Every1 horn of Israel; aHe has drawn back His right hand From before the enemy. bHe has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire Devouring all around.
4aStanding like an enemy, He has bent His bow; With His right hand, like an adversary, He has slain ball whowere pleasing to His eye; On the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire.
5aThe Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; bHe has destroyed her strongholds, And has increased mourning and lamentation In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence ato His tabernacle, bAsifitwere a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly; The Lord has caused The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion. In His burning indignation He has cspurned the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar, He has1aabandoned His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces Into the hand of the enemy. bThey have made a noise in the house of the Lord As on the day of a set feast.
8 The Lord has1 purposed to destroy The awall of the daughter of Zion. bHe has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying; Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament; They languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and abroken her bars. bHer king and her princes are among the1 nations; cThe Law is no more, And her dprophets find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion aSit on the ground and keep silence; They bthrow dust on their heads And cgird themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem Bow their heads to the ground.
11aMy1 eyes fail with tears, My1 heart is troubled; bMy bile is poured on the ground Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because cthe children and the infants Faint in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they swoon like the wounded In the streets of the city, As their life is poured out In their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I aconsole you? To what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is spread wide as the sea; Who can heal you?
14 Your aprophets have seen for you False and deceptive visions; They have not buncovered your iniquity, To bring back your captives, But have envisioned for you false cprophecies and delusions.
15 All who1 pass by aclap their hands at you; They hiss band shake their heads At the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that is called c‘The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth’?”
16aAll your enemies have opened their mouth against you; They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, b“We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the cday we have waited for; We have found it,dwe have seen it!”
17 The Lord has done what He apurposed; He has fulfilled His word Which He commanded in days of old. He has thrown down and has not pitied, And He has caused an enemy to brejoice over you; He has exalted the1 horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, aLet tears run down like a river day and night; Give1 yourself no relief; Give your eyes no rest.
19 “Arise, acry out in the night, At the beginning of the watches; bPour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him For the life of your young children, Who faint from hunger cat the head of every street.”
20 “See, O Lord, and consider! To whom have You done this? aShould the women eat their offspring, The children1 they have cuddled? Should the priest and prophet be slain In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “Younga and old lie On the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men Have fallen by the bsword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 “You have invited as to a feast day aThe terrors that surround me. In the day of the Lord’s anger There was no refugee or survivor. bThose whom I have borne and brought up My enemies have cdestroyed.”
Despite this vivid chapter's impressively detailed description of God's personal involvement, does it not appear that, because the world is so evil, Satan has far more to do with affairs on earth than God? Countering that, though, is that God's Word shows Satan has a tight-enough leash on him that he can do only what God permits. The reality is that, despite appearances, God is in complete control.
How can we know this for certain? It depends on whether we are walking by faith or by sight. What does walking by faith signify? It means that our thoughts about life's events and the circumstances they create and our conduct are regulated and carried out based on the Word of God. It is literally and truly our guide.
News reports indicate that the pillars of our culture are crumbling and are clearly out of joint (Psalm 11:3). We know from Bible prophecy that living conditions are going to get worse. With that witness so apparent before our eyes, whom do we believe is regulating affairs on this earth—God or the Devil?
Consider an example that is especially close to many of us. As our former church fellowship blew apart, many said Satan did it. Did he? No, he did not. Saying that Satan did it is nothing more than an easy escape from the reality that we may have had a part in causing its breakup. It is more likely that our Father in heaven took us to the woodshed.
Our perspective on this might simply be ignorance of biblical reality. To anyone who understands what the Bible says, only one Person could do such a thing, and that is our sovereign God. Who scattered Israel? Did Satan? The Bible barely mentions him in this context. God boldly takes credit for scattering Israel directly and the church in symbol in Lamentations 2 and many other places.
Jeremiah is the likely author of Lamentations, writing after reflecting on the devastation of Jerusalem following the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army. A number of prophets, Jeremiah being the most obvious, had thoroughly warned the Jews for many years. God even raised up a righteous king, Josiah, to provide godly governmental and religious leadership, but it was to no avail because the people were not truly repentant and sincere in any changes they made. The changes were only on the surface, not reaching their hearts, so idolatry—especially—continued to rage unabated.
The chapter continues with more of the same, leaving no doubt at all that God was directly responsible for His reaction to their sins. Jerusalem's devastation did not merely happen randomly in the course of history. God was directly involved. He brought on the horrific fear and pain. It was His warnings through the prophets that were ignored because they did not fear the Lord and did not truly believe that they were answerable to Him.
