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Lamentations 2

Jerusalem’s ruin is named as God’s judgment, while her suffering becomes a desperate appeal to the God who has struck her.

Jerusalem’s walls and sanctuary lie ruined, her rulers are scattered, and children faint from hunger in the streets. An unnamed poet describes the destruction as the Lord’s judgment, then mourns the people’s suffering and addresses the city as a devastated woman. False prophets have concealed her sin; enemies mock her fall. The poet urges Zion to cry out to the Lord, and the closing verses voice her plea for God to look at the horror.

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1How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to the earth, and hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
2The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3He has cut off all the horn of Israel in fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy. He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his right hand as an adversary. He has killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion, he has poured out his wrath like fire.
5The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
6He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of assembly. The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. In the indignation of his anger, he has despised the king and the priest.
7The Lord has cast off his altar. He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the LORD’s house, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
8The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall lament. They languish together.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not. Yes, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My bile is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
12They ask their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you?
14Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to reverse your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.
15All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”
16All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.”
17The LORD has done that which he planned. He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let your eyes rest.
19Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.
20“Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.
22“You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Lamentations 2:15The mockery of passersby sets Jerusalem’s former beauty against her present humiliation, adding contempt to the city’s losses.
Lamentations 2:19The call to pour out the heart turns lament toward the Lord, with starving children at the center of the plea.
Lamentations 2:14The prophets’ failure to expose sin shows how false reassurance helped bring the people toward captivity.
Where this chapter reaches

Jeremiah and Ezekiel share this chapter’s charge against prophets whose false visions concealed the people’s sin, while Deuteronomy describes siege hunger reaching the horror voiced here. Psalm shares its language of Jerusalem’s beauty, hostile mockery, and distress poured out before God.

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After reading the whole chapter

What stands out in the movement from describing God’s anger to pleading for his attention?

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How does the focus on starving children shape your reading of the call to prayer?

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Questions people ask about Lamentations 2

Who is speaking in Lamentations 2?

The chapter does not name its poet. A lamenting voice describes the Lord’s judgment, then speaks of personal grief over Jerusalem’s children. The poet addresses Zion and urges her to pray. In the final verses, Jerusalem is presented as a woman speaking to the Lord about her devastated people.

Why does Lamentations 2 describe God as an enemy?

The phrase “The Lord has become as an enemy” describes God’s actions against Jerusalem: destroying defenses, rejecting the sanctuary, and allowing enemies to triumph. Verse 17 identifies this as the fulfillment of his earlier word. The language holds together divine judgment and the terror experienced by the people under it.

What does Lamentations 2:20 mean about women eating their children?

Jerusalem’s closing plea names the horror of mothers eating their children amid the city’s famine. Deuteronomy also describes this extremity of siege hunger. The verse presents it as an appalling calamity brought before God, asking him to look at what has happened to children once held with care.

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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).