John Wesley

How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth.

“His footstool - His temple; but suffered the Chaldeans to destroy it. Cast down - That is, thrown them down from the highest glory and honour, to the meanest degree of servitude.”

In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy.

“The horn - All their beauty and strength. Drawn back - God hath drawn back his assistance which he was wont to give the Jews against their enemies.”

He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned.

“He - That is, God, (whom by their sins they had provoked and made their enemy) behaved himself as an enemy. And slew - All their young men, and maidens who were pleasant to look upon.”

The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying.

“The wall - The strength and security of the Jews. A line - Artificers used with lines not only to mark out places for building, but also for destruction, to direct them what to cut off; and such a line is here meant.”

Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars.

“Among the Gentiles - In miserable captivity. The law - Is no more read, opened or observed. Her prophets - They had but very few prophets, from this time to the time of the gospel, and very few of those at this time alive had…”

My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint…

“Mine eyes - This whole verse is but expressive of the prophets great affliction for the miseries come upon the Jews. He wept himself almost blind. Bowels - His passion had disturbed his bodily humours, that his bowels were troubled.”

Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

“Cruel - The Jewish women are become cruel to their children, or forced to appear so, having through the famine no milk to give them, nor any thing to relieve them.”

The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

“The anointed - Zedekiah, who though a bad man yet afforded some protection to the Jews. We said - We promised ourselves that though the land of Judah was encompassed with Pagan nations, yet through Zedekiah's valour and good conduct we should live comfortably.”

We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.

“We - We are all of us without a king, (our common father) we are deprived of thy fatherly protection, and many young children among us are left without an earthly parent.”

We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

“We - The ten tribes were all carried captives into Assyria, and many of the kingdom of Judah fled into Egypt. Giving the hand may signify labouring for them: or, yielding up themselves to their power.”