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Lamentations 2:5

in Lamentations 2

The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

KJV

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

This verse in Lamentations 2

Commentary

3 notes on this verse

A commentator

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on Lamentations · Written before 1274.

Here is bewailed the destruction of edifices relating to defense. About this idea three further aspects are expressed. First is touched upon the indignation of the Lord God. As asserted: "The Lord has become like an enemy." And Isaiah 63:10: "therefore he turned to be …

This site's exposition

He hath bent his bow like an enemy

on Lamentations 2:4-6

He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he stood with his right hand as an adversary, the covenant God described in the very terms Judah's invaders used against her, a reversal the bench takes as the chapter's hardest claim. The tabernacle is taken away as if it were of a garden, a temporary shelter rather than an eternal house, and the solemn feasts and sabbaths are caused to be forgotten in Zion by the Lord's own hand, not merely interrupted by Babylon's siege. Wesley reads the unit as Jeremiah refusing any comfort that blames the enemy alone, the deeper cause named at every turn.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
The Lord was as an enemy,.... Who formerly was on their side, their God and guardian, their protector and deliverer, but now against them; and a terrible thing it is to have God for an enemy, or even to be as one; this is repeated, as being exceeding distressing, and even intolerable.

The words behind it

15 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • הָיָ֨הhe has become

    hayahH19613559 times

  • אֲדֹנָ֤י׀[the] Lord

    ʾadonaiH136440 times

  • כְּאוֹיֵב֙like an enemy

    keoyevH341282 times

  • בִּלַּ֣עhe has swallowed up

    bila'H110449 times

  • יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לIsrael

    yisraelH34782507 times

  • בִּלַּע֙he has swallowed up

    bila'H110449 times

  • כָּל־all

    kol-H36055413 times

  • אַרְמְנוֹתֶ֔יהָpalaces its

    ʾarmenoteihaH759

  • שִׁחֵ֖תhe has ruined

    shichetH7843146 times

  • מִבְצָרָ֑יוfortifications its

    mivtzaravH4013

  • וַיֶּ֙רֶב֙and he has multiplied

    vaiyerevH7235

  • בְּבַת־in [the] daughter of

    bevat-H1323588 times

  • יְהוּדָ֔הJudah

    yehudahH3063819 times

  • תַּאֲנִיָּ֖הmourning

    taaniyahH8386

  • וַאֲנִיָּֽה׃ סand lamentation

    vaaniyahH592

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 52:13

    He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

    it leads to

    • 2 Chronicles 36:19

      Then the Chaldeans set fire to the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem. They burned down all the palaces and destroyed every article of value.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

    • Micah 3:12

      Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

    • Psalms 79:1

      The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

  • Through

    Lamentations 2:2

    Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her…

    it leads to

    • Lamentations 3:43

      You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.

    • Psalms 89:39–40

      You have renounced the covenant with Your servant and sullied his crown in the dust.

  • Through

    Lamentations 2:4

    He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire…

    it leads to

    • Jeremiah 7:20

      Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce…

  • Through

    2 Kings 25:9

    He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 74:3–7

      Turn Your steps to the everlasting ruins, to everything in the sanctuary the enemy has destroyed.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 30:14

    All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous…

    it leads to

    • Lamentations 1:2

      She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

Where this verse is studied

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Also on Lamentations 2: 1 study that walk through this chapter ▾

About Lamentations

People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

This page draws on Carl Friedrich Keil, Lamentations; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Lamentations.