Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 2:18
Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
18. “Their” has no antecedent, and the beginning of the v. is evidently corrupt in its harsh combination of assertion and exhortation, although the corruption, supported as it is by LXX and Syr. (so Vulg.), must be of long standing. The best emendation seems to be that of Ewald, who has the imperative Cry ( a‘ i) for “cried” ( ‘a). We may continue with thy heart, or by a more drastic change, with thy voice. In any case “Zion” will end the first of the three lines. For the personification of “wall” see on Lam 2:8. While this application of metaphor goes far beyond Western habits of thought, we must yet recognise the power of the memories clinging to old walls, e.g. in Chester, in Venice, etc. See Adeney, op. cit. p. 172.
apple ] pupil. Cp. Deu 32:10; Psa 17:8.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Their heart – That of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The prophet bids the wall, as the representative of the people who had dwelt secure under its protection, shed floods of tears on their behalf. Broken up by the enemy, it could be their guardian no longer, but by its ruins it might still cry unto the Lord in their behalf.
A river – Or, a brook or torrent.
Rest – Properly, the torpor and numbness which follows upon excessive grief.
Apple of thine eye – See Psa 17:8 note.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 18. O wall of the daughter of Zion] chomath bath tsiyon, wall of the daughter of Zion. These words are probably those of the passengers, who appear to be affected by the desolations of the land; and they address the people, and urge them to plead with God day and night for their restoration. But what is the meaning of wall of the daughter of Zion? I answer I do not know. It is certainly harsh to say “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night.” Zion’s ways may lament, and her streets mourn; but how the walls can be said to weep is not so easy to be understood, because there is no parallel for it. One of my most ancient MSS. omits the three words; and in it the text stands thus: “Their heart cried unto the Lord, Let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest,” &c.
Let not the apple of thine eye cease.] bath ayin means either the pupil of the eye, or the tears. Tears are the produce of the eye, and are here elegantly termed the daughter of the eye. Let not thy tears cease. But with what propriety can we say to the apple or pupil of the eye, Do not cease! Tears are most certainly meant.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
They cried unto God seriously, though not sincerely; from their heart, though not with their whole heart; either by the wall, or upon the wall, or (which is judged most probable) by occasion of the breaches made in the wall. Upon this he turns his discourse to the wall itself, and calls to it, or to those that were upon it, or near it, incessantly to mourn.
Let not the apple of thine eye cease; in the Hebrew it is, let not the daughter of thine eye cease. We call it the apple; the Latins, the pupil, or babe, of the eye.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. wall (La2:8). Personified. “Their heart,” that is, theJews’; while their heart is lifted up to the Lord in prayer, theirspeech is addressed to the “wall” (the part being put forthe whole city).
let tears, &c.(Jer 14:17). The wall iscalled on to weep for its own ruin and that of the city. Compare thesimilar personification (La 1:4).
applethe pupil of theeye (Ps 17:8).
Koph.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Their heart cried unto the Lord,…. Either the heart of their enemies, as Aben Ezra; which cried against the Lord, and blasphemed him; or rather the heart of the Jews in their distress, when they saw the walls of the city breaking down, they cried unto the Lord for help and protection, whether sincerely or not; no doubt some did; and all were desirous of preservation:
O wall of the daughter of Zion! this seems to be an address of the prophet to the people of Jerusalem carried captive, which was now without houses and inhabitants, only a broken wall standing, some remains and ruins of that; which is mentioned to excite their sorrow and lamentation:
let tears run down like a river, day and night; incessantly, for the destruction and desolation made:
give thyself no rest; or intermission; but weep continually:
let not the apple of thine eye cease; from pouring out tears; or from weeping, as the Targum; or let it not “be silent” b, or asleep; but be open and employed in beholding the miseries of the nation, and in deploring them.
b “non taceat”, Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus; “ne sileat”, Calvin, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Vs. 18-22: A CALL TO BROKEN-HEARTED SUPPLICATION
1. Here is an appeal for the daughter of Zion to turn her sorrow into a prayer – for “godly sorrow” always produces such “repentance” as leads to salvation, (vs. 18-19; comp. 2Co 7:10).
a. Her very desperation; her helplessness to provide food for her offspring who perish with hunger, ought to drive her to humble supplication before the faithful, true and living God!
b. Will she, in her wretchedness, recognize and honestly acknowledge that it has been HER OWN SIN that has erected a wall between her and Jehovah – so that He will not hear her prayer? (Isaiah 6).
c. If, in honest admission and whole-hearted repudiation of her guilt, she will cast herself on the mercy of Jehovah, then THERE IS STILL HOPE for her ultimate well-being!
2. In this direct appeal to the Lord (vs. 20-22) there is no word of reproach or recrimination against Him; it is a recognition that such a calamity was possible only because of their extended violation of the covenant relationship and neglect of their covenant-responsibilities.
a. Jerusalem is here personified as a woman whose very existence has been made possible through divine mercy, (Exo 32:11; Deu 9:26; Isa 63:16-19; Jer 12:7-13).
b. But, to withhold judgment, even from those who are dear to the His heart, would be inconsistent with His righteousness!
c. Thus, her little ones, her priests and prophets, her virgins and young men lie slain in her streets – utterly consumed by the righteous wrath of Jehovah!
d. The discipline of sorrow, when faced with humility and a glad yielding to the divine sovereignty, finds its fruition in a fuller knowledge, and the experience of a more intimate fellowship with God.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
He means not that their heart really cried to God, for there was no cry in their heart; but by this expression he sets forth the vehemence of their grief, as though he had said, that the heart of the people was oppressed with so much sorrow, that their feelings burst forth into crying; for crying arises from extreme grief, and when any one cries or weeps, he has no control over himself. Silence is a token of patience; but when grief overcomes one, he, as though forgetting himself, necessarily bursts out into crying. This is the reason why he says that their heart cried to Jehovah
But we must observe, that the piety of the people is not here commended, as though they complained of their evils to God in sincerity and with an honest heart: on the contrary, the Prophet means that it was a common cry, often uttered even by the reprobate; for nature in a manner teaches this, that we ought to flee to God when oppressed by evils; and even those who have no fear of God exclaim in their extreme miseries, “God be merciful to us.” And, as I have said, such a cry does not flow from a right feeling or from the true fear of God, but from the strong and turbid impulse of nature: and thus God has from the beginning rendered all mortals inexcusable. So, then, now the Prophet says, that the Jews cried to God, or that their heart cried; not that they looked to God as they ought to have done, or that they deposited with him their sorrows and cast them into his bosom, as the Prophet encourages us to do; but because they found no remedy in the world — for as long as men find any comfort or help in the world, with that they are satisfied. Whence, then, was this crying to God? even because the world offered them nothing in which they could acquiesce; for it is indigenous, as it were, in our nature (that is, corrupt nature) to look around here and there, when any evil oppresses us. Now, when we find, as I have said, anything as a help, even an empty specter, to that we cleave, and never raise up our eyes to God. But when necessity forces us, then we begin to cry to God. Then the Prophet means that the people had been reduced to the greatest straits, when he says that their heart cried to God
He afterwards turns to the wall of Jerusalem, and ascribes understanding to an inanimate thing. O wall of Jerusalem, he says, draw down tears as though thou wert a river; or, as a river; for both meanings may be admitted. But by stating a part for the whole, he includes under the word wall, the whole city, as it is well known. And yet there is still a personification, for neither houses, nor walls, nor gates, nor streets, could shed tears; but Jeremiah could not, except by this hyperbolical language, sufficiently express the extent of their cry. This was the reason why he addressed the very wall of the city, and bade it to shed tears like a river (169)
There seems to be some allusion to the ruins; for the walls of the city had been broken down as though they were melted. And then the Prophet seems to allude to the previous hardness of the people, for their hearts had been extremely stupified. As, then, they never had been flexible, whether addressed by doctrine, or exhortations, or threatenings, he now by implication brings forward in contrast with them the walls of the city, as though he had said, “Hitherto no one of God’s servants could draw even one tear from your eyes, so great was your hardness; but now the very walls weep, for they dissolve, as though they would send forth rivers of waters. Therefore the very stones turn to tears, because ye have hitherto been hardened against God and all prophetic instruction.”
He afterwards adds, Spare not thyself, give not thyself rest day or night, and let not the daughter of thine eye, or the pupil of thine eye, cease, literally, be silent; but to be silent is metaphorically taken in the sense of ceasing or resting. He intimates that there would be, nay, that there was now, an occasion of continual lamentation; and hence he exhorted them to weep day and night; as though he had said, that sorrow would continue without intermission, as there would be no relaxation as to their evils. But we must bear in mind what we have before said, that the Prophet did not speak thus to embitter the sorrow of the people. We indeed know that the minds of men are very tender and delicate while under evils, and then that they rush headlong into impatience; but as they were not as yet led to true repentance, he sets before them the punishment which God had inflicted, that they might thereby be turned to consider their own sins. It follows, —
(169) The meaning suggested by the Vulgate is the most appropriate. The words may be rendered thus, —
Cried has their heart to the Lord, “O the wall of the daughter of Sion!” — Bring down like a torrent the tear, day and night; Give no rest to thyself. Let not cease the daughter of thine eye.
Their exclamation was, “O the wall,” etc. Then follow the words of Jeremiah to the end of the chapter; but the daughter of Sion, not the wall, is exhorted to weep and repent. “The daughter of the eye,” may be the tear, as suggested by Blayney and approved by Horsley; and it would be more suitable here. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
() Lam. 2:18. Their heart cried unto the Lord. The cry is not to the God in covenant with Israel, but to the ruler over all nations and all matter. Yet the pronoun their cannot refer to the persons last spoken of. The adversaries were not likely to change their vaunts into profound sympathy. It is appropriate to suppose that there was a part, at any rate, of the downtrodden who would tell their heart-aches to the only Helper, and could not subdue the longing to see all things around them express the tokens of keenest sorrow. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night. Bold appeals to inanimate objects for signs of interest in human affairs are not strange to prophets of Israel, and the call upon the shattered wall of Jerusalem seems grounded on the idea that it was regarded as a mother embracing in its arms the city with its blighted hopes. It was not to be stemmed and have respite; let not the pupil [Heb. daughter] of the eye cease from shedding tears.
() Lam. 2:19. Sleep is to be interrupted in order to weep. Arise, cry loud in the night, and as its hours pass on, rouse up at the beginning of the watches into which the night is divided. Hearts that cried are to cast away all reserve before the Lord. They will have gone a long way towards receiving help when they recognise that He who is strong to smite is also strong to save. They will take the attitude of prayer, Lift up thy hands to Him, and the first matter to request will be the life of thy young children, whose sad case is again mentioned, faint for hunger at the top of every street. Dying and dead little ones at every turn. A sight for the Creator to consider.
HOMILETICS
A CALL TO PRAYER
(Lam. 2:18-19)
I. Addressed to a city suffering the miseries of a desolating siege. Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion! (Lam. 2:18). It sounds strange thus to appeal to the wall of Zionto pray so passionately that tears may run down like a river. But this is quite after the manner of Jeremiah and other sacred writers (comp. Lam. 2:8; Isa. 14:31; Jer. 22:29; Hab. 2:11; Luk. 19:40). Carried away with an outburst of sorrow, the prophet suddenly addresses the wall, which had so long been their shelter and defence, and bids it, as the representative of the people who had dwelt secure under its protection, to shed floods of tears on their behalf. Broken up by the enemy, it could be their guardian no longer, but by its ruins it might still cry unto the Lord in their behalf. However great may be our distress, it is always wise to promptly obey the summons to pray. Prayer brings moral strength and brightens the hope of rescue.
II. To be mingled with much weeping. Let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease (Lam. 2:18). Like a river, a brook, or torrent, rushing along furiously at one time and afterwards dried up. In the nature of things weeping cannot be incessant. Like a torrent, it gushes out in floods of tears, and, though ceasing at intervals, it is in this instance to be often repeated. Reasons for frequent weeping will be found in the prolonged continuance of the misery. Suffering is apt to stupify and harden, if the heart is not softened with tears. Prayer is the more genuine when accompanied with godly sorrow.
III. To be expressed with loud cries throughout the night-watches. Arise, cry out in the night; in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord (Lam. 2:19). At the beginning of each night-watch means all the night through. There are crises in life, times of trouble and peril, when the time usually devoted to sleep may be fitly employed in earnest, agonising prayer. Such a time had come in the history of Judah; such a time comes to most. There is a pathetic tenderness of sorrow in the night-moanings and cries of the soul, and it is then we are often conscious of the special nearness of Divine help.
Hours spent with pain and Thee
Lost hours have never seemed;
No! those are lost which but might be
From earth for heaven redeemed.
For weeping, wakeful eyes
Instinctive look above,
And catch, through openings in the skies,
Thy beams, unslumbering Love!
IV. To be offered especially on behalf of perishing children. Lift up thy hands towards Him for the life of thy young children that faint for hunger at the top of every street (Lam. 2:19). Among the most heart-rending miseries of the siege was the spectacle of little children prostrate in the streets slowly dying of starvation. You cannot enter a street in any part of the city but this sad sight meets the eye. The lifting up of the hands is not only the attitude and symbol of prayer, but indicates earnestness in supplication. The sufferings of helpless children appeal to the hardest heart, and when it is impossible to render any other help, we are called upon to pray for them. When our children are in extremity, so are we. Prayer is the only refuge, apart from which there is nothing but wretchedness and despair.
LESSONS.
1. Our daily necessities are a constant call to prayer.
2. Misery finds relief in prayer.
3. The young should ever be the subject of earnest prayer.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 2:19. A night of prayer:
1. Necessary in circumstances of special peril.
2. Often characterised by intense earnestness.
3. Familiar to many an anxious mother pleading for the salvation of her child.
Watch-Night service. I. It is never too soon to pray. There is no reason why you should delay to the morning light. In the beginning of the night-watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord. How many young persons imagine that religion is a thing for age, or at least for maturity! They do not want their young shoulders galled with an early burden; they do not think it is true that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth; and they forget that that yoke is easy and that burden is light. God hears children. He called Samuel when he was but a child. We have had our Josiahs, we have had our Timothys; we have seen those in early youth brought to the Saviour. Young man, it is not too soon. II. It is not too late to cry to the Lord. If the sun be set and the watches of the night have commenced their round, the mercy-seat is open. No shop is open so late as the House of Mercy. The devil has two tricks with men. Sometimes he puts their clock a little backward, and says, Stop! there is time enough yet; and when that does not answer, he turns the hands on, and cries out, Too late! too late! Within another fifteen minutes another year shall have come; but if the Spirit of God calls you this year, He will not call you too late in the year. If to the last second you should live, if God the Holy Ghost calls you then, He will not have called you too late. The darkness of night is gathering; it is coming on, and you are near death. Arise, sleeper, arise! Thou art now taking the last nap of death. III. We cannot pray too vehemently. Cry out in the night. God loves earnest prayers. He loves impetuous prayers, vehement prayers. Let a man preach, if he dare, coldly and slowly, but never let him pray so. Those who cry with weak voices, who do not cry aloud, must not expect to get a blessing. When you go to Mercys gate, do not give a gentle tap like a lady, do not give a single knock like a beggar, but take the knocker and rap hard till the very door seems to shake. Rap with all your might, and recollect that God loveth those who knock hard at Mercys gate. IV. We cannot pray too simply. Pour out your hearts before Him. Not pour out your fine words, not pour out your beautiful periods, but pour out your hearts. I dare not, says one; there is black stuff in my heart. Out with it, then; it is better out than in. I cannot pray as I could wish, says another; my crying out is a feeble one. When you pour out water, it does not make much noise. So you can pour out your heart like water, and it will run away, and you can scarcely know it. There is many a prayer uttered in a garret, down in a cellar or in some lonely place where the cobbler sits mending his shoes beneath a window, which the world does not hear, but the Lord hears it. Pour out your heart like water by confessing your sins, by begging the Lord to have mercy on you for Christs sake. And when it is all poured out, He will come and fill it again. Listen for one moment to the ticking of that clock. It is the beating of the pulse of eternity; it is the footstep of death pursuing you. Time is precious, and when we have little of it, it is more precious. You will soon enter another year. This year will have gone in a few seconds. Where will the next year be spent?C. H. Spurgeon.
ILLUSTRATIONS.A mute summons to prayer. Venice may well call upon us to note with reverence, that of all the towers which are still seen rising like a branchless forest from her islands, there is but one whose office was other than that of summoning to prayer, and that one was a watch-tower only.Ruskin.
Tearful intercession irresistible. Miss Gratzsupposed to have been the original of Rebecca in Ivanhoewas nursing her grandfather in his last illness. Calling her to him one day, he said, What can I do for you, my dear child? Turning upon him her beautiful eyes filled with tears, she said in a tone of earnest entreaty, Grandfather, forgive Aunt Shinah. This was a daughter who had been long estranged because of her marriage with a Gentile. The old man sought his grand-daughters hand, pressed it, and, after a silence, said in a broken voice, Send for her. In due course the lady came, received her fathers forgiveness and blessing, and when, a few days later, he breathed his last, the arms of his long-estranged child were about him, while Rebecca Gratz sat silently at his side.
Prayer necessary for service. Bees suffer sadly from famine during the dry years which occasionally occur in the southern and middle portions of California. If the rainfall amounts only to three or four inches, instead of from twelve to twenty, as in ordinary seasons, then sheep and cattle die in thousands, and so do these small winged cattle, unless they are carefully fed or removed to other pastures. No flowers, no honey; no rain, no food. They who teach others must themselves feed on the truths they declare. Failure to commune with God will give the poverty-stroke to our endeavours to bless man.
Sorrow drives men to prayer.
There is no God, the foolish saith,
But none There is no sorrow;
And Nature oft the cry of faith
In bitter need will borrow:
Eyes which the preacher could not school,
By wayside graves are raised,
And lips say God be pitiful,
Who neer said God be praised!
Be pitiful, O God!
Mrs. Browning.
Jesus, pitying Saviour, hear me;
Draw Thou near me;
Turn Thee, Lord, in grace to me;
For Thou knowest all my sorrow;
Night and morrow
Doth my cry go up to Thee.
Peace I cannot find: O take me,
Lord, and make me
From the yoke of evil free;
Calm this longing never-sleeping,
Still my weeping,
Grant me hope once more in Thee.
Tersteegen.
Sympathy with youth. George Moore, merchant and philanthropist, was the constant resort of young men wanting situations. If he could not provide for them in his own warehouse, he endeavoured to find situations for them amongst his friends. He took no end of trouble about this business. After his young friends had obtained employment, he continued to look after them. He took down their names and addresses in a special red book kept for the purpose, and repeatedly asked them to dine with him on Sunday afternoons. He usually requested that they should go to some church or chapel in the evening.
A mothers prayer. After Augustine had lost faith in Manichism, he found himself in the same situation as he was ten years before. There was the same longing after truth, but linked now with a feeling of desolation, a bitter sense of deception, and a large measure of scepticism. He was no longer at ease in Carthage, and resolved on a journey to Rome, where he ventured to hope for a more brilliant and profitable career as a rhetorician. His mother wished either to prevent his going, or to go with him. While she spent a night in the Church of the Martyr, praying and wrestling with God in tears to prevent the voyage, Augustine sailed for the coast of Italy, and his deceived mother found herself the next morning alone on the sea-shore. She had learned, however, the heavenly art of forgiving, and believing also where she could not see. In quiet resignation she returned to the city, and continued to pray for the salvation of her son. Though meaning well, she this time erred in her prayer, for the journey of Augustine was the means of his salvation. The denial of the prayer was, in fact, the answering of it. Instead of the husk, God granted rather the substance of her petition in the conversion of her son. Therefore, says he, hadst Thou, O God, regard to the aim and essence of her desires, and didst not do what she then prayed for, that Thou mightest do for me what she continually implored.Schaff.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(18) Their heart.The possessive pronoun does not refer to any immediate antecedent, but points, with a wild abruptness, to the mourners of Zion. Yet more boldly their cry is an appeal to the wall of Zion (comp. Lam. 2:8, and Isa. 14:31), to take up its lamentation, as though it were a human mourner.
Like a river.Better, like a torrent.
The apple of thine eye.Literally, the daughter, as in the English phrase, the pupil of the eye.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Their heart Namely, the people, who are literally driven to pray for mercy. The apparent lack of logical coherence as to the order is due to the emotional character of the whole poem. O wall let tears run down, etc. Similar is the language of Isa 14:31, “Howl, O gate.” Of course there is in both places a kind of double metonomy the wall or gate for the city, and the city for the inhabitants. Let the weeping be uninterrupted day and night perpetual. Let not the apple of thine eye cease, means, let not the fount of thy tears be dried up.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The People Cry To The Sovereign Lord. They Call On The Wall Of Jerusalem To Weep For Jerusalem and Its Inhabitants And On YHWH To Consider What He Has Done ( Lam 2:18-22 ).
The change between Lam 2:17 and Lam 2:18 is abrupt. But the acrostic confirms that they are united. Lam 2:18 begins with a heading defining what is happening, ‘their heart cried to the Sovereign Lord’, and this is followed immediately by the people’s plea to the wall of the daughter of Zion not to refrain from crying out on their behalf and especially on behalf of the starving children. This is a retrospective plea made as if the wall were still standing with the siege continuing.
Lam 2:18
(Tsade) Their heart cried to the Lord,
This forms a heading to what follows. But the cry that it speaks of is indirect, addressed rather to the wall of Jerusalem, inviting it to plead on their behalf,
Lam 2:18
O Wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let tears run down like a river,
Day and night,
Give yourself no respite,
Do not let the apple of your eye cease.
The wall was, of course, the place where the watchmen stood as they watched over the city day and night (see Lam 2:19). The thought is therefore that the watchmen should plead on behalf of the city continuously. They are called on to weep copiously with their tears running down like a river, and to do it day and night giving themselves no respite, their pupils never being allowed to dry.
Alternately the heading could be, ‘Their heart cried to the Lord, the Wall of the daughter of Zion’, thus seeing YHWH as the city’s protective wall. But in view of the mention of the watches in Lam 2:19 the first option is the more probable.
Lam 2:19
(Qoph) Arise, 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 towards him for the life of your young children,
Who faint for hunger at the head of every street.
The watchmen are called on to arise and cry in the night, and to do it also at the beginning of the watches, pouring out their heart like water before the face of the Lord, and lifting up their hands (the usual attitude of prayer) for the life of their young children who, at the head of every street, were fainting with hunger.
Lam 2:20
(Resh) See, O YHWH,
And behold to whom you have done thus!
Shall the women eat their fruit,
The children who are dandled in the hands?
Shall the priest and the prophet,
Be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
They are to call on YHWH to consider what He is doing. Does He really want the mothers to eat the very children that they have nurtured? (Note that this was something God had warned them about in the curses in Lev 26:26; Deu 28:57. Now it was happening) Does He really want the priest and the prophet to be slain in His sanctuary?
The two things described were the greatest horrors that the prophet could think of, mothers eating their own children, and the desecration of the Temple by the slaughter in it of YHWH’s priests and prophets, who were, of course, seen as holy. we must recognise, however, that both mothers, and priest and prophets, had brought it on themselves by their behaviour to observe the covenant.
Lam 2:21
(Shin) The youth and the old man,
Lie on the ground in the streets,
My virgins and my young men,
Are fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of your anger,
You have slaughtered, and not pitied.
But the cry is unavailing. Both youth and old man lie dead in the streets. The virgins and young men of the city lie slain by the sword. For YHWH has slain them in the day of His anger, and shown no pity. He has allowed the invaders free rein. It is a reminder to all that one day God’s patience will run out.
Lam 2:22
(Tau) You have summoned (called), as in the day of a solemn assembly,
My terrors on every side,
And there was none who escaped or remained,
In the day of YHWH’s anger,
Those who I have dandled and brought up,
Have my enemy consumed.
For it is YHWH Himself Who, as though He was calling them to a festival, has summoned the terrors that have come upon them, so that none have escaped or remained. It is the day of His anger, something which is the theme of the lament. The contrast between the normal summons to a joyful feast, and the summoning of ‘terrors on every side’ is striking.
‘My terrors on every side’ is a typical Jeremaic description (Jer 6:25; Jer 20:3; Jer 20:10; Jer 46:25; Jer 49:29), the ‘my’ referring to Jerusalem. And Jerusalem goes on to complain because those whom it had dandled on its knees had been consumed by its enemy. Note how the chapter which commenced with a series of references to YHWH’s anger now ends on the same note. The whole chapter is expressing the fact of YHWH’s anger against Jerusalem, and against His people, because of their extremes of idolatry and continuing disobedience of His commandments.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Lam 2:18. Their heart cried Their heart crieth, O Lord, to the virgin, the daughter of Sion. Houbigant. See his note.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lam 2:18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
Ver. 18. Their herd cried unto the Lord, ] i.e., They cried seriously at least, if not sincerely. Some think it was not a cry of the spirit for grace, but only of the flesh, for ease and freedom from affliction; wherefore the prophet in the next words turneth to the walls of Jerusalem, which were now broken down, bidding them weep, since the people would not. And surely the stony walls of men’s houses, standing with bells of water on their faces before foul weather, shall witness against such hard hearts as relent not, and so prevent not the terrible tempest of God’s wrath for their iniquities. There are those who render and sense the text thus: “Their heart crieth against the Lord,” – i.e., The adversaries set their whole power to devise blasphemy against God; let the Church therefore pray in hope to be heard, and to speed the better for the other’s insolence. These by wall understand the people within the wall. Others, O mure, qui nunc es mera ruina; O poor shattered wall; or, O city, which art now nothing but bare walls, without housing and inhabitants.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Cried = cried (distressfully).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
heart: Psa 119:145, Isa 26:16, Isa 26:17, Hos 7:14
O wall: Lam 2:8, Hab 2:11
let tears: Lam 1:2, Lam 1:16, Lam 3:48, Lam 3:49, Psa 119:136, Jer 4:31, Jer 9:1, Jer 9:17, Jer 9:18, Jer 13:17, Jer 14:17
the apple: Bath ayin which sometimes means the pupil of the eye, seems here to denote tears, the produce of the eye; and therefore elegantly termed the daughter of the eye.
Reciprocal: 1Sa 7:6 – drew water Psa 6:6 – I water Psa 137:1 – we wept Eze 24:16 – thy tears
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 2:18. The misfortunes which the Lord suffered to come on Zion caused her to cry unto Him. The wall means the defences of Zion which had been demolished, and they are personified as being able to weep for themselves over the sorrowful situation. Apple . . . not cease. The eye is used in weeping and the figure means for the apple (or forces) of the eye to use its strength in weeping for the distressful situation.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Lam 2:18-19. Their heart cried unto the Lord The same, says Blaney, are the speakers here who are said to have made the foregoing remarks concerning the distressed condition of Jerusalem, namely, the passengers, (Lam 2:15,) whose hearts, being deeply affected with what they saw, urged them to break forth into the following passionate exclamation, addressed to the daughter of Zion. O wall of the daughter of Zion The Vulgate reads the verse, Clamavit cor eorum ad Dominum, super muros fili Sion, Deduc quasi torrentem lacrymas per diem et noctem; non des requiem tibi, neque taceat pupilla occuli tui: Their heart hath cried unto the Lord concerning the walls of the daughter of Zion, Cause thy tears to descend, like a torrent, night and day; give thyself no rest, nor let the apple of thine eye be silent. As the wall and rampart are said to lament, (Lam 2:8,) because their ruins were objects of lamentation; so here the ruined wall, including the ruined city and its inhabitants, is called upon, by a beautiful prosopopia, to mourn and weep over the desolations of that place which God had chosen for his peculiar residence, and to entreat him to take compassion on its miseries. The original expression, rendered the apple of thine eye, is literally the daughter of thine eye; by which Blaney thinks is meant, not the pupil, but the tear, which, he says, may, with great propriety and elegance, be termed the daughter of the eye from which it issues. Arise, cry out in the night Do not cease thy prayers and supplications even in the night season. In the beginning of the watches The Jews divided the night, first into three, and in after ages into four watches: see Jdg 7:19; Mat 14:25. Pour out thy heart like water before the Lord Offer up thy earnest prayers with tears to the throne of grace; and send up thy very soul, and thy most devout affections along with them: see Psa 62:8; 1Sa 7:6. Lift up thy hands for the life of thy young children That they at least may be spared; (see Lam 2:11;) that faint in the top of every street See the margin. The expression seems to mean the same as in every street.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Judah’s enemies called on the city to mourn perpetually because of the destruction that God had brought on her. The Jerusalemites should cry out to God and ask Him to spare their children who were dying of starvation. Jerusalem was a place of ceaseless wailing.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE CALL TO PRAYER
Lam 2:18-22
IT is not easy to analyse the complicated construction of the concluding portion of the second elegy. If the text is not corrupt its transitions are very abrupt. The difficulty is to adjust the relations of three sections. First we have the sentence, “Their heart cried unto the Lord.” Next comes the address to the wall, “O wall of the daughter of Zion,” etc. Lastly there is the prayer which extends from verse 20 to the end of the poem. {Lam 2:20-22}
The most simple grammatical arrangement is to take the first clause in connection with the preceding verse. The last substantive was the word “adversaries.” Therefore in the rigour of grammar the pronoun should represent that word. Read thus, the sentence relates an action of the enemies of Israel when their horn has been exalted. The word rendered “cried” is one that would designate a loud shout, and that translated “Lord” here is not the sacred name Jehovah but Adonai, a general term that might very well be used in narrating the behaviour of the heathen towards God. Thus the phrase would seem to describe the insolent shout of triumph which the adversaries of the Jews fling at the God of their victims.
On the other hand, it is to be observed that the general title “Lord” (Adonai) is also employed in the very next verse in the direct call to prayer. The heart, too, is mentioned again there as it is here, and that to express the inner being and deepest feelings of the afflicted city. It seems unlikely that the elegist would mention a heart-cry of the enemies and describe this as addressed to “The Lord.”
Probably then we should apply this opening clause to the Jews, although they had not been named in the near context, a construction favoured by the abrupt transitions in which the elegist indulges elsewhere. It is the heart of the Jews that cried unto the Lord. Now the question arises, How shall we take this assertion in view of the words that follow? The common reading supposes that it introduces the immediately succeeding sentences. The heart of the Jews calls to the wall of the daughter of Zion, and bids it arise and pray. But with this construction we should look for another word (such as “saying”) to introduce the appeal, because the Hebrew word rendered “cried” is usually employed absolutely, and not as the preface to quoted speech. Besides, the ideas would be strangely involved. Some people, indefinitely designated “they,” exhort the wall to weep and pray! How can this exhortation to a wall be described as calling to the Lord? The complication is increased when the prayer follows sharply on the anonymous appeal without a single connecting or explanatory clause.
A simpler interpretation is to follow Calvin in rendering the first clause absolutely, but still applying it to the Jews, who, though they are not named here, are supposed to be always in mind. We may not agree with the stern theologian of Geneva in asserting that the cry thus designated is one of impatient grief flowing not “from a right feeling or from the true fear of God, but from the strong and turbid impulse of nature.” The elegist furnishes no excuse for this somewhat ungracious judgment. After his manner, already familiar to us, the poet interjects a thought-viz., that the distressed Jews cried to God. This suggests to him the great value of the refuge of prayer, a topic on which he forthwith proceeds to enlarge first by making an appeal to others, and then by himself breaking out into the direct language of petition.
This is not the first occasion on which the elegist has shown his faith in the efficacy of prayer. But hitherto he has only uttered brief exclamations in the middle of his descriptive passages. Now he gives a solemn call to prayer, and follows this with a deliberate full petition, addressed to God. We must feel that the elegy is lifted to a higher plane by the new turn that the thought of its author takes at this place. Grief is natural; it is useless to pretend to be impassive; and, although our Teutonic habits of reserve may make it difficult for us to sympathise with the violent outbursts that an Oriental permits himself without any sense of shame, we must admit that a reasonable expression of the emotions is good and wholesome. Tennyson recognises this in the well-known lyric where he says of the dead warriors wife-
“She must weep or she will die.”
Nevertheless, an unchecked rush of feeling, not followed by any action, cannot but evince weakness; it has no lifting power. Although, if the emotion is distressful, such an expression may give relief to the subject, it is certainly very depressing to the spectator. For this reason the Book of Lamentations strikes us as the most depressing part of the Bible-would it not be just to say, as the only part that can be so described? But it would not be fair to this Book to suppose that it did nothing beyond realising the significance of its title. It contains more than a melancholy series of laments. In the passage before us the poet raises his voice to a higher strain.
This new and more elevated turn in the elegy is itself suggestive. The transition from lamentation to prayer is always good for the sufferer. The first action may relieve his pent-up emotions; it cannot destroy the source from which they flow. But prayer is more practical, for it aims at deliverance. That, however, is its least merit. In the very act of seeking help from God the soul is brought into closer relations with Him, and this condition of communion is a better thing than any results that can possibly follow in the form of answers to the prayer, great and helpful as these may be. The trouble that drives us to prayer is a blessing because the state of a praying soul is a blessed state.
Like the muezzin on his minaret, the elegist calls to prayer. But his exhortation is addressed to a strange object-to the wall of the daughter of Zion. This wall is to let its tears flow like a river. It is so far personified that mention is made of the apple of its eye; it is called upon to arise, to pour out its heart, to lift up its hands. The license of Eastern poetry permits the unflinching application of a metaphor to an extent that would be considered extravagant and even absurd in our own literature. It is only in a travesty of melodrama that Shakespeare permits the Thisbe of “A Midsummer Nights Dream” to address a wail. Browning has an exquisitely beautiful little poem apostrophising an old wall; but this is not done so as to leave out of account the actual form and nature of his subject. Walls can not only be beautiful and even sublime, as Mr. Ruskin has shewn in his “Stones of Venice”; they may also wreathe their severe outlines in a multitude of thrilling associations. This is especially so when, as in the present instance, it is the wall of a city that we are contemplating. Not a new piece of builders work, neat and clean and bald, bare of all associations, as meaningless as in too many cases it is ugly, but an old wall, worn by the passing to and fro of generations that have turned to dust long years ago, bearing the bruises of war on its battered face, crumbling to powder, or perhaps half buried in weeds-such a wall is eloquent in its wealth of associations, and there is pathos in the thought of its mere age when this is considered in relation to the many men and women and children who have rested beneath its shadow at noon, or sheltered themselves behind its solid masonry amid the terrors of war. The walls that encircle the ancient English city of Chester and keep alive memories of mediaeval life, the bits of the old London wall that are left standing among the warehouses and offices of the busy mart of modern commerce, even the remote wall of China for quite different reasons, and many another famous wall, suggest to us multitudinous reflections. But the walls of Jerusalem surpass them all in the pathos of the memories that cling to their old grey stones. It does not require a great stretch of imagination to picture these walls as once glowing and throbbing with an intense life, and now dreaming over the unfathomable depths of age-long memories.
In personifying the wall of Zion, however, the Hebrew poet does not indulge in reflections such as these, which are more in harmony with the mild melancholy of Grays “Elegy” than with the sadder mood of the mourning patriot. He names the wall to give unity and concreteness to his appeal, and to clothe it in an atmosphere of poetic fancy. But his sober thought in the background is directed towards the citizens whom that historic wall once enclosed. Herein is his justification for carrying his personification so far. This is more than a wild apostrophe, the outburst of an excited poets fancy. The imaginative conceit wings the arrow of a serious purpose. Let us look at the appeal in detail. First the elegist encourages a free outflow of grief, that tears should run like a river, literally, like a torrent-the allusion being to one of those steep watercourses which, though dry in summer, become rushing floods in the rainy season. This introduction shews that the call to prayer is not intended in any sense as a rebuke for the natural expression of grief, nor as a denial of its existence. The sufferers cannot say that the poet does not sympathise with them. It might seem needless to give this assurance. But anybody who has attempted to offer exhortation to a person in trouble must have discovered how delicate his task is. Let him approach the subject as carefully as he may, it is almost certain that he will chafe the quivering nerves he desires to soothe, so sensitive is the soul in pain to any interference from without. Under these circumstances, the one method by which it is at all possible to smooth the way of approach is an expression of genuine sympathy. There may be a deeper reason for this encouragement of the expression of grief as a preliminary to a call to prayer. The helplessness which it so eloquently proclaims is just the condition in which the soul is most ready to cast itself on the mercy of God. Calm fortitude must always be better than an undisciplined abandonment to grief. But before this has been attained there may come an apathy of despair, under the influence of which the feelings are simply benumbed. That apathy is the very opposite to drying up the fountain of grief as it may be dried in the sunshine of love; it is freezing it. The first step towards deliverance will be to melt the glacier. The soul must feel before it can pray. Therefore the tears are encouraged to run like torrents, and the sufferer to give himself no respite, nor let the apple of his eye cease from weeping. Next the poet exhorts the object of his sympathy-this strange personification of the “wall of the daughter of Zion,” under the image of which he is thinking of the Jews-to arise. The weeping is but a preliminary to more promising acts. The sufferer is not to spend the long night in an unbroken flow of grief, like the psalmist “watering his couch with his tears.” {Psa 6:6} The very opposite attitude is now suggested. Grief must not be treated as a normal condition to be acquiesced in or even encouraged. The victim is tempted to cherish his sorrow as a sacred charge, to feel hurt if any mitigation of it is suggested, or ashamed of confessing that relief has been received. When he has reached this condition it is obvious that the substance of grief has passed; the ghost of it that remains is fast becoming a harmless sentiment. If, however, the trouble should be still maintaining the tightness of its grip on the heart, there is positive danger in permitting it to be indulged without intermission. The sufferer must be roused if he is to be saved from the disease of melancholia. He must be roused also if he would pray. True prayer is a strenuous effort of the soul, requiring the most wakeful attention and taxing the utmost energy of will. The Jew stood up to pray with hands outstretched to heaven. The relaxed and feeble devotions of a somnolent worshipper must fall flat and fruitless. There is no value in the length of a prayer, but there is much in its depth. It is the weight of its earnestness, not the comprehensiveness of its topics, that gives it efficacy. Therefore we must gird up our loins to pray just as we would to work, or run, or fight.
Now the awakened soul is urged to cry out in the night, and in the beginning of the night watches-that is to say, not only at the commencement of the night, for this would require no rousing, but at the beginning of each of the three watches into which the Hebrews divided the hours of darkness-at sunset, at ten oclock, and at two in the morning. The sufferer is to keep watch with prayer-observing his vespers, his nocturns, and his matins, and of course to fulfil forms, but because, since his grief is continuous, his prayer also must not cease. The is all assigned to the night, perhaps because it is a quiet, solemn season for undisturbed reflection, when therefore the grief that requires the prayer is most acutely felt; or perhaps because the time of sorrow is naturally pictured as a night, as a season of darkness.
Proceeding with our consideration of the details of this call to prayer, we come upon the exhortation to pour out the heart like water before the face of the Lord. The image here used is not without parallel in scripture. Thus a psalmist exclaims-
“I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint:
My heart is like wax;
It is melted in the midst of my bowels.” {Psa 22:14}
But the ideas are not just the same in the two cases. While the psalmist thinks of himself as crushed and shattered, as though his very being were dissolved, the thought of the elegist has more action about it, with a deliberate intention and object in view. His image suggests complete openness before God. Nothing is to be withheld. It is not so much that the secrets of the soul are to be disclosed. The end aimed at is not confession, but confidence. Therefore what the writer would urge is that the sufferer should tell the whole tale of his grief to God, quite freely, without any reserve, trusting absolutely to the Divine sympathy.
This confidence is a primary requisite in prayer. Until we can trust our Father it is useless to petition for His aid; we could not avail ourselves of it if it were offered us. Indeed, the soul must come into relations of sympathy with God before any real prayer is at all possible.
We may go further. The attitude of soul that is here recommended is in itself the very essence of prayer. The devotions that consist in a series of definite petitions are of secondary worth, and superficial in comparison with this outpouring of the heart before God. To enter into relations of sympathy and confidence with God is to pray in the truest, deepest way possible, or. even conceivable. Prayer in the heart of it is not petition; that is the beggars resort. It is communion-the childs privilege. We must often be as beggars, empty of everything before God; yet we may also enjoy the happier relationship of sonship with our Father. Even in the extremity of need perhaps the best thing we can do is to spread out the whole case before God. It will certainly relieve our own minds to do so, and everything will appear changed when viewed in the light of the Divine presence. Perhaps we shall then cease to think ourselves aggrieved and wronged; for what are our deserts before the holiness of God? Passion is allayed in the stillness of the sanctuary, and the indignant protest dies upon our lips as we proceed to lay our case before the eyes of the All-Seeing. We cannot be impatient any longer; He is so patient with us so fair, so kind, so good. Thus, when we cast our burden upon the Lord, we may be surprised with the discovery that it is not so heavy as we supposed. There are times when it is not possible for us to go any further. We do not know what relief to ask for, or even whether we should request to be in any way delivered from a load which it may be our duty to bear, or the endurance of which may be a most wholesome discipline for us. These possibilities must always put a restraint upon the utterance of positive petitions. But they do not apply to the prayer that is a simple act of confidence with God. The secret of failure in prayer is not that we do not ask enough; it is that we do not pour out our hearts before God, the restraint of confidence rising from fear or doubt simply paralysing the energies of prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray not only because He gives us a model prayer, but much more because He is in Himself so true and full and winsome a revelation of God, that as we come to know and follow Him our lost confidence in God is restored. Then the heart that knows its own bitterness, and that shrinks from permitting the stranger even to meddle with its joy-how much more then with its sorrow?-can pour itself out quite freely before God, for the simple reason that He is no longer a stranger, but the one perfectly intimate and absolutely trusted Friend.
It is to be noted that the elegist points to a definite occasion for the outpouring of the heart before God. He singles out specifically the sufferings of the starving children-a terrible subject that appears more than once in this elegy, shewing how the horror of it has fastened on the imagination of the poet. This was the most heart-rending and mysterious ingredient in the bitter cup of the woes of Jerusalem. If we may bring any trouble to God we may bring the worst trouble. So this becomes the mare topic of the prayer that follows. Here the cases of the principal victims are cited. Priest and prophet, notwithstanding the dignity of office, young man and maiden, old man and little child all alike have fallen victims. The ghastly incident of a siege, where hunger has reduced human beings to the level of savage beasts, women devouring their own children, is here cited, and its cause, as well as that of all the other scenes of the great tragedy, boldly ascribed to God. It is God who has summoned His Terrors as at other times He had summoned His people to the festivals of the sacred city. But if God mustered the whole army of calamities it seems right to lay the story of the havoc they have wrought before His face; and the prayer reads almost like an accusation, or at least an expostulation, a remonstrance. It is not such, however; for we have seen that elsewhere the elegist makes full confession of the guilt of Jerusalem and admits that the doom of the wretched city was quite merited. Still, if the dire chastisement is from the hand of God, it is God alone who can bring deliverance. That is the final point to be reached.