Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 2:20

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, [and] children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

20. Here begins the prayer made in response to the prophet’s exhortation. The questions are rhetorical and mean (although the verbs are in the future), Wilt thou look with unconcern at the things which have been done? For the state of things (foretold Jer 19:9; Deu 28:53) cp. 2Ki 6:25-30.

behold, to whom thou hast done thus ] viz. Thy chosen ones of old.

that are dandled in the hands ] The thought of maternal tenderness in the forms in which it would ordinarily be displayed towards children of that age heightens the effect of the picture.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The sense is: See, Yahweh, and look! whom hast Thou treated thus? Shall women eat their fruit – children whom they must still carry? the swaddled child being one still needing to be nursed and borne in their arms.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Lam 2:20

Behold, O Ford, and consider to whom Thou hast done this.

Fervent prayer

1. The only way of remedy in our greatest miseries is to call upon God in fervent prayer.

(1) It declareth that we are humbled and our pride broken, in confessing no power to be in ourselves, and seeking help elsewhere.

(2) He is of greatest power, and none else can help us.

(3) He will have all the glory of our deliverance (Psa 50:15).

2. By this vehement kind of speech we learn that in right prayer to God the frame of our words must be according to our affection.

3. The chief reason to move the Lord to pity us is the remembrance of His covenant of mercy in Christ.

4. Gods wrath overturneth the course of nature in those against whom it is bent.

5. There is sufficient cause and matter in all the infants of Gods people, why God should in His justice destroy them (Psa 51:5).

6. Cruelty exercised by the hands of the wicked upon children and ministers is a special means to move God to hear us when we pray for them.

7. There is no privilege of peace that can free us from punishment when we sin against the Lord. (J. Udall.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 20. Consider to whom thou hast done this] Perhaps the best sense of this difficult verse is this: “Thou art our Father, we are thy children; wilt thou destroy thy own offspring? Was it ever heard that a mother devoured her own child, a helpless infant of a span long?” That it was foretold that there should be such distress in the siege, – that mothers should be obliged to eat their own children, is evident enough from Le 26:29; De 28:53; De 28:56-57; but the former view of the subject seems the most natural and is best supported by the context. The priest and the prophet are slain; the young and old lie on the ground in the streets; the virgins and young men are fallen by the sword. “THOU hast slain them in the day of thine anger; THOU hast killed, and not pitied.” See La 4:10.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Consider to whom thou hast done this; that is, not to heathen, who never owned thee, nor were called by thy name, but to thine own people, called thy portion and thine heritage; let thy former relation to us, and our former acknowledgments of thee, prevail with thee. Wilt thou suffer, or should such a thing be, as for women to satisfy their hunger with the fruit of their own bodies, and that when they are very young? And shall thy ministers be slain, and that in thy sanctuary? Any human blood polluted it; shall not the blood of those that were the ministers of God be judged a pollution and profanation of it?

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

20. women eat . . . fruitasthreatened (Lev 26:29; Deu 28:53;Deu 28:56; Deu 28:57;Jer 19:9).

children . . . span longorelse, “children whom they carry in their arms” [MAURER].

Schin.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this,…. On whom thou hast brought these calamities of famine and sword; not upon thine enemies, but upon thine own people, that are called by thy name, and upon theirs, their young ones, who had not sinned as their fathers had: here the church does not charge God with any injustice, or complain of hard usage; only humbly entreats he would look upon her, in her misery, with an eye of pity and compassion; and consider her sorrowful condition; and remember the relation she stood in to him; and so submits her case, and leaves it with him. These words seem to be suggested to the church by the prophet, as what might be proper for her to use, when praying for the life of her young children; and might be introduced by supplying the word “saying” before “behold, O Lord”, c.

shall the women eat their fruit their children, the fruit of their womb, as the Targum; their newborn babes, that hung at their breasts, and were carried in their arms; it seems they did, as was threatened they should, Le 26:29; and so they did at the siege of Samaria, and at the siege of Jerusalem, both by the Chaldeans and the Romans:

[and] children of a span long? or of a hand’s breadth; the breadth of the palms of the hand, denoting very little ones: or “children handled”, or “swaddled with the hands” c; of their parents, who are used to stroke the limbs of their babes, to bring them to; and keep them in right form and shape, and swaddle them with swaddling bands in a proper manner; see La 2:22; and so the Targum,

“desirable children, who are wrapped in fine linen.”

Jarchi d interprets it of Doeg Ben Joseph, whom his mother slew, and ate:

shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? as very probably some were, who fled thither for safety when the city was broken up; but were not spared by the merciless Chaldeans, who had no regard to their office and character; nor is it any wonder they should not, when the Jews themselves slew Zechariah, a priest and prophet, between the porch and the altar; of whom the Targum here makes mention; and to whom Jarchi applies these words.

c “parvulos qui educantur”, Pagninus; “parvulos educationum”, Montanus; “educationis”, Calvin; “infantes palmationum, [sive] tractationis palmarum”, Michaelis; “pueros palmis tractatos”, Cocceius. d E Talmud Bab. Yoma, fol. 38. 2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

In Lam 2:20 follows the prayer which the city has been commanded to make. The prayer sets before the mind of the Lord the terrible misery under which Jerusalem suffers. The question, “To whom hast Thou acted thus?” does not mean, “What innocent and godly ones are being sacrificed?” (Thenius), but “to what nation?” – not a heathen one, but the people of thy choice, to whom all Thy blessed promises have been given (Ngelsbach). This is clear from the reasons given in the question, in which the murder of the priests and prophets in the sanctuary of the Lord is brought forward. But first there is mentioned a case of inhuman conduct, prompted by necessity, viz., that women, in the extreme destitution of hunger, have been constrained to eat the fruit of their body, their beloved children. … does not, in this case, introduce a disjunctive question, but merely an indirect question in two parts. In view of such inhuman cruelties and such desecration of His sanctuary, God cannot remain inactive. The meaning of the question is not: estne hoc unquam fando auditum, quod apud nos factum est , or, quod matres fame eo adactae fuerint, ut suos faetus comederent (C. B. Michaelis, Rosenmller). For in this case, not the imperfect, but the perfect, would be used. It is merely asked whether something could happen in a certain way, while it is implied that it has actually occurred already. has the masc. instead of the fem. suffix, as pretty frequently happens. The fruit of their bodies is meant, as the lxx have rightly rendered; but there is no reason for making this the ground of alterations in the text. The expression “their fruit,” indefinite in itself, is immediately rendered definite by . The last word is a verbal noun from (Lam 2:22), which again is a denominative from , and means to bear on the hands, to care for tenderly. Both words occur only in this passage. The Israelites, moreover, had been threatened with this inhuman outrage as the most extreme form of divine chastisement, Lev 26:26; Deu 28:56; cf. Jer 19:9. While this abomination is opposed to the moral order of the world instituted by God, the other case (the murder of the priests and prophets in the sanctuary) is a violation of the covenant-order which the Lord had given His people. Neither of these arrangements can God consent to abolish. Therein is implicitly contained the request that He would put an end to the misery into which His people have fallen. This request, however, is not expressly stated; there is merely complaint made to God regarding the terrible misery. From the massacre in the temple, the lamentation passes to the bloodshed on the streets of the city, in which neither age nor sex was spared; cf. Jer 6:11. is a local accus., “through the streets,” along the streets.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Here, also, Jeremiah dictates words, or a form of prayer to the Jews. And this complaint availed to excite pity, that God had thus afflicted, not strangers, but the people whom he had adopted. Interpreters do, indeed, give another explanation, “See, Jehovah, To whom hast thou done this?” that is, Has any people been ever so severely afflicted? But I do not think that the comparison is made here, which they seek to make, but that the people only set before God the covenant which he had made with their fathers, as though they said, “O Lord, hadst thou thus cruelly raged against strangers, there would have been nothing so wonderful; but since we are thine heritage, and the blessed seed of Abraham, since thou hast been pleased to choose us as thy peculiar people, what can this mean, that, thou treatest us with so much severity?”

We now, then, perceive the real meaning of the Prophet, when, in the person of the people, he speaks thus, See, and look on, Jehovah, to whom thou hast done this; for thou hast had to do with thy children: not that the Jews could allege any worthiness; but the gratuitous election of God must have been abundantly sufficient to draw forth mercy. Nor do the faithful here simply ask God to see, but they add another word, Look on. By the two words they more fully express the indignity of what had happened, as though they said, that it was like a prodigy that God’s people should be so severely afflicted, who had been chosen by him: see, then, to whom thou hast done this

And this mode of praying was very common, as we find it said in the Psalms,

“

Pour forth thy wrath on the nations which know not thee, and on the kingdoms which call not on thy name.” (Psa 79:6.)

And a similar passage we have before observed in our Prophet. (Jer 10:25.) The sum of what is said is, that there was a just reason why God should turn to mercy, and be thus reconciled to his people, because he had not to do with aliens, but with his own family, whom he had been pleased to adopt. But the rest I shall defer until tomorrow.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

EXEGETICAL NOTES.

() Lam. 2:20. The prayer is put into words correspondent with the circumstances. See, Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done this, to the city called thine, to the people whom thou hast chosen to be a name and praise to thee. How shocking are the consequences! See if women eat their fruit, the children whom they carried. The last word relates to that which is spreadas infants on the knees or arms. The Revised Version translates it dandled in the hands, which, if expressing the idea, is too special. The awful incident was a punishment threatened (Deu. 28:56-57; Jer. 19:9). See if there are slain in the sanctuary of the Lord priest and prophet. His own holy place defiled with blood. If such spectacles were common, as they were, will God not stay His hand?

() Lam. 2:21. From the massacre in the Temple to the general slaughter of all ages and both sexes is another step in the dismal recital. The youth and the old man my virgins and choice young men, were killed. It was clear that they had to bear the anger of Jehovahthat He was not only full of compassion, but in righteousness he doth judge and make war upon evil.

() Lam. 2:22. Thou hast called as in a day of solemn assembly, summoning, as by trumpet, all kinds of terrifying agenciesmen, famine, fire, swordmy terrors on every side, and there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovahs anger. Then, in motherly anguish, she laments again over the children she had carried and brought up, whom the enemy had cruelly consumed. So the poem concludes, like the first, with deep sorrow, regarding which all attempts at comfort are quite unavailing.

HOMILETICS

A PRAYER FOR DIVINE COMPASSION

(Lam. 2:20-22)

I. Reminding Jehovah of His former favour to the sufferers. Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done this (Lam. 2:20). The prophet seems to feel that if God would only look and recall to mind who they were who were suffering, He would surely have pity. They are not the heathen, but His own people, the seed of Abraham, whom He raised from obscurity and endowed with unexampled blessings. Their present misery was all the more painful to endure when contrasted with their former affluence and power, and would surely move the compassion of Him who had so often interposed on their behalf. It is a great help in prayer to remind God of His former loving-kindness. Every blessing we receive from God increases His interest in our welfare. Every act of disobedience is a sin against Infinite Love.

II. Uttered from the midst of appalling distress (Lam. 2:20-21). In these verses we have a vivid description of the suffering and desolation occasioned by the siege. In the extreme exigencies of famine the most horrible cannibalism was practised: the pangs of hunger devoured maternal affection, and mothers devoured their newly-born infants. Even this had been predicted as the fruit of disobedience (Deu. 28:53). How little do we appreciate the great goodness of God in providing daily food for ourselves and our children! Everywhere in the city were visible the most ghastly scenes of indiscriminate massacrepriest and prophet, young and old, virgins and young men, lay in promiscuous heaps of the slain. If prayer can reach heaven, it must surely be when ascending from the midst of anguish like this. The greater the distress we are in, the more urgent and importunate should be our prayers.

III. Wrung from a people terrified with startling proofs of the Divine anger. Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the Lords anger none escaped or remained (Lam. 2:22). Jeremiah had often threatened the terrors of Gods wrath in the destruction of the nation, if the people persisted in idolatry; but they heeded not. They made jests of his warnings, and their earnest repetition only increased their ridicule. But when they saw Jerusalem hemmed round by the victorious Chaldeans and the utter ruin that followed, they then saw the portentous meaning of the terrors that had been so often threatened and so recklessly despised. The anger of the Lord became to them a solemn reality, and, overwhelmed with confusion and fear, they cry for help. Whatever impels the soul to pray is a blessing. The beginning of prayer may rise from our fears; but as we persevere, it will be actuated by nobler motives. All that prayer can do is to bring our case before God. We must then leave it there with Him, and say, Thy will be done.

LESSONS.

1. The final appeal of the helpless is to God.

2. When distress induces prayer, deliverance is at hand.

3. Jehovah is graciously moved to help by human entreaty.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Lam. 2:20. Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done this. The Divine pity:

1. Earnestly implored by a suffering people.
2. Invoked on the ground of former kindnesses, which, it is acknowledged, have been abused.
3. Is never appealed to in vain.

Lam. 2:22. The tyranny of fear:

1. Realised when beset by a powerful enemy.
2. When the enemy is summoned and directed by One whom we have consciously offended.
3. When we are witnesses of cruelties we are powerless to prevent.

ILLUSTRATIONS.Prayer. It is helplessness casting itself on power. It is infirmity leaning on strength, and misery wooing bliss. It is the flight of the soul to the bosom of God, and the spirit soaring upward and claiming nativity beyond the stars. It is the soaring eagle mounting upward in its flight, and with steady gaze pursuing the track till lost to all below. It is the roving wanderer looking towards his abiding-place, where are all his treasures and his gold. It is the prisoner pleading for release. It is the mariner of a dangerous sea, upon the reeling topmast, descrying the broad and quiet haven of repose. It is the soul, oppressed by earthly soarings, escaping to a broader and purer sphere, and bathing its plumes in the ethereal and eternal.Wells.

Yearning for God.When my blood flows like wine, when all is ease and prosperity, when the sky is blue and birds sing and flowers blossom, and my life is an anthem moving in time and tune, then this worlds joy and affection suffice. But when a change comes, when I am weary and disappointed, when the skies lower into a sombre night, when there is no song of bird, and the perfume of flowers is but their dying breath, when all is sun-setting and autumn, then I yearn for Him who sits with the summer of love in His soul, and feel that all earthly affection is but a glow-worm light compared to that which blazes with such effulgence in the heart of God.Beecher.

Divine compassion. We often suffer more on account of others troubles than they themselves do in those troubles, for both love and sorrow take their measure as much from the capacity of the nature that experiences them as from the power of the externally exciting cause. How much one suffers with or for another does not depend altogether upon how much that other is suffering, but upon how much that nature which sympathises has with which to suffer. God feels with us, so that our experiences throw their waves upon the shore of His soul. He carries us so near to His heart that all our feelings which are of any moment produce their effects in some degree in His bosom. It seems very strange that the Maker of all the earth should permit Himself to be a participant in all the petty experiences that belong to any human life. No man would have dared to conceive such an idea of God, and to have believed any such thing as that, if it had not been revealed in unequivocal terms.

The compassion of Jesus. Luther said, I would run into the arms of Christ if He stood with a drawn sword in His hands. John Butterworth, reading this, resolved to do likewise, and found, as every venturing sinner does, no sword in the hands of Jesus, but open arms and a hearty welcome. Christs proclamation, for ever sounding forth to every burdened heart, is Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He demonstrated His marvellous compassion by dying for us. He will not now repulse the approach or disregard the cry of the needy.

The influence of fear. There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him.Pascal.

Slavish and filial fear. There are two kinds of fearone full of suspicious watchfulness, of anxious apprehension, of trepidation, terror, and dismay; the other such as can dwell in the same heart with confidence and love, and is but another form of reverence. Filial fear of God is a duty; slavish and servile dread of Him is a sin. Filial fear shrinks from sin; servile fear only from the smart of punishment. Filial fear keeps men from departing from the living God, servile fear drives them from Him. By filial fear men are made like the man Christ Jesus; by servile fear they may be scared from iniquity, as the wolf from the sheepfold by the shepherds gun; but it does no more to make them holy than the fright does to destroy the wolfs ferocity. Filial fear animates us to avoid whatever would be offensive to our Heavenly Father, and, if the expression may be allowed, to consult His feelings and desires; but servile fear, as it springs from selfishness, causes us only to care for ourselves, and at best makes us not better, but only a little more prudent than the devil.Bertram.

The greatest fear. When a city is compassed round about with a wall that is impregnable, it will be opened still towards heaven, and therefore cannot be out of danger if God be an enemy. For all their walls and bars, God could rain fire and brimstone upon the Sodomites out of heaven. Alexander asked the Scythians what they were most afraid of, thinking they would say of himself, who was so victorious everywhere. But they answered scoffingly they were most afraid lest heaven should fall upon them. We, indeed, need not fear anything but this only, lest the heaven should fall upon us, lest God should be our enemy.J. Stoughton.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

IV. THE PROPHETS PRAYER FOR HIS PEOPLE Lam. 2:20-22

TRANSLATION

(20) Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom You have done this! Shall women eat their offspring, babes who are carried in the arms? Shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? (21) On the ground in the streets lie the young and old. My maidens and young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger, slaughtering without mercy. (22) You called, as in the days of a solemn assembly, my terrors round about. On the day of the anger of the LORD there was not one who escaped or survived. Those I carried in the arms and raised up my enemy has consumed.

COMMENTS

In Lam. 2:20-22 the prophet prays the prayer he has been urging the nation to pray and in so doing teaches them how to properly approach the throne of God. These verses remind one of Jer. 14:17-19. The prophet boldly presents all the cogent arguments of which he can think in his effort to influence God to aid the people of Judah. First, he asks God to consider that it is His own people who are suffering (cf. Exo. 32:11-13). Divine judgment has caused the people of Judah to sink into the lowest kind of human behavior, cannibalism. Surely God will intervene when men are driven to the point of consuming one another! Priests and prophets who have been anointed to the service of the Lord are being slain in the sacred precincts of the Temple (Lam. 2:20). Surely God will intervene when religious massacre is taking place! Young and old, male and female, lie dead on the streets of Jerusalem, slain by the sword of the divinely appointed enemy of Zion (Lam. 2:21). Surely God will intervene when outrage is committed in public without regard to sex or age. The terrors of warfamine, sword and pestilencehave been summoned by God against Judah just as He might summon His worshipers to a festival. In that day of the Lords anger no one escaped or survived. The enemy has even consumed the babes in arms! (Lam. 2:22). So the prayer ends as it began, with a reference to the slaughter of the innocents. This rehearsal of Judahs tale of woe is an implied request for mercy and deliverance. The matter is left in the hands of the Lord in the firm belief that the Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(20) To whom thou hast done thisi.e., not to a heathen nation, but to the people whom Jehovah Himself had chosen.

Shall the women eat their fruit.Atrocities of this nature had been predicted in Lev. 26:26; Deu. 28:57; Jer. 19:9. They were, indeed, the natural incidents of a besieged city reduced to starvation, as in the case of Samaria (2Ki. 6:28), and the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans (Jos., B. J. v. 12), and had been witnessed, as the words show, in that by the Chaldans. (Comp., as to the famine, Eze. 4:16-17; Eze. 5:16.)

Shall the priest . . .Stress is laid on this as being the next element of horror. The very Holy of Holies was profaned with the blood of the priests and prophets of Jehovah.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

THE PRAYER, Lam 2:20-22.

20. Behold, O Lord, etc. The prayer of the prophet. The fearful picture has been seen, the cries of distress and agony have been heard, and the prophet weaves out of them an argument of prayer.

To whom thou hast done this An appeal to that covenant upon which their very existence was based.

Their fruit That is, the fruit of their body.

Children of a span long Children of their tender care; the word being from a verb, , which means to care for tenderly.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Lam 2:20. Consider to whom thou hast done this Whether thou hast done the like to any one. Houbigant.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Lam 2:20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, [and] children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Ver. 20. Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this. ] Even to thine own inheritances, who suffer harder and heavier things commonly than any others. And why? Ingentia beneficia, ingentia flagitia, ingentia supplicia; their offences are increased, their punishments are aggravated by their obligations.

Shall the women eat their fruit, children of a span long? ] That they did so in the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldees, it appeareth by this question. In the famine of Samaria, under Joram, they did likewise; 2Ki 6:28-29 as also at the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; a and at the siege of Sancerra, in France, A.D. 1572. See the sad effects of sin, and shun it, if but for the ill consequents of it.

Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? ] It seems they were so – but who they were we read not – although God had cautioned, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” Priests were slaughtered, where they used to slaughter beasts for sacrifices; but it may be they were nothing better than Thomas Becket, the devil’s martyr, here, and Adam Benton, that butcherly archbishop in Scotland, who, when himself was butchered, cried out, Kill me not, for I am a priest. b

a Joseph. de Bel., lib. vii. cap. 8.

b Acts and Mon.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)