Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 2:22
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’s anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
22. Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side ] i.e. Jehovah has summoned for my destruction the sword, famine, and pestilence. For the comparison with a solemn assembly cp. Lam 2:7, Lam 1:15. The LXX (and similarly Targ.) render instead of “terrors” (from a similar Heb. root) neighbouring villages (so Lhr), which, if this be the sense, are spoken of as sharing in Jerusalem’s calamities. The former view, however, is preferable, both as harmonizing better with the thought expressed in the last line, and as having probable reference to Jeremiah’s favourite expression (see on Jer 6:25).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou hast called as in a solemn day – i. e. Thou callest like a feast day, i. e. like the proclaiming of a festival.
My terrors round about – The prophets watch-word (Jer 6:25 note). God now proclaims what Jeremiah had so often called out before, Magor-missabib. On every side were conquering Chaldaeans.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lam 2:22
Thou hast called . . . my terrors round about.
The wicked instruments of punishment
1. God raiseth up the wickedest, and employeth them to punish His own servants when they sin (Isa 5:26; Isa 8:7).
2. None can escape Gods punishments, whom He meaneth to punish (Psa 139:7).
3. The children of impenitent sinners are often taken away, and prosper not to their comfort. In Gods displeasure all things are accursed unto us (Deu 28:15). (J. Udall.)
The ministry of terror
At Dunkeld there is a high rock, forming a conspicuous feature in the landscape, It is covered at the top with pine trees, which stand out like spears against the skyline, and only here and there can you see the grey face of the rock itself, showing how steep and dangerous it is. At one time the rock was perfectly bare; and one of the Dukes of Athole, who had a perfect passion for planting trees everywhere, wished to cover it like the other heights around with wood. But it was found impossible to climb up to the crevices and ledges of the huge rock, in order to plant the young trees. One day, Alexander Naismith, the father of the great engineer, paid a visit to the dukes grounds; and when told about his graces wish to adorn the rock with trees, he suggested a plan by which this might be accomplished. In front of the dukes castle he noticed an old cannon, which had been used for firing salutes on great occasions. He got this cannon removed to a convenient point near the rock; and then putting a large quantity of the seeds of pine and fir trees into a round tin canister, he rammed it into the mouth of the cannon with a charge of gunpowder, and fired it at the top of the rock. The canister, when it struck the rock, broke into bits and scattered the seeds in every direction. A great many of them fell into the nooks and crannies of the rock, where a little moss or soil had gathered; and with the first showers they began to sprout and send up their tiny shoots, which took firm hold of the rock. After years of slow and steadfast growth, for they had exceedingly little soil, they became trees which completely clothed the naked rock and made it one of the most picturesque parts of the landscape. Now, this was a very strange use to make of a cannon, and a very strange way of sowing seed. A cannon is usually employed to cause death and destruction. But on this occasion it was used to do good, to clothe a naked rock with beauty and fertility, to bring life out of death. It made a loud terrifying noise; it broke the rock in splinters, it burst the canister into fragments, but it scattered the seeds of life where they were wanted. Never was gunpowder employed in a more beneficent work! Now, God sometimes sows his seeds of eternal life by means of a cannon; He persuades men by terror. He says, indeed, of Himself, Fury is not in Me. It is contrary to His nature; for He is love. And yet He is sometimes obliged to do things that terrify for His peoples good. There are proud, lofty natures, full of conceit and self-sufficiency, that rise above their fellows in their own esteem, and lord it over them, and yet are bare and barren of any spiritual good thing, neither profitable to God nor man. If the seed of eternal life is to be sown at all in such lofty, inaccessible natures, it must be by means of a cannon. They must be persuaded by terror. God must thunder forth to them His warnings and invitations. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 22. Thou hast called as in a solemn day] It is by thy influence alone that so many enemies are called together at one time; and they have so hemmed us in that none could escape, and none remained unslain or uncaptivated, Perhaps the figure is the collecting of the people in Jerusalem on one of the solemn annual festivals. God has called terrors together to feast on Jerusalem, similar to the convocation of the people from all parts of the land to one of those annual festivals. The indiscriminate slaughter of young and old, priest and prophet, all ranks and conditions, may be illustrated by the following verses from Lucan, which appear as if a translation of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first verses of this chapter: –
Nobilitas cum plebe perit; lateque vagatur
Ensis, et a nullo revocatum est pectore ferrum.
Stat cruor in Templis; multaque rubentia caede
Lubrica saxa madent. Nulli sua profuit aetas.
Non senes extremum piguit vergentibus annis
Praecipitasse diem; nec primo in limine vitae,
Infanti miseri nascentia rumpere fata.
Pharsal. lib. ii., 101.
“With what a slide devouring slaughter passed,
And swept promiscuous orders in her haste;
O’er noble and plebeian ranged the sword,
Nor pity nor remorse one pause afford!
The sliding streets with blood were clotted o’er,
And sacred temples stood in pools of gore.
The ruthless steel, impatient of delay,
Forbade the sire to linger out his day:
It struck the bending father to the earth,
And cropped the wailing infant at its birth.”
ROWE.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As my people were wont to be called together from all parts in a solemn day, when they were to meet at Jerusalem from all parts of Judea; so now by thy providence my terrible enemies, or terrible things, are by thee called together against that holy city, whither thy people were wont to be called to thy solemn worship. Thou hast made me as a great mother to bring Up many inhabitants that were my children, and now the enemy hath consumed the far greater number of them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
22. Thou hast called as in . . .solemn day . . . terrorsThou hast summoned my enemies againstme from all quarters, just as multitudes used to be convened toJerusalem, on the solemn feast days. The objects, for which theenemies and the festal multitude respectively met, formed a sadcontrast. Compare La 1:15:”called an assembly against me.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou hast called, as in a solemn day, my terrors round about,…. Terrible enemies, as the Chaldeans; these came at the call of God, as soldiers at the command of their general; and in as great numbers as men from all parts of Judea flocked to Jerusalem on any of the three solemn feasts of passover, pentecost, and tabernacles. The Targum paraphrases it very foreign to the sense;
“thou shall proclaim liberty to thy people, the house of Israel, by the Messiah, as thou didst by Moses and Aaron on the day of the passover:”
so that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped or remained; in the city of Jerusalem, and in the land of Judea; either they were put to death, or were carried captive; so that there was scarce an inhabitant to be found, especially after Gedaliah was slain, and the Jews left in the land were carried into Egypt:
those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed; or “whom I could span”, as Broughton; or “handled”; whose limbs she had stroked with her hands, whom she had swathed with bands, and had carried in her arms, and had most carefully and tenderly brought up: by those she had “swaddled” are meant the little ones; and by those she had “brought up” the greater ones, as Aben Ezra observes; but both the enemy, the Chaldeans, consumed and destroyed without mercy, without regard to their tender years, or the manner in which they were brought up; but as if they were nourished like lambs for the day of slaughter.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The imperf. has perhaps bee chosen merely for the sake of the alphabetic arrangement, because the description is still continued, and the idea of custom (wont) or repetition is not very suitable in the present instance. “Thou summonest, as for a feast-day (viz., for the enemy, cf. Lam 1:15), all my terrors round about.” is to be explained in conformity with the formula , so frequent in Jeremiah (Jer 6:25; Jer 20:4, Jer 20:10, etc.): is therefore to be derived from , but not to be confined in its reference to the enemy (as in the Vulgate, qui terrent ); it is rather to be understood as applying to all the terrible powers that had come upon Judah, – sword, famine, plagues (cf. Lam 1:20). On the ground that elsewhere means wandering, pilgrimage, and that, moreover, the sing. in Psa 55:16 signifies a dwelling, Ewald translates the expression in the text, “my hamlets round about,” understanding by that the inhabitants of the defenceless country towns and villages, which stand to the capital that gave them its protection in the relation of settlers in its neighbourhood (lxx ). According to this view, the verse alludes to an important event which took place in those days of the siege, when all the inhabitants of the country towns fled to the capital, thinking that a great festival was going to be held there, as on former occasions; but this became at last for them the great festival of death, when the city was taken. But the translation of the lxx is of no authority, since they have given a false rendering of also; and the whole explanation is so artificial and unnatural, that it needs no further refutation. Raschi, indeed, had previously explained to mean , vicinos meos , but added improbos, ut sese congregarent adversus me ad perdendum . Notwithstanding this, , “wandering” and “place of sojourn,” cannot denote the country towns as distinguished from the capital; nor can the flight of the inhabitants of the low-lying regions into the capital be fitly called a summoning together of them by the Lord. The combination is used as in Jer 42:17; Jer 44:14. For , see on Lam 2:20. With the complaint that no one could escape the judgment, – that the enemy dared to murder even the children whom she Jerusalem had carefully nourished and brought up, – the poem concludes, like the first, with deep sorrow, regarding which all attempts at comfort are quite unavailing (Gerlach).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Here he uses a most appropriate metaphor, to show that the people had been brought to the narrowest straits; for he says that terrors had on every side surrounded them, as when a solemn assembly is called. They sounded the trumpets when a festival was at hand, that all might come up to the Temple. As, then, many companies were wont to come to Jerusalem on feast-days — for when the trumpets were sounded all were called — so the Prophet says that terrors had been sent by God from every part to straiten the miserable people: thou hast, then, called my terrors all around, — how? as to a feast-day, the day of the assembly; for מועד, muod, means the assembly as well as the place and the appointed time. (173)
But we must ever bear in mind what I have already referred to, that though enemies terrified the Jews, yet this was to be ascribed to God, so that every one might acknowledge for himself, that the Chaldeans had not come by chance, but through the secret impulse of God. He afterwards adds, in the day of Jehovah’s wrath (he changes the person) there was none alive, or remaining; nay, he says the enemy has consumed those whom I had nursed and brought up. Here he transfers to enemies what he had before said was done by God, but in this sense, that he understood God as the chief author, and the Chaldeans as the ministers; of his vengeance. Now follows, —
(173) The verb for calling or summoning is in the future tense, and must, be so, to preserve the alphabetical character of the elegy, but it is rendered as in the past tense by all the versions, but the reason why does not appear. The future in Hebrew is often to be rendered as a subjunctive, potential, or optative: so here, —
Shouldest thou summon, as on a festival day, My terrors all around! — And there was not, in the day of Jehovah’s wrath, A fugitive or a survivor; Whom I dandled and brought up, My enemy has consumed them.
The first two lines are a kind of expostulation: “My terrors” mean my terrifiers, according to the Vulg., the abstract for the concrete. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(22) Thou hast called . . .Better, Thou hast summoned, as for a solemn feast-day. (Comp. Lam. 1:15.) In terrors round about we have a characteristic phrase of Jeremiahs (Jer. 6:25; Jer. 20:3; Jer. 20:10). The LXX., followed by some commentators, gives the rendering, Thou hast summoned . . . my villages, but on no sufficient grounds.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
22. My terrors round about These are the sword, famine, and plagues which had apparently combined for the destruction of the people.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 2:22. Thou hast called, &c. “Terrors come upon me from every side by thy appointment, just as multitudes used to flock to Jerusalem at the time of the solemn feasts.” Houbigant renders it rather more clearly, Thou hast called terrors on all sides; as to a solemn feast-day.
REFLECTIONS.1st, The hand of God visible in their sufferings; and the sense of his displeasure, so justly and highly provoked, peculiarly sharpened these lamentations.
The Lord hath utterly ruined their civil and ecclesiastical polity, and destroyed their country. A lowering cloud big with wrath hangs over the daughter of Zion, and terrible darkness covers her: all the beauty of Israel is tarnished, and from the higher pitch of excellence she falls into the abyss of wretchedness. Even that temple where God once chose to put his name, and that ark of the covenant over which his presence visibly rested, are no more regarded by him, but given up to destruction. The habitations of Jacob, the land of Judaea, the Lord hath swallowed up, as a lion his prey, and hath not pitied. Their strong-holds are thrown down in his wrath; for if he be angry, yea, but a little, who may abide it? They had polluted themselves by sin; therefore, he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof, giving them up into the hands of the heathen. All their strength is broken, their right hand disabled; or God’s right hand, which had been their protection and defence, is withdrawn, and they become a prey to their enemies; for when God abandons a people, their ruin is sure. Like a devouring fire his anger burns, and Jacob is devoured. As their enemy he stands, his arrows on the string pointed with death, his sword drawn and sharpened with fury; every pleasant object bleeds beneath the stroke, the princes, priests, and every endeared relation: and even in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion his vengeance lighteth down, and it is utterly consumed. Before such an enemy what defence avails? her palaces, her fortresses, totter as in an earthquake, and disappear; while mournful lamentations rend the skies, and fill the devoted land of Judah. That temple, vast and magnificent, built for Jehovah’s honour, is torn up from its foundations, as easily and utterly as a tent in a garden is removed: the places of assembly, the courts of the temple, or synagogues, are destroyed; God abhorred their hypocritical services, and therefore dispersed their congregations. Their solemn fears and sabbaths are forgotten in Zion, none being left to celebrate them, no place for worship remaining. Even the sacred characters of king and priest God hath despised in the indignation of his anger; because they have defiled their dignity by their iniquities, he hath destroyed both the kingdom and the priesthood: the more sacred the character, the greater the profanation when such offend. The Lord hath cast off his altar; while they continued in their sins, the sacrifices and incense that they offered were an abomination unto him. He hath abhorred the sanctuary, and therefore devoted the walls to ruin; and in those sacred courts and temple, where Zion’s songs were heard, there the Chaldeans shout, and riot, and blaspheme. Fixed is the purpose, deep the design; the line of destruction is marked out, and God’s almighty hand never withdrawn till the desolations are completed, the wall and rampart levelled to the ground. Sunk are her gates, as if the earth had opened beneath them; her bars broken; her king and her princes captives among the Gentiles: the law is no more; the sacred tables broken, the ordinances no longer observed; and none left to expound or hear these oracles of God. They who neglect their Bibles deserve to have them taken from them; and since they abhorred and persecuted their prophets when they had them, God punishes them in withdrawing his prophetic spirit from among them, and leaves them in darkness.
2nd, Nothing breathes but lamentation, mourning, and woe.
1. The mourners and their bitter anguish are described. The elders, who in robes of state were seated on the throne of judgment, now sit upon the ground with every expressive sign of sorrow, dust on their heads, and girded with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem, so sprightly once and gay, with downcast eyes and melancholy looks bemoan their miseries; while the prophet himself, in deeper distress, wept till his eyes grew dim in their exhausted sockets; his bowels troubled with acutest pangs of grief, and all within melted as it were through very anguish, for the destruction of the daughter of his people.
2. Abundant cause appears for such bitter mourning.
[1.] The famine is very grievous. The infants swoon through hunger, and cry to their tender mothers for bread: unable to relieve their wants, the fond parents see them faint in the streets as wounded; or clasping them to their bosom they expire there; nay, more horrid still, driven by those cravings which silence even the strongest feelings of natural affection, the infant, murdered from the womb, is devoured by the famished mother. Well may we cry, in the view of such a scene, from plague, pestilence, and famine, good Lord, deliver us!
[2.] The sword of their enemy reeks with the blood of the slain: no sacredness of place or character affords protection. The priest and prophet are slain in that sanctuary whither they fled for refuge; neither young nor old are spared, and even virgins bleed in the general massacre. God’s wrath had set their merciless enemies upon them: He no more pitied them, and suffered the hearts of their foes to be steeled against every feeling of humanity. Thick as the crowded worshippers assembled in the days of their solemnities, now their terrible enemies, summoned of God, beset them round: hemmed in on every side, none escaped nor remained, but were slain or made captives; so that Zion, a childless widow, saw all the pains and care which she had bestowed on her helpless children fruitless, they being nourished only as lambs for the slaughter: and all this the Lord’s doing, the effects of his fierce anger. How then should we fear to provoke this jealous God!
[3.] Their prophets deluded them. Pretending to inspiration, they reported the dreams of their own foolish imaginations; assuring the people of peace, instead of rebuking them for their iniquity; flattering them in their sins, and hastening them to their ruin. Note; (1.) No curse can be more heavy than to be given up to the delusions of lying prophets. (2.) They who prophesy smooth things, instead of shewing faithfulness to men’s souls in rebuking their sins, evince the falsehood of their pretended mission.
[4.] Their neighbours reproach, their enemies insult them. As if well pleased with their fall, those that pass by, hiss and wag the head, deriding their miseries; Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? Where now are those Jewish boasts?With open mouths their enemies join the cry, blaspheming and reviling, hissing as serpents, and gnawing their teeth, in testimony of their abhorrence; they say, we have swallowed her up, delighted with the delicious repast, with the rich prey of Zion’s palaces. Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it; with malicious joy they triumph, and think that they have prevailed to her everlasting destruction. But let the enemies of God’s church know, that, though sunk never so low, she will revive, and their triumphing will be short.
[5.] Their misery is unparallelled, their case to human view desperate; no nation ever suffered the like calamities: to seek, as a ground of comfort, for afflictions similar to those which Zion had endured, were vain: for thy breach is great like the sea, which, when it overflows, with violence irresistible deluges the country. Who can heal thee? no human wisdom or power can repair these desolations.
[6.] God himself appears their enemy. The Lord hath done that which he had devised; his hand hath done it, his counsel planned the blow: he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old; for, when he gave them his holy law by Moses, he told them what would be the effects of their transgressions, Lev 26:17. Deu 28:20 which is now fulfilled. He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied, sparing neither city nor temple: he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, giving Jerusalem for a prey to their teeth: and for these miseries no wonder if their heart in anguish cried unto the Lord; in some the voice of mere nature, lamenting their sufferings; in others, it may be hoped, the voice of grace bewailing their sins.
3. They are exhorted, as the only means of redress, in deep humiliation to seek unto God. He hath wounded, and he alone can heal. O wall of the daughter of Zion, ye watchmen that stand thereon, and all others, let tears penitential run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest, weep incessantly, let not the apple of thine eye cease, till thou hast found pardon and grace. Arise, cry out in the night, importunate in prayer, and pleading hard with God for mercy, in the beginning of the watches, repeatedly and ceaseless till he vouchsafes an answer of peace; pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord, lift up thy hands toward him, pour all thy griefs into his compassionate bosom, and urge every argument for pity, such as the groans of the infants expiring for hunger. Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this; to the seed of Abraham thy friend, the sons of Jacob thy chosen, the people whom thou didst separate for thine own. Note; We can take no step so effectual to remove our miseries, as spreading them in humble and fervent prayer before God. None but he can help us; and, none that ever truly sought him sought in vain.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lam 2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
Ver. 22. Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors, ] i.e., My terrible enemies the Chaldees, being called in by thee their generalissimo, came on as cheerfully as if they had come to a solemn feast or some merry meeting, and not to a siege and to a bloody war, which they cannot but know to be utrinque triste, such as both sides usually suffer by.
Those that I have swaddled and brought up.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
solemn day = day of assembly.
terrors round about. Compare Jer 6:25; Jer 20:3, Jer 20:10; Jer 46:5; Jer 49:29.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
my terrors: Psa 31:13, Isa 24:17, Isa 24:18, Jer 6:25, Jer 20:3, Jer 46:5, Amo 9:1-4
those: Deu 28:18, Jer 16:2-4, Hos 9:12-16, Luk 23:29, Luk 23:30
Reciprocal: 2Ch 36:17 – who slew Jer 10:25 – eaten Jer 32:24 – because Eze 16:4 – nor Eze 25:3 – thou saidst Zec 8:4 – There Rom 4:15 – Because
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 2:22. Jeremiah uses the first person in forming his sentences of address to God. but he is speaking on behalf of the nation whose people are so very near to the prophet. Called as in a solemn day refers to the call that God had made for the enemy to come into His service of punishing the disobedient nation. The terrors round about were those that the Babylonians had brought against Jerusalem. Those that I have swaddled is a figurative reference to the rising generations of the kingdom of Judah. They had become the victims of the enemy which means the Babylonian army.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
There had been as much carnage in the city as there was on feast days when the priests slew large quantities of sacrificial animals. No one had escaped Yahweh’s anger, not even the children whom the city had produced, when the Babylonian enemy annihilated them.