Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 2:4

He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all [that were] pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

4. Jehovah is likened to an archer (cp. Job 16:13), aiming His bow with deadly effect against the goodliest of the people. The metre is incomplete, a part of the third line having apparently been lost. We should (with Lhr) read as the second line, “And hath slain daughter of Zion.”

with his right hand ] that which has hitherto been the symbol of His help.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

He stood with his right hand … – i. e. that right hand so often stretched out to help now grasped a weapon ready for Judahs destruction.

Were pleasant – Or, was pleasant. Put full stop after eye. Begin the third distich thus:

In the tabernacle – (or, tent) of the daughter of Zion.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Lam 2:4-5

He hath bent His bow like an enemy.

God as an enemy

If God is tormenting His people in fierce anger, it must be because He is their enemy–so the sad-hearted patriot reasons. First, we have the earthly side of the process. The daughter of Zion is covered with a cloud–a metaphor more striking in the brilliant East than in our habitually sombre climate. There it would suggest unwonted gloom–the loss of the customary light of heaven, rare distress, and excessive melancholy. But there is more than gloom. A mere cloud may lift, and discover everything unaltered by the passing shadow. The distress that has fallen on Jerusalem is not thus superficial and transient. She herself has suffered a fatal fall. The Language is now varied; instead of the daughter of Zion we have the beauty of Israel. The use of the larger title, Israel, is not a little significant. It shows that the elegist is alive to the idea of the fundamental unity of his race, a unity which could not be destroyed by centuries of intertribal warfare. It has been suggested with probability that by the expression the beauty of Israel the elegist intended to indicate the temple. This magnificent pile of buildings, crowning one of the hills of Jerusalem, and shining with gold in barbaric splendour, was the central object of beauty among all the people who revered the worship it enshrined. Its situation would naturally suggest the language here employed. Still keeping in mind the temple, the poet tells us that God has forgotten His footstool. He seems to be thinking of the mercy seat over the ark, the spot at which God was thought to show Himself propitious to Israel on the great day of atonement, and which was looked upon as the very centre of the Divine presence. No miracle intervenes to punish the heathen for their sacrilege. Yes, surely God must have forgotten His footstool! So it seems to the sorrowful Jew, perplexed at the impunity with which this crime has been committed. But the mischief is not confined to the central shrine. It has extended to remote country regions and simple rustic folk. The shepherds hut has shared the fate of the temple of the Lord. All the habitations of Jacob–a phrase which in the original points to country cottages–have been swallowed up. The holiest is not spared on account of its sanctity, neither is the lowliest on account of its obscurity. The calamity extends to all districts, to all things, to all classes. If the shepherds cot is contrasted with the temple and the ark because of its simplicity, the fortress may be contrasted with this defenceless hut because of its strength. Yet even the strongholds have been thrown down. More than this, the action of the Jews army has been paralysed by the God who had been its strength and support in the glorious olden time. It is as though the right hand of the warrior had been seized from behind and drawn back at the moment when it was raised to strike a blow for deliverance. The consequence is that the flower of the army, all that were pleasant to the eye, are slain. Israel herself is swallowed up, while her palaces and fortresses are demolished. The climax of this mystery of Divine destruction is reached when God destroys His own temple. The elegist returns to the dreadful subject as though fascinated by the terror of it. According to the strict translation of the original, God is mid to have violently taken away His tabernacle as a garden. At the siege of a city the fruit gardens that encircle it are the first victims of the destroyers axe. Lying out beyond the walls they are entirely unprotected, while the impediments they offer to the movements of troops and instruments of war induce the commander to order their early demolition. Thus Titus had the trees cleared from the Mount of Olives, so that one of the first incidents in the Roman siege of Jerusalem must have been the destruction of the Garden of Gethsemane. Now the poet compares the ease with which the great, massive temple–itself a powerful fortress, and enclosed within the city wails–was demolished, with the simple process of scouring the outlying gardens. The deeper thought that God rejects His sanctuary because His people have first rejected Him is not brought forward just now. Yet this solution of the mystery is prepared by a contemplation of the utter failure of the old ritual of atonement. Evidently that is not always effective, for here it has broken down entirely; then can it ever be inherently efficacious? It cannot be enough to trust to a sanctuary and ceremonies which God Himself destroys. The first thing to be noticed in this unhestitating ascription to God of positive enmity is the striking evidence it contains of faith in the Divine power, presence, and activity. The victorious army of the Babylonians filled the field as completely in the old time as that of the Germans in the modern event. Yet the poet simply ignores its existence. He passes it with sublime indifference, his mind filled with the thought of the unseen Power behind. He knows that the action of the true God is supreme in everything that happens, whether the event be favourable or unfavourable to His people. Perhaps it is only owing to the dreary materialism of current thought that we should be less likely to discover an indication of the enmity of God in some huge national calamity. Still, although this idea of the elegist is a fruit of his unshaken faith in the universal sway of God, it startles and shocks us, and we shrink from it almost as though it contained some blasphemous suggestion. Is the elegist only expressing his own feelings? Have we a right to affirm that there can be no objective truth in the awful idea of the enmity of God? In the first place, we have no warrant for asserting that God will never act in direct and intentional opposition to any of His creatures. There is one obvious occasion when He certainly does this. The man who resists the laws of nature finds those laws working against him. The laws of nature are, as Kingsley said, but the ways of God. If they are opposing a man, God is opposing that man. But God does not confine His action to the realm of physical processes. His providence works through the whole course of events in the worlds history. What we see evidently operating in nature we may infer to be equally active in less visible regions. Then, if we believe in a God who rules and works in the world, we cannot suppose that His activity is confined to aiding what is good. It is unreasonable to imagine that He stands aside in passive negligence of evil. And if He concerns Himself to thwart evil, what is this but manifesting Himself as the enemy of the evil-doer? It may be contended, on the other side, that there is a world of difference between antagonistic actions and unfriendly feelings, and that the former by no means imply the latter. Still, for the time being, the opposition is a reality, and a reality which to all intents and purposes is one of enmity, since it resists, frustrates, hurts. Nor is this all. We have no reason to deny that God can have real anger. We must believe that Jesus Christ was as truly revealing the Father when He was moved with indignation as when He was moved with compassion. His mission was a war against all evil, and therefore, though not waged with carnal weapons, a war against evil men. The Jewish authorities were perfectly right in perceiving this fact. They persecuted Him as their enemy; and He was their enemy. This statement is no contradiction to the gracious truth that He desired to save all men, and therefore even these men. If Gods enmity to any soul were eternal, it would conflict with His love. But if He is at the present time actively opposing a man, and if He is doing this in anger, in the wrath of righteousness against sin, it is only quibbling with words to deny that for the time being He is a very real enemy to that man. (W. P. Adeney, M. A.)

The Divine anger

1. Where God is angry, there is nothing to be looked for but destruction and ill success in all things.

2. God punisheth sin in His children in this world as severely as ii they were reprobates.

(1) To declare that He is not partial, but hateth sin in those whom He most of all loveth.

(2) That it may appear what great wrath remaineth for the ungodly (1Pe 4:17).

3. Though God show all outward signs of enmity against His Church, yet is His love everlasting thereunto.

4. Gods anger is never in vain, but effecteth punishment upon them with whom He is angry.

5. God regardeth not the most precious things that are amongst the sons of men, in respect of declaring His justice against sin. (J. Udall.)

The Lord was as an enemy.

Divine displeasure

I. This oft repeating of one thing teacheth that it is hard to persuade Gods people rightly to judge of and he afflicted with the afflictions that are upon them.

(1) The ways of God are high beyond the reach of the sons of men.

(2) We axe naturally of a blind and dull disposition, with much ado brought unto any good thing.

2. God hath no need of any people, but all have need of Him.

3. God will increase His plagues upon His children, where sin without repentance is increased.

4. God giveth many causes of sorrow when He punisheth His people.

(1) He giveth a token that He is displeased, which is cause of greatest grief unto His children.

(2) His punishments do usually cross our affections in the things that they are much set upon.

(a) Labour with ourselves that we may be affected with the crosses that are upon us.

(b) Seek to Him alone for succour in the time of our sorrow. (J. Udall.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 4. He hath bent his bow – he stood with his right hand] This is the attitude of the archer. He first bends his bow; then sets his arrow upon the string; and, lastly, placing his right hand on the lower end of the arrow, in connexion with the string, takes his aim, and prepares to let fly.

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

That is, God (whom by their sins they had provoked and made their enemy) behaved himself as an enemy, bending his bow, and stretching out his right hand, and slew their young men and maidens, who were pleasant to look upon; and had brought judgments upon them like fire, which devours without any discrimination.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

4. (Isa63:10).

stood with . . . righthandHe took His stand so as to use His right hand as anadversary. HENDERSON makesthe image to be that of an archer steadying his right hand totake aim. Not only did He withdraw His help, but also tookarms against Israel.

all . . . pleasant to . . .eye (Eze 24:25). Allthat were conspicuous for youth, beauty, and rank.

in . . . tabernaclethedwellings of Jerusalem.

He.

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

He hath bent his bow like an enemy,…. God sometimes appears as if he was an enemy to his people, when he is not, by his conduct and behaviour; by the dispensations of his providence they take him to be so, as Job did, Job 16:9; he bends his bow, or treads it, for the bending or stretching the bow was done by the foot; and as the Targum,

“and threw his arrows at me:”

he stood with his right hand as an adversary; with arrows in it, to put into his bow or with his sword drawn, as an adversary does. The Targum is,

“he stood at the right hand of Nebuchadnezzar and helped him, when he distressed his people Israel:”

and slew all [that were] pleasant to the eye; princes and priests, husbands and wives, parents and children, young men and maids; desirable to their friends and relations, and to the commonwealth:

in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury like fire; that is, either in the temple, or in the city of Jerusalem, or both, which were burnt with fire, as the effect of divine wrath and fury; and which itself is comparable to fire; like a burning lamp of fire, as the Targum; or rather like a burning furnace or mountain; see Na 1:6.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

He employs now another metaphor, that God, who was wont to defend his people, now took up arms against them; for stating a part for the whole, he includes in the bow every other weapon. When, therefore, he says that God had bent his bow, it is the same as though he said that he was fully armed. The bow, then, as we have before seen, means every kind of weapon. He then adds, that his right hand stood as an adversary. Here he more plainly describes what he had before touched upon, even that God had not only given up his people to the will of their enemies, but that he himself had held up a banner to their enemies, and went before them with an armed hand. Nor is there a doubt but that by the right hand of God he means all their enemies; for it was necessary carefully to impress this fact on the minds of the people, that the war had not been brought by the Chaldeans, but that God had resolved thereby to punish the wickedness of the people, and especially their desperate obstinacy, for he had omitted nothing to restore the people to the right way.

Whenever, then, there is mention made here of God, let us know that the people are reminded, as I have already said, that they had to do with God, lest. they should forget this, or think that it was adverse fortune, or dream of some other causes of evils, as men are wont in this respect to be very ingenious in deceiving themselves. And we shall see this more clearly hereafter, where it is said, that God had thought to destroy the wall of Jerusalem; but this thought was the same as his decree. Then the Prophet explains there more fully what is yet here substantially found, even that God was brought forward thus before the people, that they might learn to humble themselves under his mighty hand. The hand of God was not indeed visible, but the Prophet shews that the Chaldeans were not alone to be regarded, but rather that the hidden hand of God, by which they were guided, ought to have been seen by the eyes of faith. It was, then, this hand of God that stood against the people.

It then follows, He slew all the chosen men; some read, “all things desirable;” but it seems more suitable to consider men as intended, as though he had said, that the flower of the people perished by the hand of God in the tabernacle of the daughter of Sion; though the last clause would unite better with the end of the verse, that on the tabernacle of the daughter of Sion God had poured forth his wrath, or his anger, as fire

He repeats the metaphor which he had used in the last verse; and this is what we ought carefully to notice; for God threatens by Isaiah that he would be a fire to devour his enemies:

“

The light of Israel shall be a fire, and his Holy One a flame of fire, and it shall devour all briers and all kinds of wood.” (Isa 10:7.)

There God threatened the Chaldeans, as though he had said that his vengeance would be dreadful, when as a patron and defender of his people he would contend with the Chaldeans. He there calls himself the light of Israel and the Holy One; and hence he said that he would be a fire and a flame as to the Chaldeans. But what does he say here? even that God had poured forth lt is wrath as fire, that its flame had devoured all around whatever was fair to be seen in Israel. We hence see that the people had provoked against themselves the vengeance of God, which would have been otherwise poured forth on their enemies; and thus the sin of the people was doubled. It follows, —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(4) He stood with his right hand . . .The point of the phrase is that the right hand, the natural symbol of divine power, which had been of old stretched forth to protect, was now seen shooting the arrows and wielding the sword of vengeance.

Slew all that were pleasant . . .Better, Destroyed ail that was pleasant, the destruction including not only warriors and youths, but everything dear and precious.

The tabernacle . . .Not the Temple, but the city itself as the habitation of the people, who are collectively represented as the daughter of Zion.

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

4. His right hand as an adversary That same “hand” which had been to them an instrument of help, and which is mentioned in the previous verse as withdrawn from their protection. In the tabernacle, etc. This phrase belongs to the sentence following. The colon after “Zion” should be moved back to stand after “eye.” Fearful, indeed, is the contrast when, instead of the down-shining of the Lord’s favour and glory, he pours out upon the tabernacle of Zion his fury like fire.

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

Lam 2:4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all [that were] pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

Ver. 4. He hath bent his bow like an enemy. ] He doth not only help the enemies, but himself fighteth against us with his own bare hand. He hath bent his bow, id est, vim suam ultricem, saith Origen; that is, his avenging force. So the poet feigneth that Apollo shot his deadly shafts into the camp of the Grecians.

He stood with his right hand. ] Heb., He was set. Vulgate, Firmavit dextram suam; he held his right hand steadily, that he might hit what he shot at.

In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. ] In Jerusalem, that was sweetly situated, as a tabernacle pitched in a pleasant plain, but now a field of blood.

He hath poured out his wrath like fire, ] i.e., Abundantly and most vehemently, perinde ac Aetna, Hecla, &c.

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