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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Lamentations 2:2 - 2:2
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The Lord has destroyed not merely Jerusalem, but the whole kingdom. בִּלַּע, "to swallow up," involves the idea of utter annihilation, the fury of destruction, just in the same way as it viz. the fury is peculiar to עָבְרָה, the overflowing of anger. "He hath not spared" forms an adverbial limitation of the previous statement, "unsparingly." The Qeri וְלֹא, instead of לֹא, is an unnecessary and unpoetic emendation. כָּל־נָאֹות, all the pastures of Jacob. According to its etymology, נָוֶה means a place where shepherds or nomads rest, or stay, or live; here, it is not to be understood specially of the dwellings as contrasted with, or distinguished from the pasture-grounds, but denotes, in contrast with the fortresses (מִבְצָרִים), the open, unfortified places of the country in which men and cattle enjoy food and rest. "The strongholds of the daughter of Judah" are not merely the fortifications of Jerusalem, but the fortresses generally of the country and kingdom of Judah; cf. Jer 5:17; Jer 34:7. הִגִּיעַ לָאָרֶץ, "to cast down to the ground" (used of the pulling down of walls, cf. Isa 25:12), is an epexegesis of חָרַס, as in Exo 13:14, and is not to be joined (in opposition to the accents) with what succeeds, and taken figuratively. For neither does חִלֵּל need any strengthening, nor does הִגִּיעַ לָאָרֶץ suitably apply to the kingdom and its princes. The desecration of the kingdom consisted in its being dishonoured by the disgraceful conduct of its rulers; cf. Psa 89:40.