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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Lamentations 2:22 - 2:22
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The imperf. תִּקְרָא 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." מְגוּרַי מִסָּבִיב is to be explained in conformity with the formula מָגֹור מִסָּבִיב, so frequent in Jeremiah (Jer 6:25; Jer 20:4, Jer 20:10, etc.): מְגוּרַי is therefore to be derived from מָגֹור, 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 מְגוּרִים elsewhere means wandering, pilgrimage, and that, moreover, the sing. מָגֹור 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 πάροικοι). 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 מָגֹור מִסָּבִיב also; and the whole explanation is so artificial and unnatural, that it needs no further refutation. Raschi, indeed, had previously explained מְגוּרַי to mean שכיני, vicinos meos, but added improbos, ut sese congregarent adversus me ad perdendum. Notwithstanding this, מְגוּרִים, "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 פָּלִיט וְשָׂרִיד is used as in Jer 42:17; Jer 44:14. For טִפַּח, 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).