Lamentations 2:2-4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Lord hath swallowed up the habitations, &c. Without showing any pity or concern for them. He hath thrown down the strong holds, &c. Hath suffered the enemies to batter down their fortifications to the ground. He hath polluted the kingdom, &c. “He hath shown no regard for the kingdom which himself had settled upon the family of David, but involved the royal family in one common destruction with the rest of the people. The expression is much the same with that of Psalms 89:39, Thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.” Lowth. He hath cut off, &c., all the horn of Israel Namely, their strength and glory, and especially their kingly dignity. He hath drawn back his right hand, &c. He hath withdrawn his wonted assistance, and given us up into the hands of our enemies. Or, as Blaney rather thinks, the right hand of Israel may be here intended, namely, his exertions of strength represented as rendered ineffectual by God, or turned away from obstructing the progress of the enemy; “just as God says, Jeremiah 21:4, that he would turn aside the weapons of war that were in the hands of the Jews, so as to prevent their hindering the Chaldean army from entering the city.” He burned against Jacob round about God hath consumed them, not on this or that part merely, but everywhere, as a fire which seizes a house, or a heap of combustible matter, on all sides at once. He hath bent his bow like an enemy, &c. God, whom by their sins they had provoked, and made their enemy, behaved himself as such toward them, bending his bow, as it were, and stretching out his right hand to destroy them. And slew all that were pleasant to the eye The chief in worth and dignity; those who were in the flower of their age, the joy and delight of their parents. He poured out his fury like fire Which devours all before it, without any discrimination.