How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! ['Aleph (')]
How - ['eekaah, "How"] the title of the collection repeated here, and Elegy 4: 1. Hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud - i:e., with the darkness of ignominy. Cast down from heaven unto the earth - (Matthew 11:23, "Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell") i:e., dashed down from the highest prosperity to the lowest misery.
The beauty of Israel - the beautiful temple (Psalms 29:2, "The beauty of holiness" - i:e., the glorious sanctuary; Psalms 74:7; Psalms 96:9, margin; Isaiah 60:7, "The house of my glory;" Ps. 64:11 , "Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee").
His footstool - the ark (cf. 1 Chronicles 28:2 with Psalms 99:5; Psalms 132:7, "Worship at his footstool"). They once had gloried more in the ark than in the God whose symbol it was; they now feel it was but His "footstool," yet that it had been a great glory to them that God deigned to use it as such.
[Beth (b)]