1.
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!
2.
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3.
He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
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.
5.
The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6.
And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7.
The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8.
The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9.
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
10.
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11.
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12.
They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
13.
What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14.
Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
PROPHESIERS OF SMOOTH THINGS
‘Thy prophets have seen visions … of vanity … and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to bring again thy captivity.’
Lamentations 2:14 (R.V.)
I. This lament of Jeremiah over his city might be repeated still.—To ministers of religion, to teachers, and to all who are eager to save their friends from the downward path, these words are abundantly applicable. Too often we ‘see visions of vanity,’ and do not deal faithfully with the question of sin that lies at the root of all the misery which we are endeavouring to combat. We can only turn away captivity when we dare to draw aside the veil by which a man hides himself from himself, as Nathan when he said to David: ‘Thou art the man.’
II. We must remember our own sins.—It is only when we have detected and removed the beam which is in our eye, that we can see clearly how to remove the mote which is in our brother’s eye. It is only when we consider ourselves, and how we have been tempted and have yielded to temptation, that we can restore those who are tempted. We need to gird ourselves with the towel of the deepest humility before he can wash the feet of our brethren.
III. We must have an invincible optimism.—It is useless to disclose a man’s iniquities unless we know of the Balm in Gilead and the Physician there, and can speak brightly and hopefully of that perfect cure which is within the reach of every soul. The sinner himself has seen all the blackness and poison of his sin; it is needless to speak further of it; it is essential to unfold the possibilities of pardon.
IV. We must be full of the tenderness of the Divine Comforter.—The wounds that sin has made are so sore that the sinner winces from the touch, and we must be very sweet and gentle. The publicans and sinners drew near to Jesus because He would not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax.
Illustration
‘Preachers, so soothing, are smooth-preachers and dumb dogs, who bring great and irreparable injury to a whole country, for the sun shall go down over such prophets and the day shall be dark over them ( Micah 3:6). And although they may receive for a long time goodwill and favour, money and encouragement from men, yet they lose, together with their hearers who delight in such accommodating ministers, all favour from the living God.’
15.
All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16.
All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17.
The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18.
Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19.
Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20.
Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21.
The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22.
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.