The Pulpit Commentary — Lamentations — Section 19

EXPOSITION. 5, e.nd often; Isa. xvi. 5," the tent of David;" CHAPTER II. Ps. lxxvili. 67, "the tent of Joseph." ZION'S JUDGMENT IS OF Gon. LAMENTA- Ver. 5.-Was as an enemy: he hath swal- TIONS AND 8UFPLIOATIONS. lowed, etc. The threefold division of the verse is, unfortunately, concealed in the Ver. 1.-Rath the Lord covered; rather, Authorized Version, owing to the arbitrary doth . . . cover, The daughter of Zion ; i.e. stopping. The grouping suggested by the Jerusalem. Cast down from heaven. Here Massoretic text is- and in Matt. xi. 23 we have a parallel to " The Lord is become an enemy, he bath Isa. xiv. 12, where the King of Babylon is swallowed up Israel ; compared to a bright star. "Cast down" He bath swallowed up all her palaces, whither? Into the ''pit" or dungeon of he bath destroyed all his strongholds; Hades (Isa. xiv. 15). The beauty of Israel; And hath increased in the daughter of i.e. Jerusalem, exactly as Babylon Id called Judah moaning and bemoaning." "the proud beauty [or, 'ornament'] of Che.Idea" (Isa. xiii. 19). llis footstool; The change of gender in the second line is i.e. the ark (Ps. cxxxii. 7), or perhaps the easily explicable. In the first case the poet temple as containing the e.rk (1 Chron. is thin.king of the city; in the second, of the xxviii. 2; Ps. xcix. 5). people of Israel. The rendering "moaning Ver. 2.-Rabitations ; rather, paature&. and bemoaning" is designed to reproduce, The word properly means the settlements to some extent, the Hebrew phrase, in which of shepherds in green, gre.ssy spots, but here two words, derived from the same root, and designates the country parts in general, dis- almost exactly the same, e.re placed side by tinguished from the "strongholds" of Judah. side, to give a more inf.ense expression to the Rath polluted. So Ps. lxxxix. 39, "Thou idea. hast profaned [same word as here] his Ver. 6.-Violently taken away; rather, crown [by casting it] to the ground." The violently treated; i.e. broken np. llis taber- wearer of a crown was regarded in the naole; rather, his hooth. "Tent" and East as nearer to divinity than ordinary "dwelling" e.re interchangeable expressions mortals ; in some countries, indeed, e.g. in (see ver. 4); and in the Psalms'' booth" is Egypt, almost BS an incarnation of the used as a special poetic synonym for" tent" deity. To discrown him was to" pollute'' when God's earthly dwelling-place, the or " profane" him. sanctuary of the temple, is spoken of (so Ver. 3.-All the horn; rather, every horn; Ps. xxvii. 5; xxxi. 20; lxxvi. 2). The i.e. all the means of defence, especially the Authorized Version, indeed, presurn~s an fortresses. He hath drawn back his right allusion to the proper meaniug of the hand; i.e. he hath withdrawn his assistance Hebrew word, BS if the poet compareJ the in war. Re burned against ; re.ther, he sanctuary of Jehovah to a pleasure-booth burned up. in a garden. It is, however, more natural Ver. 4.-The beginning of the verse to continue, as a garden, the sense of which seems slightly out of order (see the Septue.- will be clear from Ps. lx.u. 12, 13. The gint). And slew all that were pleasant, Septuagint has, instead, "as a vine" -a. eto. The correct rendering is, .And slew all reading which differs from the :i\fassorctic that was pleasant to the eye : in the tent of by having one letter more (kaggefen instead the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury of kaggan). This ancient reading is adopted like fire. The Authorized Version (follow- by Ewald, and harmonizes well with Isa. ing the Te.rgum) seems to have thought v. 1, eto.; Jer. ii. 21 (comp. Ps. lxxx. 8); the.t the youth of the population alone was but the received text gives a very good intended. But, though Ewald also adopts sense. "Garden" in the Bible means, of this view, it seems to limit unduly the course, e. plantation of trees rather than a. meaning of the poet. By "tent" we should flower-garden. llis places of the assembly ; probably understand "dwelling," as Jer. iv. rnther, Ms place of meeting (with Goel), The LA MEN TA TIONS, 0  ]8 THE LAMENTA'l'IONS OF JEREMIAH. [ CII, D. 1-22.