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Lamentations

Chapter 2
{Chapter 2- Destruction of Israel}
1a~~ How the 'Adonay/Lord
  {'How' is Title of the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Again
  brought up}
 has covered the daughter of Zion
with a cloud of His anger.
He has hurled down the splendor
of Israel from heaven to earth.

1b~~He has not remembered His footstool
  {this refers to the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies}
in the day of His anger!

{Note: The Ark was often marched with the Jewish troops and was a source of great encouragement for them.}

2~~Without pity, the 'Adonay/Lord
has swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob
  {all the small towns surrounding Jerusalem}.
In His wrath, He has torn down
the strong holds/fortifications
of the daughter of Judah.
He has brought her kingdom and her princes
down to the ground in dishonor.

3~~In His fierce anger, He has cut off every horn of Israel
  {the 'horn' is the strength of Israel - military, economy and -
  greatest of all - their relationship with God - status as Client
  Nation to God - are all out under 5th cycle}.
He has drawn back His right hand
from before the enemy.
He has burned against Jacob like a consuming fire,
which devoured everything around it

4~~Like an enemy, He has strung the bow
His right hand is ready {the Chaldean Army}.
Like a foe he has slain all who were pleasing to the eye.
He has poured out His wrath like a fire
on the tent of the daughter of Zion
  {the Jewish military forces in the field}.

5~~The 'Adonay/Lord is like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces.
He has destroyed his strong holds/fortifications,
and has multiplied mourning and lamentation
for the daughter of Judah.

6~~And He has laid waste His dwelling like a garden.
He has destroyed His places of meeting {the temple}.
Jehovah/God has made Zion to forget
her appointed feasts and her Sabbaths
  {mainly the Sabbatical years (1 every 7 was required and
  for 490 years they did not observe the Sabbatical years)
  so God gave them 70 years in a row of no enterprise
  - they went into slavery}
and has despised in the indignation of his anger
the king and the priest.

7~~ The 'Adonay/Lord rejected His altar,
and He abandoned His sanctuary.
He handed over to the enemy
the walls of her palaces.
They have raised a shout
in the house of the Jehovah/God,
on the day of an appointed feast.

8~~The Jehovah/God determined to tear down
the wall around the daughter of Zion
and He stretched out a 'measuring line',
and He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying.
Therefore, He made the rampart and the wall to lament
  {because of the men killed manning these defenses}.
They languished together.

9~~Her gates are sunk into the ground
  {security system was destroyed}.
He has broken and her bars.
Her king and her princes are
exiled among the Nations/Gentiles.
The law is no more
  {the Torah - the Mosaic Law}.
Her prophets no longer find visions from Jehovah/God.

10~~The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit on the ground in silence.
They have sprinkled dust upon their heads.
They have girded themselves with sackcloth.
The 'young women'/maidens/virgins of Jerusalem
have hung their heads down to the ground
  {mass rape was the order of the day}.

11~~My {Jeremiah's} eyes fail from weaping.
My emotions/bowels {me`ah} are troubled.
My emotions/liver {kabed} is poured upon the earth.
 {a disease can effect bowels, kidneys and liver and the whole
  system is messed these words were all used as analogy to the
  emotions - like butterflies in our stomach.}
For the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Because the children and the infants/sucklings faint/swoon
in the streets of the city {Jerusalem}.

12~~They {the children} say to their mothers,
Where is bread and wine?
As they faint as wounded men
in the streets of the city,
as their lives/souls ebb away
in their mothers' arms
  {idiom: literally 'on their mother's bosom'}.

13~~What can I say for you?
What can I compare with you, O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you,
O maiden/virgin daughter of Zion?
For your wound is as deep as the sea.
Who can heal it?

14~~The visions of your prophets
were false and worthless.
They did not expose your sin,
to ward off your captivity.
The oracles they gave you
were false and misleading.

{Note: False teaching from the pulpits contributed to the administration of the 5th cycle of discipline by God.}

15~~All who pass your way will clap their hands at you.
They scoff/hiss and shake their head
at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
"Is this city that which was call 'The Perfection of Beauty' . . .
The joy of the whole earth? "

16~~All your companions open their mouth wide against you.
They scoff/hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, "We have swallowed you up.
Certainly this is the day that we waited/looked for.
We have lived to see it."

17~~Jehovah/God has done/manufactured {'asah}
that which He had planned/devised.
He has fulfilled His word
that He had decreed long ago.
He has overthrown/'utterly beat you down in ruin' {harac}
without pity.
And He has caused your enemy to rejoice over you,
He has set up the horn of your adversaries.

18``Their hearts/'right lobes'
cried/prayed unto the 'Adonay/Lord.
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears be caused to flow like a river day and night.
Keep on giving yourself no rest.
Let not the apple of your eye 'keep on growing quiet'.

19~~Get up!/Arise!,
'Sing out in joy' {ranan} in the night.
In the beginning of the watches
  {idiom meaning in the early hours of the day}
pour out your heart/'right lobe'
like water before the face/presence
of the 'Adonay/Lord.
'Lift up your hands toward him'
  {idiom: meaning to mentally give honor and respect to the Lord in
  prayer}
for the life of your young children,
who faint because of hunger
in the top of every street.

20``Behold, O Jehovah/God,
and be caused to consider
to whom You have done this.
Shall the women eat their children
  {under the extreme starvation of the siege of Jerusalem
  women actually murdered and ate their own babies to survive},
and children of a span long
  {they murdered and ate older children also}?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain
in the sanctuary of the 'Adonay/Lord?

{Note: Under the starvation conditions they brought on themselves, the people started blaming the priests and the prophets - it is all YOUR fault! Jeremiah was horribly mistreated personally which will be brought out in Chapter 3}

21``The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets
  {passed out from hunger, dying from starvation and disease}.
My 'young maidens'/virgins and my young men
are fallen by the sword
  {idiom for death by a military disaster which usually is
  then followed with criminal death of the civilians also}.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger.
You have killed, and have not pitied/spared/'had compassion
on them'.

22`` You have kept on proclaiming
as in a solemn day
my fears/terrors surround,
so that in the day of the Jehovah/God's anger
no one escaped nor survived/remained.
Those {children} that I have swaddled
and brought up, has my enemy consumed.