How hath the Lord in his anger covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud! He hath cast down from the heavens unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
The Lord hath swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob, and hath not spared; he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah he hath brought [them] down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.
The second poem of Lamentations turns from a ruined city to the hand that ruined it. Every line names that hand as the Lord's own, which raises the hardest question in the book: how can God treat His own people this way, and can love still be behind it?
Babylon's army did the physical work, yet the chapter refuses to name Babylon as the cause. The verbs pile up, and every one of them has God as the subject.
This chapter also describes the great disaster in vivid detail. An enemy did not do it. Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldean armies did not do it. The Lord carried it all out. He cast down the beauty of Israel. He swallowed up the homes of Jacob. He burned against Jacob like a flame. He bent His bow like an enemy. He poured out His fury like fire. He was like an enemy. These are a few of the many phrases that acknowledge the righteousness of the Lord in judging His people.
Hebrew has several words for anger, and Lamentations uses more than one. The word in this verse carries its own shade of meaning.
Za-am is indignation, punitive anger against evil. Aph is anger, wrath. Kharah means kindled, the heat of anger. In Lamentations 2:2 the word is ev'rah, arrogance or wrath — it seems to describe someone who goes beyond the bounds of self-restraint.
Chapter 1 mourned an emptied city. Chapter 2 names something sharper: a broken relationship.
In the second part, the main thing is the breach of relationship. God has become like an enemy to what was His own. This is destruction more than desolation. The words of the prophets were only false messages; He has only fulfilled His own word.
"Without mercy" is the phrase that stings. One writer names the sin behind it and the hard hearts that went with it. He reads the ruin as discipline, not abandonment. (Older versions say the Lord "polluted" the kingdom; the ESV says He brought it down in dishonour.)
Jerusalem was "cast down to earth," treated like one of the cities of the nations, trampled by the Gentiles. Even so, a place of glory still awaits her, greater than any she knew in the past. Hardship had to discipline her, but He had not abandoned her forever. In His anger against idolatry, the Lord had "swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob," because their hearts were hard. In His wrath He had "broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah," bringing them to the ground and polluting the kingdom and its princes. It was all because of sin. He loved them truly, but He could not let them go on in peace while they were in such a dreadful moral state.
God Himself set up the kingdom and its princes. Here He dishonours His own arrangement. That is what makes the chapter shocking — and it is also the ground for appealing to Him.
This chapter sees the ruin of Jerusalem as Jehovah's own work on what was His own, not as the enemy's work. There had never been such sorrow. He had polluted the kingdom and its princes. He had acted as an enemy against Jerusalem and everything fine in it. He had even cast down His own altar and loathed His own sanctuary. He no longer respected what He Himself had set up. But we must remember when this happened. God's patience was long, yet at that time His relationship with His people rested on their faithful obedience to Him, under the old covenant. And that very fact leaves room to appeal to Him.
The poet's grief is not detached reporting. The blows land hardest on the man who best understood how much God loved the people He was striking.
Image piles on image to show how complete the destruction was. Jehovah had given His own chosen people, city, and temple over to it. It is all the more terrible because His nature and purpose never change. No one felt the reality of His love for Israel more than the prophet. For that very reason, no one felt the unavoidable blows of His hand so keenly — since God had to be an enemy to those He loved most.
- His own hand. Babylon's soldiers swung the swords. The poem credits every blow to the Lord, and calls that judgment righteous.
- His own word. The wrath here goes beyond the bounds of restraint. Even so, it only does what God had already said He would do.
- His own house. God set up the kingdom, the princes, the altar and the sanctuary. Here He stops respecting what He Himself set up.
- His own people. The lack of pity answers idolatry and hard hearts. His love was real, and that is why He would not leave them as they were.
- His own future. The Lord cast Jerusalem down to earth, but did not abandon her forever. Because the ruin is His own work, His people can bring it back to Him in prayer.
He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel he hath withdrawn his right hand from before the enemy; and he burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, devouring round about.
In this chapter God's anger falls on His own city, and Jeremiah does not blame Babylon; he names the Lord as the one who cut down Israel's strength and stepped back. That raises a hard question: if God Himself struck, is He finished with His people?
This chapter will not explain the disaster by politics or armies.
This chapter is about the city of Jerusalem in a very particular sense. That city, once famed as the dwelling-place of the great King, was now a waste of blackened ruins. Throughout the chapter, one thing stands out. No outside enemy acted on his own will here. The Lord Himself had marked the city for destruction — the Lord who had lived so long in the middle of it.
This chapter is not only about ruin.
In the second part, it is above all the broken relationship. God has turned to be like an enemy to what was His own. This is destruction more than desolation. The prophets' words were nothing but false messages, while He has only fulfilled His own word.
Where the ESV reads "all the might of Israel," older translations read "all the horn of Israel." That one word has a settled meaning in Scripture.
The horn is the expression of power, normally the power of a kingdom, and so of a king. But it means the king as the one in whom the kingdom's power is concentrated. It does not mean the king personally, except so far as that is true of him.
The same God who breaks a horn is the God who lifts one up — the image cuts both ways across Scripture.
People in the East wore them as a symbol of exaltation and power. The Lord was David's horn of salvation. He exalted the horn of His people, and broke the horns of the wicked.
God withdraws His right hand "in the face of the enemy," and Israel is left with no defender.
When God has entrusted a government to men, He has the right to take it away from them completely. He can hand them over as prey to those to whom He gives the power. So it would soon go with the nations conquered by Babylon. The same fate would fall upon Israel, which once stood as one whole under God's government. It had deserted the Lord. Now it would be left without king, without prince, and without help against the enemy.
God "burned like a flaming fire in Jacob." That anger falls on a people He loves, and the prophet who loves them feels it most.
Image piles on image to express how complete the destruction was — the destruction to which the Lord had devoted His own chosen people, city, and temple. It is all the more terrible because He must be unchangeable in His own nature and purpose. No one felt the truth of His love to Israel more than the prophet. For that very reason, no one could feel the unavoidable blows of His hand so keenly. God had to be an enemy to those He loved most.
What burns here was God's own gift in the first place. He is pulling down what He Himself built.
But God destroys what He had made, and He will carry out all His purposes (Lam. 2:1-9). The Lord has cast off His altar, He has abhorred His sanctuary. His people were unfaithful to His blessings. So He has taken away every means He had put in place to bless them.
God later promised that the same horn would grow again.
In that day God would cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth... The budding of the horn speaks of a partial and more or less slow revival for the people of God... Later, we have also Daniel's exaltation... which was soon followed by the return of the people to the land under Cyrus. So the horn of Israel was indeed budding. The prophets of that time, such as Haggai and Zechariah, hint at a further and more wonderful budding of the horn. They announce Messiah's coming.
- Sin — The ruin starts with God's people deserting Him. He took back the very blessings He had given, because those He trusted with them failed.
- Strike — The blow is God's own, not Babylon's. The Lord who had lived in Jerusalem marked the city for destruction.
- Strength — The horn is power held by a ruler. Cutting it off leaves the nation with nothing to stand on.
- Shield — God draws back His right hand and lifts His government off Israel. They are left without king, without prince, without help.
- Sprout — God promised the cut horn would bud again: slow revival, return from exile, and the coming of Messiah.
He hath bent his bow like an enemy; he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and hath slain all that was pleasant to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion, he hath poured out his fury like fire.
Chapter 2 of Lamentations does not blame Babylon for the ruin of Jerusalem; it traces every blow back to God Himself. Verse 4 is the sharpest picture of all: how could the God who chose Zion aim His bow at the people He loved?
The armies that broke into Jerusalem were real, but the prophet looks past them. The chapter piles up verbs that all have the same subject:
The vivid description of the great catastrophe continues through this chapter too. Not an enemy has done it, not Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldean armies. The Lord is the One who carried it all out. He cast down the beauty of Israel. He swallowed up the homes of Jacob. He burned against Jacob like a flame. He bent His bow like an enemy. He poured out His fury like fire. He was as an enemy. These are a few of the many phrases that admit the Lord was righteous in judging His people.
What makes this so heavy is that the ruin fell on property God claimed as His own:
The second chapter is a very deep and touching appeal. It views the ruin of Jerusalem as Jehovah's own work on what was His own, not as the enemy's work. Never had there been such sorrow. He had defiled the kingdom and its princes. He had been as an enemy against Jerusalem and everything good in it. More than that, He had cast down His altar and loathed His sanctuary. He no longer respected what He had Himself set up.
The verse does not say God was an enemy. It says He acted like one — and that small word carries the whole comfort of the passage. (Older translations render the second phrase "as an adversary.")
Three times in verses 4 and 5 the text says He acted as though He were their enemy. First we read, "He has bent His bow like an enemy." Second, "He stood with His right hand as an adversary." Third, "The Lord was as an enemy." But notice the qualifying words "like" and "as." He never was an enemy. Their own conduct forced Him to act as if He were. How many a Christian has had to know Him in a similar way! How often has He seemed to become an enemy! But faith looks beyond all that the eye can see, and knows that He is unchanged in His love and tenderness.
The prophet who wrote these lines was no distant observer:
Image piles on image to show how complete the destruction was. Jehovah had given over His own chosen people, city, and temple to it. It is all the more terrible because in His own nature and purpose He must be unchangeable. No one felt the truth of His love for Israel more than the prophet. For that very reason, no one could feel the unavoidable blows of His hand so keenly. He was obliged to be an enemy to those He loved most.
Hebrew has several words for anger. The one in this verse is not cold displeasure:
Za-am is indignation, punitive anger against evil. Aph is anger, wrath. Kharah (he kindled) is heat of anger... In Lamentations 2:4, khemah, warmth, heat of anger.
Chapter 1 mourned an empty city. The second poem mourns something worse:
In the second part, what stands out is the breach of relationship. God has turned to be as an enemy to what was His own. This is destruction more than desolation. The words of the prophets were only false messages, while He has simply fulfilled His own word.
So why was the bow bent at all? The same writer names the cause, and takes it past Judah to readers now:
It is sin in His children that has broken in on the fellowship He delights to have them enjoy. He will never give up one of His redeemed, but He will not approve a loose walk or a careless tongue in anyone simply because He has saved them. In fact, it is the opposite, for "the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." This was the lesson the remnant of Judah had to learn, bitter as it must have been.
- Whose hand. The bow in this verse is not Babylon's. Every act of destruction in chapter 2 has God as its subject, and the prophet refuses to blame anyone else.
- Whose own. The things destroyed belonged to God: His city, His altar, His sanctuary. That is what makes the blow so terrible.
- Whose word. "Like an enemy" is a comparison, not a description. He acted as an enemy would; an enemy He never was.
- Whose love. He was obliged to strike those He loved most. The word used for His fury here means heat, not cold displeasure.
- Whose children. Faith looks past what the eye can see and finds Him unchanged in love and tenderness. He disciplines the ones He loves, and He never gives them up.
The Lord is become as an enemy he hath swallowed up Israel; he hath swallowed up all her palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
The second poem of Lamentations refuses to blame Babylon for the ruin of Jerusalem. In verse 5 the God who set Israel up is the One who swallows up her palaces and strongholds, and mourning multiplies.
The verse does not say the Lord was Israel's enemy. He became like one, and that small word carries the weight of the whole chapter. Ironside quotes an older translation below; where he has "as," the ESV reads "like."
Three times in verses 4 and 5 He is said to have acted as though He were their enemy. First, we read, "He has bent His bow like an enemy." Second, "He stood with His right hand as an adversary." Third, "The Lord was as an enemy." But notice the qualifying words "like" and "as." He never was an enemy. Their conduct forced Him to act as if He were. Many a Christian has had to come to know Him the same way! How often has He seemed to become an enemy! But faith looks beyond all that the eye can see, and knows that He is unchanged in His love and tenderness.
The Babylonian army did the work. But the prophet names a different hand behind the swords, and he never charges God with injustice.
The great catastrophe continues in vivid description throughout this chapter also. Not an enemy has done it, not Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian armies, but the Lord is the One who carries it all out. The beauty of Israel He cast down. He swallowed up the homes of Jacob. He burned against Jacob like a flame. He bent His bow like an enemy. He poured out His fury like fire. He was as an enemy. These are a few of the many expressions that confess the Lord was righteous in judging His people.
Seeing it this way changes the character of the whole poem. What looks like a military defeat is read as a family matter between God and what belonged to Him.
The second chapter is a very deep and touching appeal. The desolation of Jerusalem is looked at as Jehovah's own work, on what was His own, and not as that of the enemy. Never had there been such sorrow. Not only had He polluted the kingdom and its princes, and had been as an enemy against Jerusalem and all that was goodly in it, but He had cast down His altar and abhorred His sanctuary. He no longer respected what He had Himself set up.
God had arranged Israel's worship and blessings Himself. Now He takes them back.
But man always fails at what God expects from him, and God meant to show what man really is. God does all that man could ask, and this only shows the ill-will of man. Sacrifices, temple, service — God had arranged it all. The people fail in all of it, and God destroys what He had Himself made… The Lord has cast off His altar, He has abhorred His sanctuary. His people had been unfaithful to His blessings, so He took away the very means He had placed there to bless them.
The verse ends with sorrow piled on sorrow. The grief runs deep because the love runs deep, and the prophet felt both more than anyone.
Image is crowded on image to show how complete the destruction was. Jehovah had given over His own chosen people, His city, and His temple to it. It is all the more terrible because in His own nature and purpose He never changes. No one felt the truth of His love to Israel more than the prophet. For that very reason, no one could feel the unavoidable blows of His hand so deeply. God was forced to be an enemy to those He loved most.
God Himself is not detached from the wreckage He causes.
His holiness demanded that He discipline them for their sins, and He had used the king of Babylon to do it. But His heart still grieved for them. A loving father feels deep pain when he has to correct a wayward son, and so did He.
The opening of this chapter measures how far the fall goes. The measurement leaves a door open.
Notice, though, that the beauty of Israel is "cast down from heaven to earth," not "to hell"… Jerusalem was "cast down to earth" and treated like a city of the nations, yes, trodden down by the Gentiles. Even so, she is still destined to hold a place of glory such as she never knew in the past. Adversity must discipline her, but God had not abandoned her forever… It was all because of sin. He loved them truly, but He could not let them carry on in peace in such a dreadful moral state.
- Cause. Sin, not the strength of Babylon, brought the walls down. The ruin was deserved, and the prophet confesses that God was right in it.
- Hand. The Lord Himself is the actor. He destroyed what He had built, and took back the very things He had given for Israel's blessing.
- "As." He acted like an enemy; He never became one. Their conduct forced Him to act that way, and faith looks past what the eye sees to love that has not changed.
- Grief. The mourning multiplies because the love is real. The prophet, who knew God's love for Israel best, felt His blows most deeply. God's own heart grieved, like a father correcting a wayward son.
- Limit. The fall was "to earth," not to hell. Adversity disciplines her; God has not abandoned her. A glory she never had before still lies ahead.
And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly Jehovah hath caused set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.
Jerusalem lies in ruins. The poet looks past the Chaldean army — the Babylonians — and traces every blow back to God Himself. The place of worship is levelled, the feasts fall silent, and He treats both throne and altar with contempt. That raises a hard question. How can God tear down what He Himself set up, and still call it His own?
The invading army is not even named in this verse. Every verb belongs to the Lord.
The collapse of their nation and their ruin were dreadful. Their standing and blessings in the world came from God in a way that belonged to Israel alone. But what was that next to God disgracing His own dwelling place among them! … It was no use to think of the Chaldeans. It was God who brought Zion and the temple, and their feasts and fasts and sacrifices, with king and priest, to nothing.
Translations differ over one word here. The ESV reads "booth." An older version reads "tabernacle," with "hedge" in the margin.
In verse 6, "tabernacle" should be as in the margin, "hedge." … The Lord Himself broke down the fence that had once separated the garden of the Lord from the Gentiles around it. He destroyed "the places of the assembly," and so He caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to cease in Zion.
Feasts and sabbaths were the visible link between God and His people. Why would God end the very worship He had asked for?
The Spirit of God sets these facts in contrast. He wants us to see this: God abandons the very things He Himself had set up and kept for centuries. And He still calls them His own. … He overturns everything He has set up as a witness in the place He chose for His dwelling. He breaks His bonds with the people. Yet He still says (Lam. 2:6-7) that they are His tabernacle, His place of assembly, His altar, and His sanctuary. The people were unfaithful, so God no longer allows the worship they should have offered Him. He lets the daily sacrifice be taken away, and the visible, outward link between Himself and the people is broken.
There is a warning in the wreckage. What happens to religious forms once God stops mattering to the conscience?
God did all that man could ask, and this only shows up the ill-will of man. Sacrifices, temple, service — God had arranged it all. The people fail in all of it, and God destroys what He Himself had made. He breaks the fence. … When people are far from God, they cling to religious forms. That is the sign that everything is going to ruin. Once God counts for little in the conscience, these forms become objects of superstition and take the place of God.
The verse names king and priest side by side, and one stroke of anger brings both down.
King and priest fall apart. The gleam of light passes away: the glory leaves the temple on earth. The mark of the books that follow is that God is the "God of heaven." The kingdoms of the earth are given to the Gentile.
Israel's own history kept the two apart, with one exception.
Aaron was never king, and no king of David's line, except the Lord, was ever a priest to God. … In Israel, the royal and priestly offices come together only in the Person of Christ.
The ruin has a limit. The limit is God's choice of the people themselves, not the forms of their religion.
The Lord cannot give up His chosen people. But He can reject and refuse every religious form that keeps Him in relationship with the people in a given age — and these forms are His own. … This is a solemn way to look at something that might seem secure, because the Lord Himself had appointed it for His own use.
Why did God let His own house fall?
While God still owns His honour in that house, He must stand up in their defence, even while He chastises them. But once the house is destroyed and their city is flattened, He leaves them to the full-grown fruit of their sins — though He may still intend to bring them back.
- His own. The tent, the meeting place, the altar — God calls them all His own. And God is the one who pulls them down. The army is not the story.
- His fence. The Owner Himself broke down the fence around His garden and left it open to the nations outside.
- His link. Feasts and sabbaths were the visible tie between God and His people. God Himself cut that tie.
- His warning. When God counts for little in the conscience, people cling to religious forms. That clinging is the sign that ruin has come.
- His limit. God can refuse every religious form, but He never gives up His chosen people — and the crown and the priesthood that fell apart here meet again in Christ alone.
The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath rejected 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 Jehovah, as on the day of a set feast.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion he hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; and he hath made the rampart and the wall to lament they languish together.
Jerusalem's walls lie in ruins, and this chapter does not give Babylon's army the credit. Verse 8 names the Lord Himself, stretching a builder's line over His own city — but here the line marks out what is to be pulled down.
The chapter piles up one act of destruction after another, and each one has the same subject:
Not an enemy has done it, not Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldean forces, but the Lord is the one who carries it all out. He cast down the beauty of Israel. He swallowed up the dwellings of Jacob. He burned against Jacob like a flame. He bent His bow like an enemy. He poured out His fury like fire. He was as an enemy. These are a few of the many expressions that own the righteousness of the Lord in judging His people.
The weight of this chapter is not that a city fell. Cities fall. It is that what fell was His own:
Still it is a solemn thing when Jehovah is forced to reject what He acknowledges to be His own. But it must be so if the association of His name is only a means of falsifying the testimony of what He is.
The same tool that raises a wall is used here to pull one down, and the point of the image is precision:
The plumb line stands for the exactness with which God brought judgment on Israel. Israel had been built up by God as a wall with a plumb line, and with a plumb line it should be destroyed. Amos 7:7-8: compare 2 Kings 21:13; Isaiah 28:17.
God had spoken this word over Jerusalem long before Jeremiah watched the line stretched out:
God had already fulfilled His word: "And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down" (2 Kings 21:13).
The same God who arranged the altar, the temple and its service is the One who takes it all away. One writer points to these very verses:
God does all that man could ask, and this only shows up the ill-will of man. Sacrifices, temple, service — God had arranged it all. The people fail in all of it; and God destroys what He Himself had made. He breaks down the fence... and He will carry out all His purposes (Lam. 2:1-9). The Lord has cast off His altar, He has abhorred His sanctuary... When people are far from God, they cling to ordinances; it is the sign that everything is going to ruin.
The wall named in this verse was only the start of the loss. The collapse was not partial, and one writer gives the reason:
The walls of the city, with the gates and bars, were levelled to the ground. The king and princes were captives among the Gentiles. The very law, so long despised, was no more. The prophets, to whom the people had turned a deaf ear for years, had no vision from the Lord... It was complete and overwhelming ruin. Jehovah brought it, because they had neglected His Word and followed the ways of the nations.
If Babylon had really done this, Zion's future would rest with Babylon. Because the Lord did it, hope rests with Him:
It is sorrowful, most sorrowful, that His hand had done it all. Yet it is a comfort to faith. This is the hand that can and will build up again for His name's sake. Nor was it a hasty punishment. From the earliest days Jehovah had warned and foretold through Moses what Jeremiah sets out in his Lamentations. Compare Lev. 26, Deut. 28, 31, 32.
The attackers were real and willing, but the prophet looks past them:
In Lamentations 2 the prophet owns the Lord's hand in it all. He has done it, though the enemies of Jerusalem have been the active and willing agents. The prophet has recognised the hand that struck.
- Purposed. The ruin was no accident. God planned it. Nebuchadnezzar's army was the willing agent; the Lord was the one carrying it out.
- Measured. The line is a builder's tool. It marks judgment that is exact, not excessive — the same care that raised the wall took it down.
- Announced. God warned of this long before, through Moses and in the word of 2 Kings 21. This was slow judgment, not a sudden temper.
- Levelled. Wall, rampart, gates and bars all went. The city carried God's name, but it now misrepresented Him.
- Rebuilt. The hand that struck is the only hand that can build again, and it will, for His own name's sake. That is why faith looks for that hand and owns it.
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations the law is no [more]; her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah.
In one verse Jerusalem loses her gates, her king, her law and her prophets — no defence, no government, no word from God. The hard question is not who broke the gates down, but why God took away the very gifts He had given His people.
The chapter does not read the ruin as a Babylonian victory. One writer shows whose hand is behind it, and why that is the bitter part:
Here the ruin of Jerusalem is Jehovah's own work, done to what was His own — not the work of the enemy. There had never been such sorrow. He had not only defiled the kingdom and its princes and acted as an enemy against Jerusalem and everything fine in it. He had also thrown down His own altar and turned from His own sanctuary in disgust. He no longer honoured what He had set up Himself. We must remember that this was a time when Jehovah's relationship with His people rested — however long His patience lasted — on their faithful obedience to Him, under the old covenant. But that very fact leaves room to appeal to Him. Still it is a solemn thing when Jehovah has to reject what He owns as His own.
Each loss matches something the people had already thrown away:
The walls of the city, with its gates and bars, were flattened to the ground. The king and princes were prisoners among the nations. The law itself, so long despised, was gone. The prophets, whom the people had refused to hear for years, had no vision from the Lord… It was complete and overwhelming ruin. Jehovah brought it on them because they had ignored His Word and walked in the ways of the pagan nations.
The line about the king is exact enough to name him. One commentator uses it to test an old idea — that this book mourns King Josiah:
The state of the city, the sanctuary and the people described here does not fit Josiah's death. Even the king whose humiliation is named in this verse cannot be Josiah. Josiah was killed in battle. He was not carried away among the nations and held captive. The king here is surely Jehoiachin, and we can trace his changing fortunes by comparing the prophecy with 2 Kings 24 and 25.
When the prophets have no vision, the last link is gone. One writer explains why God removed even the sanctuary and the prophet's word:
No sanctuary could be kept up among a people like this. The glory of God required Him to remove what now only dishonoured Him by existing at all. So, in fact, everything was gone. The prophet was their only hope in days when every other link was broken. Now he too would have no vision from God, just as the law would perish from the priest and counsel from the elders.
One writer draws out the warning for any people who keep the outward forms after the reality has gone:
God does all that man could ask, and this only shows up man's ill-will. Sacrifices, temple, service — God had arranged it all. The people fail in all of it, and God destroys what He had made Himself… When people are far from God, they cling to religious forms. That is the sign that everything is heading for ruin. Once God counts for little in the conscience, these forms become objects of superstition and take the place of God.
- Given — The walls, the crown, the law and the prophets were all God's own gifts. He set them up for His people's blessing.
- Despised — The people threw each gift away first. They ignored the law for years and refused to hear the prophets.
- Withdrawn — So God removed what now only dishonoured Him. The loss ran from the king, a captive among the nations, down to the elders with no counsel left.
- Silent — The prophet was their last hope. When his vision stopped, no voice was left to point a way out.
- Warning — When God counts for little in the conscience, religious forms turn into superstition. Holding them tighter is the sign that ruin is near.