# Lamentations 2

Lamentations 2 is the second chapter of the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, part of the Ketuvim ("Writings").

## Text

The original text was written in Hebrew language. The chapter is acrostic, divided into 22 stanzas or verses. The stanzas consist of triplets of lines (except Lamentations 2:19 which contains four lines) each beginning with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but with reversal of the 16th and 17th letters.

### Textual versions

Some early witnesses for the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, which includes Codex Leningradensis (1008). Fragments containing parts of this chapter were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, i.e., 4Q111 (4QLam; 30‑1 BCE) with the extant verse 5.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (B; ${\mathfrak {G}}$$^B$; 4th century), Codex Sinaiticus (S; BHK: ${\mathfrak {G}}$$^S$; 4th century; extant verses 1–20), Codex Alexandrinus (A; ${\mathfrak {G}}$$^A$; 5th century) and Codex Marchalianus (Q; ${\mathfrak {G}}$$^Q$; 6th century).

## Verse 1

    How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
       With a cloud in His anger!
    He cast down from heaven to the earth
       The beauty of Israel,
    And did not remember His footstool
       In the day of His anger.
* "How" (Hebrew: Eichah): repeating the title of the book/collection, and also in Lamentations 4:1.
* "How the Lord has covered": Or, "How" doth "אדני 'ădonāy cover."
* "The daughter of Zion": i.e. Jerusalem.
* "Cast down from heaven": Here (and in Matthew 11:23) is a parallel to Isaiah 14:12, where the King of Babylon is compared to a "bright star". "Cast down" into the "pit" or dungeon of Hades (Isaiah 14:15).
* "The beauty of Israel": i.e. Jerusalem, just as Babylon is called "the proud beauty [or, 'ornament'] of Chaldea" (Isaiah 13:19).
* "His footstool": meaning either the "house of the sanctuary", i.e. the temple itself, containing the Ark of covenant (1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalm 99:5), according to the Targum and Jarchi; or rather the Ark of covenant (Psalm 132:7) with the mercy seat, on which the Shechinah or divine Majesty set his feet, when sitting between the cherubim as in 1 Chronicles 28:2.

## Verse 10

    The elders of the daughter of Zion
    Sit on the ground and keep silence;
    They throw dust on their heads
    And gird themselves with sackcloth.
    The virgins of Jerusalem
    Bow their heads to the ground.
This verse illustrates Judean mourning rites.

## Verses 16–17

In verses 16–17, two initial letters, "Ayin" and "Pe", are transposed. This is found is three instances in the whole book (Lamentations 2:16-17; 3:46–51; 4:16–17). Grotius thinks the reason for the inversion of two of the Hebrew letters, is that the Chaldeans, like the Arabians, used a different order from the Hebrews; in the first Elegy (chapter 1), Jeremiah speaks as a Hebrew, in the following ones, as one subject to the Chaldeans, but Fausset thinks it is doubtful.

## Verse 19

    "Arise, cry out in the night,
    At the beginning of the watches;
    Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
    Lift your hands toward Him
    For the life of your young children,
    Who faint from hunger at the head of every street."
This verse "introduces the language of prayer, even repentance; and in this anticipates themes of chapter 3".