Ver. 1. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion witha cloud!] Heb., With a thick cloud: nothing like that bright cloud wherein he appeared to his people, as a token of his grace, at the dedication of the temple. (1 Kings 8:10) How comes it about, and what may be the reason for it? Oh in what a wonderful manner and by what strange means hath the Lord now clouded and covered his people (whom he had established as Mount Zion) with blackest calamities and confusions, taking all the lustre of happiness and of hope from her, and that in his anger, and again in the day of his anger! “ Tantaene animis coelestibus irae? ” And cast down from heaven to earth,] i.e., From the highest pitch of felicity to the lowest plight of misery. This was afterwards indeed Caperuaum’s case; but when Micah the Morashite prophesied in the times of Jeremiah that “Zion should be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem laid on heaps,” (Micah 3:12 Jeremiah 26:18) it seemed a paradox, and very few believed them. Christ’s disciples also had a conceit that the temple and the world must needs have one and the same period, which occasioned that mixed discourse made by our Saviour. (Matthew 24:1-3) But God’s gracious presence is not tied to a place. The ark, God’s footstool (as here it is called) was transportative till settled in Zion; so is the Church militant in continual motion, till it come to triumph in heaven; and those that with Capernaum are lifted up to heaven in the abundance of means, may be brought down to hell for an instance of divine vengeance. And remembered not his footstool.] The temple, and therein the ark, to teach them that he was not wholly there included, neither ought now to be sought and worshipped anywhere but above. Sursum corda.
Ver. 2. The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jadah.] Κατεποντισε, as the sea swalloweth up a ship; as an earthquake swalloweth up whole townships; as fire swalloweth up fuel, or as Moses’ serpent swallowed up the sorcerers’ serpents. And hath not pitied.] This was worse than all the rest. (Isaiah 47:6) He hath thrown down.] Not shaken them only, and so left them standing, but utterly subverted them, and that in great displeasure, Deo irritato, et irato. God set on the Chaldees, and was the author, not of their evil will, but of their work. He hath brought them down to the ground.] Though for their height they seemed to threaten heaven. He hath polluted the kingdom and the priests.] Which were held holy and inviolable. Profanavit regnum coeli, say some Rabbis here, He hath profaned the kingdom of heaven; for so they accounted the commonwealth of Israel, which Josephus calleth Θεοκρατειαν, a God government. But now God had disprivileged them, and cast them off as a thing of naught. Septuag.
Ver. 3. He hath cut off in his anger all the horn of Israel,] i.e., All the strength and beauty, the royal majesty especially. (Psalms 89:24 132:17) He hath drawn back his right hand.] Wherewith he was wont to shelter them and to fight for them. Or, Israel’s right hand— scil., by disabling them; for it is God that strengtheneth and weakeneth the arm of either party. (Ezekiel 30:24) And he burned against Jacob.] Or, In Jacob— i.e., He declareth his displeasure among his people as clearly as a flame of fire that is easily discerned.
Ver. 4. He hath bent his bow like an enemy.] He doth not only help the enemies, but himself fighteth against us with his own bare hand. He hath bent his bow, id est, vim suam ultricem, saith Origen; that is, his avenging force. So the poet feigneth that Apollo shot his deadly shafts into the camp of the Grecians. He stood with his right hand.] Heb., He was set. Vulgate, Firmavit dextram suam; he held his right hand steadily, that he might hit what he shot at. In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion.] In Jerusalem, that was sweetly situated, as a tabernacle pitched in a pleasant plain, but now a field of blood. He hath poured out his wrath like fire,] i.e., Abundantly and most vehemently, perinde ac Aetna, Hecla, &c.
Ver. 5. The Lord was an enemy.] This the secure and foolish people would not be drawn to believe, till now they felt it; therefore it is so reiterated. He hath swallowed up Israel, he hath destroyed, &c.] This he had said before, (Lamentations 2:2) but in cases of this kind people love to say the same things over and over. Redundanti copia exponit quae antea dixerat. And hath increased…mourning and lamentation.] Heb., Lamentation and lamentation— q.d., this is all he hath left us. And this she speaketh mourning, but not murmuring: Non litem intendit Deo, sed confessionem edit.
Ver. 6. And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle.] Redit ad deplorandam religionem: nothing grieves a good soul so much as the loss of religious opportunities. Old Eli’s heart was broken before his neck at the news of the ark taken. As if it were of a garden.] As if it were some cottage or hovel set up for a short time in a garden for the repose of the gardener. (Isaiah 1:8) He hath destroyed his places of the assembly.] Whence we were wont to hope for help in answer to our prayers. There it was that he formerly “brake the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle.” (Psalms 76:3) [See Trapp on “Ps 76:3”] Hence (2 Chronicles 4:9) the great court of the temple, where the people used to pray, is called Gnazarah; that is, help and defence. The king and the priest.] Zedekiah and Seraiah, and with them the kingdom and the priesthood. “ Haec iam pro vill, sub pedibusque iacent. ”