Under the Cloud of God’s Wrath

Lamentations 2:1-10

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.

2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied
All the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has thrown down in His wrath
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

3 He has cut off in fierce anger
Every horn of Israel;
He has drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
Devouring all around.

4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
With His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye;
On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.

5 The Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
He has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.

6 He has done violence to His tabernacle,
As if it were a garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The LORD has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.

7 The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the LORD
As on the day of a set feast.

8 The LORD has purposed to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
They languished together.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The Law is no more,
And her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

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.

God’s wrath on Jerusalem and her people hung like an ominous cloud over them for their unrepentant sin.  He cast down their beauty from the image marred with sin in Edens garden and the city ceased to be His footstool (1 Chronicles 28:2-3) of His meeting place to cover their sins under the Cherubim over the Ark.  They now faced judgment and accountability since they refused and rejected Him in spirit and truth.  He razed the stronghold of their protection from around the city wall which He had guarded for them and removed his hand while consuming them in the fire of his righteous anger.  By making the LORD their enemy, they suffered and mourned with great lamentations for their loss of His favor for life.  God even had allowed the temple to be leveled since they continually desecrated it with idolatry and immortality.  He rejected their kings and priests and their appointed feasts and Sabbaths made forgotten in Zion.  Because they rejected Him, He rejected the altar of their atoning sacrifices and left the sanctuary where He met with them (Ezekiel 24:21-23) to make the once holy place ordinary and overrun by the ungodly.  This is a warning for us to not abandon God and His word lest we lose our own sanctuaries of worship when they are compromised with other idols or unrepentant unrighteousness.  He desires mercy and not sacrifice, love for Him and others and not Pharisaical lip service.  Our God is holy and a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24, Hebrews 12:28-29), bit He also is long suffering and full of grace to help in time of need when we confess and repent our sin and turn back to continue to follow Him according to his word.  He has taken His eternal wrath from us in Christ but still tests our hearts and keeps us accountable.  May we take all these aspects into account.  Israel refused His grace and entered into God’s wrath on their sin as wages earned (Romans 3:23, 6:23).  Israel found herself without leaders or prophets to guide because of their rejection as of the word of the LORD no longer existed (but really was just no longer being heard).  The elders were downcast and mourned with an appearance of sorrow which may have led to repentance and humility.  We can see then that there was still hope in God and His mercy.  There is always hope in the Messiah to come, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior who covers sin and offers forgiveness from our idolatrous works by His own perfect work in whom we are to trust and accept (John 6:29) as our righteousness.  These are things to learn from Israel’s demise and God’s great grace and mercy, the One who chooses and calls us out to Himself.  Lamentations can then turn to rejoicing as we no longer find ourselves under the cloud of God’s wrath!