Lamentations 2

The French have a phrase for it. They call it déjà vu—that sense of familiarity, of having been there before. And you might very well get that feeling as you come to chapter 2 of the book of Lamentations, for the same note continues to be struck. Even the first word is the same as it was in the first chapter, as if the second chapter is going to be a case of similar words set to the same tune. And so it is. The momentousness of what has happened demands it. But there is here no tedious repetition for the sake of it. Such difference as there is arises from the fact that chapter 1 focuses upon the opposed, helpless and comfortless condition of Jerusalem, while the main feature of the second chapter is the judgement which the Lord, in His wrath, has decreed against Jerusalem and Judah.

As we look at the first nine verses, we can distinguish three implied contrasts between ‘then and now’, between how things used to be and how they have now become. Indeed, the very first verse headlines all three.

On every side the people were in agony and woe. The first to be mentioned are ‘the elders of the Daughter of Zion’ (2:10). Their grief is too deep for words; they just ‘sit on the ground in silence’.

Listen to Calvin: ‘Let us learn by this how to distinguish between the faithful servants of God and impostors