Lamentations 2:15
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All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Strangers and enemies have, for the misfortune of Jerusalem, only expressions of scorn and delight over her loss. "Those who pass by the way" are strangers who travel past Jerusalem. To clap the hands together is not here a gesture betokening anger and disinclination (Num 24:10), but of delight over the injury of others, as in Job 27:23. שׂרק, to hiss, is an expression of scorn; see on Jer 19:8. The same is true as regards the shaking of the head; cf. Psa 22:8; Psa 109:25, etc.: the expression for this, in Jer 18:16, is הניד בּראשׁ. The exclamation, "Is this the city which they call 'perfect in beauty'?" is an expression of scornful astonishment. כּלילת יפי is substantially the same as מכלל יפי, Psa 50:2, where the expression is applied to Zion; in Eze 27:3 the same is said of Tyre. That Jeremiah had Psa 50:2 in his mind is shown by the apposition, "a joy of the whole earth," which is taken from Psa 48:3.
Open source ↗The second alphabetical elegy is set to the same mournful tune with the former, and the substance of it is much the same; it begins with Ecah, as that did, "How sad is our case! Alas for us!" I. Here is the anger of Zion's God taken notice of as the cause of her calamities (Lam 2:1-9). II. Here is the sorrow of Zion's children taken notice of as the effect of her calamities (Lam 2:10-19). III. The complaint is made to God, and the matter referred to his compassionate consideration (Lam 2:20-22). The hand that wounded must make whole.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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Beautiful in loftiness, the joy of all the earth, like the peaks of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the great King.
They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads.
From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.
For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt,
I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.
Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire, and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.
All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:
This carefree city that dwells securely, that thinks to herself: “I am it, and there is none besides me,” what a ruin she has become, a resting place for beasts. Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.
And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads
this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.