Lamentations 2:16
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All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The enemy in triumph express their joy over the fall of Jerusalem. The opening of the mouth (as in Psa 35:21; Job 16:10), taken in connection with what follows, is also a gesture peculiar to scornful speech. The gnashing of the teeth (Psa 35:16; Psa 37:12; Job 16:9) is here an expression of rage that has burst out. The object of "we have swallowed" is to be derived from the context ("against thee"), viz., the city of Jerusalem. Surely this" is a strong asseveration - "this is the very day." The asyndetic collection of the three verbs accords with the impassioned character of the enemy's speech. "To see" is here equivalent to living to see.
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 ↗2:16 Their enemies were glad that Jerusalem was defeated.
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
They gape at me and say, “Aha, aha! Our eyes have seen!”
The wicked scheme against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them,
All our enemies open their mouths against us.
My enemies pursue me all day long, for many proudly assail me.
Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed their teeth at me.
They open their jaws against me like lions that roar and maul.
when their anger flared against us, then they would have swallowed us alive,
“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies and vomited me out.
“A vile disease has been poured into him; he will never get up from where he lies!”
therefore prophesy and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Because they have made you desolate and have trampled you on every side, so that you became a possession of the rest of the nations and were taken up in slander by the lips of their talkers,