Lamentations 2:9

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD. HER GATES ARE SUNK INTO THE GROUND. Her gates cannot oppose the entrance of the foe into the city, because they are sunk under a mass of rubbish and earth. HE HATH ... BROKEN HER BARS - (). HER KING AND HER PRINCES ARE AMONG THE GENTILES - (, "The Lord shall bring thee and thy king ... unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known"). THE LAW IS NO MORE - (, "Now, for a long season, Israel hath been ... without a teaching priest and w...

He again relates in other words what he had said, that the walls of Jerusalem had fallen. But he now speaks of the gates and says, that they had _sunk into the ground_, or had become fixed in the ground; for it may be explained in both ways; as though he had said, that the gates had been no hindrance to the enemies so as to prevent them to enter the city. He thus derides the foolish confidence of the people, who relied on their defenses and thought the city impregnable. He then says that the _gates had sunk_, or had become fixed _in the ground _ He then says that God had _destroyed and broken her bars_; for no doubt the gates had firm and strong bars. He then says that neither the gates nor the bars were found sufficient, when God stretched forth his hand to the Chaldeans, to lead them into the city. He afterwards adds, that both the king and the princes had been driven into exile; for w...

1-9 A sad representation is here made of the state of God's church, of Jacob and Israel; but the notice seems mostly to refer to the hand of the Lord in their calamities. Yet God is not an enemy to his people, when he is angry with them and corrects them. And gates and bars stand in no stead when God withdraws his protection. It is just with God to cast down those by judgments, who debase themselves by sin; and to deprive those of the benefit and comfort of sabbaths and ordinances, who have not duly valued nor observed them. What should they do with Bibles, who make no improvement of them? Those who misuse God's prophets, justly lose them. It becomes necessary, though painful, to turn the thoughts of the afflicted to the hand of God lifted up against them, and to their sins as the source of their miseries....

Verse 9. _HER GATES ARE SUNK INTO THE GROUND_] The consequence of their being long thrown down and neglected. From this it appears that the captivity had already lasted a considerable time. _HER KING AND HER PRINCES ARE AMONG THE GENTILES_] Zedekiah and many of the princes were then prisoners in Babylon, another proof that the captivity had endured some time, unless all this be spoken _prophetically_, of what _should be done_....

HER GATES ARE SUNK INTO THE GROUND - So completely destroyed, that one might suppose they had been swallowed up in an abyss. HER KING - The prophet’s lamentation, occupied before chiefly with the buildings of the city and temple, now turns to the people, beginning with their temporal rulers. THE LAW IS NO MORE - The Jewish Law, the Torah, came to an end when it no longer had a local habitation. Its enactments were essentially those not of a universal religion, but of a national religion, and the restoration of the nation with a material temple was indispensable to its continued existence. It was only when elevated to be a universal religion, by being made spiritual, that it could do without ark, temple, and a separate people. HER PROPHETS ALSO FIND ... - With the Torah, the special gift of prophecy also ceased, since

ZION'S JUDGMENT IS OF GOD. LAMENTATIONS AND SUPPLICATIONS. EXPOSITION LAMENTATIONS 2:1 HATH THE LORD COVERED; rather, _doth _… _cover_. THE DAUGHTER OF ZION; _i.e._ Jerusalem. CAST DOWN FROM HEAVEN. Here and in Matthew 11:28 we have a parallel to Isaiah 14:12, where the King of Babylon is compared to a bright star. "Cast down" whither? Into the "pit" or dungeon of Hades (Isaiah 14:15

HER GATES ARE SUNK INTO THE GROUND,.... Either the gates of the city or temple, or both; being broke and demolished, and laid level with the ground, and covered with rubbish; for as for the Midrash, or exposition, that Jarchi mentions, that the gates sunk into the earth upon the approach of the enemy, that they might not have power over them, through which the ark passed, is a mere fable of their Rabbins; and equally as absurd is the additional gloss of the Targum, "her gates sunk into the earth, because they sacrificed a hog, and brought of the blood of it to them:'' HE HATH DESTROYED AND BROKEN HER BARS; with which the gates were bolted and barred, that so the enemy might enter; it was God that did it, or suffered it to be done, or it would not have been in the power of the enemy: HER KING AND HER PRINCES [ARE] AMONG THE GENTILES; Zedekiah, and the princes that were not slain by the...

CHAPTER 2 WHAT THE LORD HAS DONE The great catastrophe continues in vivid description throughout this chapter also. Not an enemy has done it, not Nebuchadrezzar and his Chaldean hordes, but the Lord is the executor of all. The beauty of Israel He cast down; He swallowed up the habitations of Jacob; He burned against Jacob like a flame; He bent His bow like an enemy; He poured out His fury like fire; He was as an enemy. These are a few of the many expressions with which the righteousness of the Lord in judging His people is acknowledged. And what a great description of Jerusalem and her inhabitants we read in Lamentations 2:8. Gates broken down; king and princes among the Gentiles; law abandoned; no more visions! Elders on the ground in sackcloth and ashes; virgins hanging their heads; children and sucklings swooning in the streets--and all that pass by clap their hands,

LAMENTATIONS 2. THE SECOND LAMENT. This differs from the first in its contents, and in its literary form. The metrical matters are the same, _i.e._ there are twenty-two verses, wherein the first word of the verse, or stanza, begins with the Heb. A, B, C, etc., and each stanza has three lines, of five accents each. We saw that in Lamentations 1 the singer's wail for Zion filled half the song, and her own cries the second half; but this second Lament is all taken up with God. In Lamentations 2:1 the woes are bemoaned as being of His doing and His alone, and Lamentations 2:13 forms a short ré sumé of this; then, next, Lamentations 2:18 f. urges the city to cry to Him for help; and in the clo

GROUND. earth. HER KING, &C. Reference to Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 28:36). App-92. GENTILES. nations. THE LAW IS NO MORE: i.e. is no longer known and obeyed. Compare Nehemiah 13:1, and Esd Lam 14:20, Lam 14:21....