Lamentations — Chapter 2

How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in his wrath! He hath cast down from heaven the glorious one of Israel, and hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. God Himself appears as the agent of destruction — not simply permitting but actively directing the Chaldean assault. 'His footstool' = the Temple or the Ark of the Covenant. Lapide: when God removes His protective presence from a people, even His most sacred dwelling-places are destroyed.

My eyes have failed with weeping, my bowels are troubled: my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, when the child and the infant fainted away in the streets of the city. Jeremiah's extreme physical grief over Jerusalem — 'my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out.' The visceral language of lament: grief descends from the eyes to the bowels to the liver (seat of the deepest emotions in Semitic physiology). Applied to pastoral suffering: the true pastor grieves physically for his flock.

Thy prophets have seen false and foolish things for thee: and they have not laid open thy iniquity, to excite thee to penance: but they have seen for thee false revelations and banishments. The false prophets' role in Jerusalem's destruction: they promised peace and hid sin rather than exposing it to excite repentance. Lapide: this is the great prophetic charge against all who preach consolation without demanding conversion — they are accomplices in the disaster.

Their heart cried to the Lord upon the walls of the daughter of Sion. Let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest, let not the apple of thy eye cease. The call to unceasing lamentation — tears day and night without rest. Lapide applies this to monastic vigil and the perpetual liturgy of hours (the Divine Office) which is the Church's unceasing prayer of lament and praise.