Lamentations 2:10

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

Elders

Isaiah 47:1

And keep

Cast up

They have girded

Joel 1:8

The virgins

Lamentations 1:4

Amos 8:13

General references

Lamentations 3:28

Lamentations 5:12

Amos 8:13

Bible References

Elders

Those who feasted on delicacies
Are perishing in the streets;
Those reared in purple [as nobles]
Embrace ash heaps.

Princes were hung by their hands;
Elders were not respected.

So they sat down on the ground with Job for seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

And Jerusalem’s gates will lament (cry out in grief) and mourn [as those who wail for the dead];
And she, being ruined and desolate, will sit upon the ground.

“Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
Sit on the ground [in abject humiliation]; there is no throne for you,
O daughter of the Chaldeans,
For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

And keep

Let him sit alone [in hope] and keep quiet,
Because God has laid it on him [for his benefit].

Why are we sitting still [the people wonder]?
Assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified cities
And let us die there,
For the Lord our God has decreed our ruin
And given us bitter and poisonous water to drink,
Because we have sinned against the Lord.

Therefore, he who is prudent and has insight will keep silent at such a [corrupt and evil] time, for it is an evil time [when people will not listen to truth and will disregard those of good character].

In that day, the songs of the palace shall turn to wailing,” says the Lord God. “There will be many dead bodies; in [sacred] silence they will throw them everywhere.”

Cast up

Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord until evening, he and the elders of Israel; and [with great sorrow] they put dust on their heads.

So Tamar put dust on her head [in grief] and tore the long-sleeved robe which she had on, and she put her hand on her head and went away crying out [for help].

When they looked from a distance and did not recognize him [because of his disfigurement], they raised their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe [in grief] and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky [in sorrow].

And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, for the great city, where all who had ships at sea grew rich from her great wealth, because in one hour she has been laid waste!’

They have girded

In their streets they have wrapped themselves with sackcloth;
On their [flat] housetops and in their open squares
Everyone is wailing, dissolved in tears.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recording historian, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn [in grief], and told him the words of the Rabshakeh [the Assyrian commander].

They will also cover themselves with sackcloth; horror will overwhelm them, and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads [as evidence of grief].

“And they will make themselves [completely] bald for you
And wrap themselves in sackcloth;
And in bitterness of soul they will weep for you
With bitter mourning and wailing.

Wail like a virgin [bride] clothed with sackcloth
For the bridegroom of her youth [who has died].

The virgins

The roads to Zion are in mourning
Because no one comes to the appointed feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests are groaning,
Her virgins are grieved and suffering,
And she suffers bitterly.

“In that day the beautiful virgins
And [even the vigorous] young men shall faint from thirst.

General references

Let him sit alone [in hope] and keep quiet,
Because God has laid it on him [for his benefit].

Princes were hung by their hands;
Elders were not respected.

“In that day the beautiful virgins
And [even the vigorous] young men shall faint from thirst.