Lamentations 2:5
New International Version
The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for Daughter Judah.

New Living Translation
Yes, the Lord has vanquished Israel like an enemy. He has destroyed her palaces and demolished her fortresses. He has brought unending sorrow and tears upon beautiful Jerusalem.

English Standard Version
The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Berean Standard Bible
The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

King James Bible
The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

New King James Version
The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds, And has increased mourning and lamentation In the daughter of Judah.

New American Standard Bible
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has engulfed Israel; He has engulfed all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds And caused great mourning and grieving in the daughter of Judah.

NASB 1995
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

NASB 1977
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces; He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

Legacy Standard Bible
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces; He has brought its strongholds to ruin And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

Amplified Bible
The Lord has become like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all its palaces; He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the Daughter of Judah Mourning and lamentation (expressions of grief).

Christian Standard Bible
The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all its palaces and destroyed its fortified cities. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation within Daughter Judah.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all its palaces and destroyed its fortified cities. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation within Daughter Judah.

American Standard Version
The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
He LORD JEHOVAH was as an enemy and he drowned Israel, and he sank all his palaces and destroyed his surroundings and he increased in the daughter of Yehuda a byword and wailings

Brenton Septuagint Translation
HE. The Lord is become as an enemy: he has overwhelmed Israel as in the sea, he has overwhelmed her palaces: he has destroyed her strong-holds, and has multiplied the afflicted and humbled ones to the daughter of Juda.

Contemporary English Version
The Lord was like an enemy! He left Israel in ruins with its palaces and fortresses destroyed, and with everyone in Judah moaning and weeping.

Douay-Rheims Bible
He. The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath cast down Israel headlong, he hath overthrown all the walls thereof: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Juda the afflicted, both men and women.

English Revised Version
The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; he hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strong holds: and he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
The Lord became an enemy. He swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all of its palaces. He destroyed its strongholds. He made the people of Judah mourn and moan.

Good News Translation
Like an enemy, the Lord has destroyed Israel; He has left her forts and palaces in ruins. He has brought on the people of Judah unending sorrow.

International Standard Version
The Lord has become like an enemy— he has devoured Israel. He has devoured all of her palaces, destroying her fortresses. He filled cherished Judah with mourning and lament.

JPS Tanakh 1917
The Lord is become as an enemy, He hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds; And He hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

Literal Standard Version
The Lord has been as an enemy, | He has swallowed up Israel, | He has swallowed up all her palaces, | He has destroyed His fortresses, | And He multiplies in the daughter of Judah | Mourning and moaning.

Majority Standard Bible
The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

New American Bible
The Lord has become the enemy, he has devoured Israel: Devoured all its strongholds, destroyed its defenses, Multiplied moaning and groaning throughout daughter Judah.

NET Bible
The Lord, like an enemy, destroyed Israel. He destroyed all her palaces; he ruined her fortified cities. He made everyone in Daughter Judah mourn and lament.

New Revised Standard Version
The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel. He has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds, and multiplied in daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.

New Heart English Bible
The LORD has become as an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces and has destroyed its strongholds. He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Webster's Bible Translation
The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

World English Bible
The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

Young's Literal Translation
The Lord hath been as an enemy, He hath swallowed up Israel, He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed His fortresses, And He multiplieth in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
God's Anger over Jerusalem
4He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. 5The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah. 6He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.…

Cross References
Job 13:24
Why do You hide Your face and consider me as Your enemy?

Psalm 89:40
You have broken down all his walls; You have reduced his strongholds to rubble.

Isaiah 29:2
And I will constrain Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation; she will be like an altar hearth before Me.

Jeremiah 9:17
This is what the LORD of Hosts says: "Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.

Jeremiah 21:4
this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city.

Jeremiah 30:14
All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.

Jeremiah 52:13
He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem--every significant building.


Treasury of Scripture

The LORD was as an enemy: he has swallowed up Israel, he has swallowed up all her palaces: he has destroyed his strong holds, and has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

was

Lamentations 2:4
He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

Jeremiah 15:1
Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.

Jeremiah 30:14
All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.

he hath swallowed up Israel

Lamentations 2:2
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

2 Kings 25:9
And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire.

2 Chronicles 36:16,17
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy…

mourning

Ezekiel 2:10
And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

Jump to Previous
Daughter Destroyed Destruction Enemy Fighting Great Grief Holds Houses Increased Increasing Israel Judah Lamentation Making Moaning Mourning Multiplied Palaces Places Ruins Sending Strong Strongholds Swallowed Waste
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Daughter Destroyed Destruction Enemy Fighting Great Grief Holds Houses Increased Increasing Israel Judah Lamentation Making Moaning Mourning Multiplied Palaces Places Ruins Sending Strong Strongholds Swallowed Waste
Lamentations 2
1. Jeremiah laments the misery of Jerusalem
20. He complains thereof to God














(5) Her palaces: . . . his strong holds . . .--The change of gender is remarkable, probably rising from the fact that the writer thought of the "palaces" in connection with the "daughters of Zion," and of the "strong holds" in connection with the land or people. A like combination is found in Hosea 8:14.

Mourning and lamentation.--The two Hebrew nouns are formed from the same root, and have an assonance like "the sorrow and sighing" of Isaiah 35:10.

Verse 5. - Was as an enemy: he hath swallowed, etc. The threefold division of the verse is, unfortunately, concealed in the Authorized Version, owing to the arbitrary stopping. The grouping suggested by the Massoretic text is -

"The Lord is become an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel;
He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed all his strongholds;
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah moaning and bemoaning."
The change of gender in the second line is easily explicable. In the first case the poet is thinking of the city; in the second, of the people of Israel. The rendering "moaning and bemoaning" is designed to reproduce, to some extent, the Hebrew phrase, in which two words, derived from the same root, and almost exactly the same, are placed side by side, to give a more intense expression to the idea.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
The Lord
אֲדֹנָ֤י ׀ (’ă·ḏō·nāy)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 136: The Lord

is
הָיָ֨ה (hā·yāh)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 1961: To fall out, come to pass, become, be

like an enemy;
כְּאוֹיֵב֙ (kə·’ō·w·yêḇ)
Preposition-k | Verb - Qal - Participle - masculine singular
Strong's 341: Hating, an adversary

He has swallowed up
בִּלַּ֣ע (bil·la‘)
Verb - Piel - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 1104: To swallow down, swallow up, engulf

Israel.
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל (yiś·rā·’êl)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3478: Israel -- 'God strives', another name of Jacob and his desc

He swallowed up
בִּלַּע֙ (bil·la‘)
Verb - Piel - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 1104: To swallow down, swallow up, engulf

all
כָּל־ (kāl-)
Noun - masculine singular construct
Strong's 3605: The whole, all, any, every

her palaces
אַרְמְנוֹתֶ֔יהָ (’ar·mə·nō·w·ṯe·hā)
Noun - masculine plural construct | third person feminine singular
Strong's 759: A citadel

and destroyed
שִׁחֵ֖ת (ši·ḥêṯ)
Verb - Piel - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 7843: Perhaps to go to ruin

her strongholds.
מִבְצָרָ֑יו (miḇ·ṣā·rāw)
Noun - masculine plural construct | third person masculine singular
Strong's 4013: A fortification, castle, fortified city, a defender

He has multiplied
וַיֶּ֙רֶב֙ (way·ye·reḇ)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 7235: To be or become much, many or great

mourning
תַּאֲנִיָּ֖ה (ta·’ă·nî·yāh)
Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 8386: Lamentation

and lamentation
וַאֲנִיָּֽה׃ (wa·’ă·nî·yāh)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 592: Groaning

in the Daughter
בְּבַת־ (bə·ḇaṯ-)
Preposition-b | Noun - feminine singular construct
Strong's 1323: A daughter

of Judah.
יְהוּדָ֔ה (yə·hū·ḏāh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3063: Judah -- 'praised', a son of Jacob, also the southern kingdom, also four Israelites


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OT Prophets: Lamentations 2:5 The Lord is become as an enemy (Lam. La Lm)
Lamentations 2:4
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