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Lam 2:1-22 Part 2, In your patience possess ye your souls (Luk 21:19)

[Study Aired August 19, 2023]

Most folks get very uncomfortable in the presence of another’s rage. Some boldly challenge the brawler, hopefully with a greater storm to overwhelm and dominate. Their arrogance in victory is equally loathsome.

It is ridiculous to believe that our Lord is perpetually in a state of carnal-like anger as if He is sitting on His throne like King Saul, smouldering for an opportunity to pin us against the wall. In a sense, it is true, yet His anger is righteous. The key is to be angry and not sin.

Eph 4:26 Be angry, and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your wrath, 
Eph 4:27 neither give place to the Devil.

The lying doctrine of eternally writhing in the flames of hell, rotisseried by a grinning Devil is not conducive to spiritual change. Like the wryly amusing seventeenth-century military adage says, “The floggings will continue until morale improves.” Similarly whipped and beaten, that is how Israel in the wilderness felt, and we, too, until our eyes were opened. To Israel and us as old Jerusalem, that droll quote could have read, “The floggings will continue until hearts are changed.”

Ecc 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 

Yet, most frustratingly, as old Israel experienced in the wilderness and we in Babylon…

Rom 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 
Rom 7:15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 
Rom 7:16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 
Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

Isa 54:6 For Jehovah has called you as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when you were rejected, says your God. 
Isa 54:7 For a little moment I have left you; but with great mercies I will gather you. 
Isa 54:8 In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says Jehovah your Redeemer.

Jas 1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 

Jas 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 
Jas 3:18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. 

Isaiah 54:8 is a more spiritually accurate version of the military maxim following the blessing of the holy spirit. Yet, the physical precedes the spiritual. Old Israel experienced many literal floggings and stonings to precede the spiritual. Well, “morale” did increase since we in Babylon circumvented the floggings and stonings with the invention of a different Jesus who would love us “just as we are” as we blindly continued to dance spiritually naked.

In Chapter Two of Lamentations, let us reflect spiritually upon our chastisements and the peace our blessed inheritance will produce. Our Lord guarantees that the floggings will continue at His hand until morale (confidence) improves.

Eze 29:16 And it shall be no more the confidence [4009 – 1. trust, confidence, refuge 
act of confiding b. object of confidence c. state of confidence, security] of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

1Jn 2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He is revealed, we may have confidence [G3954 – 1. freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech a. openly, frankly, i.e. without concealment b. without ambiguity or circumlocution] and not be ashamed before Him in His coming. 
1Jn 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does righteousness has been born of Him. 

Heb 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Heb 10:32 But call to memory the former days, in which (after you were illuminated) you endured a great fight of afflictions,
Heb 10:33 indeed being exposed both by reproaches and afflictions, and while you became companions of those who lived so. 
Heb 10:34 For you both sympathised with my bonds and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. 
Heb 10:35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence [G3954], which has great recompense of reward.
Heb 10:36 For you have need of patience, so that after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise.
Heb 10:37 For “yet a little while, and He who shall come will come and will not delay.”

It is only the Lord’s Elect who fully understand His methodology of chastisement that assuredly does produce morale that is trust and confidence for an outstanding end.

Heb 12:6 for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” 

We can now go forward with that spirit knowing why…

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

Lam 2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! 
Lam 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. 
Lam 2:3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about. 
Lam 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. 
Lam 2:5 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. 
Lam 2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
Lam 2:7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast. 
Lam 2:8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. 
Lam 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. 
Lam 2:10 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. 
Lam 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. 
Lam 2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
Lam 2:13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee? 
Lam 2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment. 
Lam 2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? 
Lam 2:16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it. 
Lam 2:17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries. 
Lam 2:18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
Lam 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. 
Lam 2:20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 
Lam 2:21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied. 
Lam 2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed. 

Interpretations

Lam 2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! 

Classically, there was no greater recording of a cloud representing blindness than the Earth from Eden to Noah covered in dense fog with never an expansive blue sky. Similarly, a painfully slow dawning occurred with Israel in the wilderness, even though they physically saw the law in fiery clarity compared to the Egyptians, yet, unwittingly, they, too, were blind. Christ makes no apologies for repeating His spiritual truth everywhere in scripture; likewise, here, when looking back on Solomon saying in His clouded blindness, “Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.” (Son 6:13).

So, we ‘return’ to Jacob, symbolically representing God speaking to Rachel. She is us in our clouded blindness for what our Father is doing within us through Christ. As we come out of Babylon, we are somewhat bewildered for not being able to bring forth the spiritual fruit of our womb manifested as Christ’s righteousness. We try and try to keep His commands and anxiously cry out to Him to give us ‘children’. We get a little afraid and nervous about not being in the First Resurrection. In time, we learn through His chastising grace that we gain eternal life through our God-given patience and Him birthing our spiritual womb’s righteous fruit. We, as Christ’s footstool, even upon his knees, become his birthing stool, the stone on which we are conceived (H70 – 1. wheel, disc a. potter’s wheel b. bearing-stool, midwife’s stool. H68 – 1. stone (large or small) a. common stone (in natural state) b. stone, as material 1. of tablets 2. marble, hewn stones) and the Lord’s Elect are the birthing stool (Exo 1:16) of the world as it seeks to kill us as Herod did Jesus birthing of us.

Gen 30:1 And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. And she said to Jacob, Give me sons, or else I will die.
Gen 30:2 And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel. And he said, Am I in God’s stead, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?
Gen 30:3 And she said, Behold my slave woman Bilhah [H1090 – troubled H926 – 1. to disturb, alarm, terrify, hurry, be disturbed, be anxious, be afraid, be hurried, be nervous]; go in to her, and she shall bear upon my knees, and yea, let me be built up from her, me also.

Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what anyone sees, why does he also hope for it? 
Rom 8:25 But if we hope for that which we do not see, then we wait for it with patience. 

Luk 21:19 By your patient endurance you will gain your souls. (BSB) 

Rom 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 
Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

Our Lord and we will not remember the flesh and its anguish, the “footstool” we were in the Kingdom of God. Christ gives birth to us, and we, upon His knees, give birth to the world of humanity in the Resurrection to Judgment. At that point, Christ’s final words on the cross become a reality, 

Joh 19:30 Then when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up the spirit.

Lam 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.

The parental portrayal of Jacob, Rachel and Leah is pivotal to understanding that we are swallowed up by our unrighteous habitations before becoming the heavenly daughter of Judah, Jerusalem above. The casting down of our idols of the heart, our “strongholds” painfully brings forth righteous spiritual fruit.

Joh 15:8 In this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you shall be My disciples. 
Joh 15:9 As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you; continue in My love.
Joh 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

Lam 2:3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn [self-righteous strength] of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

We are coming out of being the Whore who says she has a husband (Rev 18:7). In the meantime, we have been sullen and angry like Rachel in our impatience for not being able to bear righteous children, and we blame God.

We decreasingly feel forsaken for not being blessed with the sensualities of the flesh for the bewildering simplicity of being blessed with marriage, even a righteous husband or wife, in existing marriages. We grievously lament to God that we are worthless and think we will not make being his Bride singled out like sulky Cain for special condemnation. Well, that thinking is gloriously true.

Isa 54:7 For a little moment I have left you; but with great mercies I will gather you. 
Isa 54:8 In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says Jehovah your Redeemer.

Lam 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.

In being given greater power to not look back upon the sensualities of Sodom, we increase by His hand in faithfulness as we increase our pace out of the furious fire behind, increasingly clothed in lightning brilliance yet not seen by Babylon.

Luk 17:24 For as the lightning which lights up, flashing from the one part under heaven, and shines to the other part under heaven, so also shall the Son of Man be in His day.

Eze 1:13 As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
Eze 1:14 And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

The Lord only regards the relevance of the flesh for its multiple physical elements pointing to its spiritual counterparts. Eventually, he slays all our sensualities that are ‘pleasant to the eye’. Rachel was supremely pleasant to Jacob’s eye, and she, along with all her (the Bride’s) associated and tumultuous “inventions” (Ecc 7:29), will have served their purposes and disappeared. The flesh profits nothing (Joh 6:63).

Lam 2:5 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.

This experience of evil flesh from Eden to the end of the One Thousand-Year rule with the rod of iron, with a focus on Israel, the Lord’s wife, is designed for our lust to increase. 

The Lord orchestrates the entire affair to intentionally make us spiritually fat (Psa 73:6) in another Jesus. For the creator himself is our enemy (Deu 32:1-16. Pro 16:4). In that regard, I’ve had non-believers, Gentile Christians ask about my faith, and upon the above understanding, angrily reply that Christ is a psychopathic unmentionable so-n-so. Only his Bride, the younger daughter of Judah, looks behind and delightedly understands her Lord’s intentions for his erroneously assumed blasphemous “psychopathic” stance (Jer 29:9-11). 

Jud 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 
Jud 1:10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
Jud 1:11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

We are born in the clouded darkness of mourning and lamentation and raised in the glorious light of day.

Psa 30:8 I cried to thee, O LORD; and unto the LORD I made supplication. 
Psa 30:9 What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth? 
Psa 30:10 Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be thou my helper. 
Psa 30:11 Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; 
Psa 30:12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

Lam 2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

A garden and a tabernacle represent the safety of a temporary covering (H7900, H1588). The Lord banished Adam and Eve with the intended violence of a flaming sword that turned each and every way from Eden. The garden was a hedge of protection from the wild beasts of the outside field where Adam and Eve initially only knew “good” and not “evil”. Adam and Eve laid the foundation for mankind, particularly the Lord’s people, to despise his goodness. It is the pattern from Eden to the One Thousand-Year reign for the Bride’s God-given understanding. She alone is given to know the reasons for her destruction and mourning.

Lam 2:7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast. 

The Lord’s abhorrence of His sanctuary is the worthlessness of our labours in the flesh to achieve righteousness. From the beginning of creation, he planned to hand us over to the enemy for affliction hedged in by the hallowed walls of our nominal 40,000 synagogues of Satan, our palaces within. No greater noise reverberates the rafters of Christendom than the saved as we are now in our sins by the delusion of Christ having done it all for us. No mention of Colossians 1:24 and “rejoicing in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church.” 

In Old Covenant times, the most outstanding solemn feasts of the seven occurred three times a year. Yet, our entire journey in the Lord is a ‘solemn feast’ since the Feast of Booths and the Eight Day feasts encompass from beginning to the end the Bride’s passage of awakenings.

Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice [to what extent? The whole of one’s body figuratively 8 days], holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 

2Ch 8:13  Even after a certain rate every day, offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles. 

2Ch 7:9 And in the eighth day they made a solemn assembly: for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days.
2Ch 7:10 And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away into their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had shewed unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.

Lam 2:8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. 

No wonder our former Babylonian selves threw up our hands in frustration and worked out our own salvation in delusion. Understanding the Lord without his spirit is looking upon Shulamite-like blackness. One minute he tells us to keep the feasts and then disband them.

Amo 5:20 Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? 
Amo 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. 

Lam 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 [Isa 42:19].

Our self-professed multitude of naked prophets within can’t understand the Lord’s word without his spirit. We begin as false prophets and by his spirit become prophets of faithfulness.

Num 11:27 And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. 
Num 11:28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, make them cease. 
Num 11:29 And Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake? Would God that all Jehovah’s people were prophets, that Jehovah would put His Spirit upon them! 

Rev 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he will begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He has declared to His servants the prophets. 

Lam 2:10 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. 
Lam 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon [H5848 –  1. to turn aside a. (Qal) to turn aside, turn (in order to cover)] in the streets of the city. 
Lam 2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.

Mankind, from Adam to the end of the rulership with the rod of iron, are sucklings awaiting maturity in the Resurrection to Judgement. Only their ‘mother’, the younger daughter (Rom 9:12-13) of the Lord’s people, will be given the spirit of truth to understand the eight days (highlighted by feast days) to finalise creation.

Lam 2:13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
Lam 2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment. 
Lam 2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? 
Lam 2:16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

Rev 17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 

The Body of Christ expects her greatest humiliations are yet to come as this world rapidly descends into the depths of the abyss. As AI (‘ai’) surveillance strengthens, no doubt the Elect of God will be cast most realistically their historically unrighteous acts and new contrivances to smear our Christ’s name. Impervious to a righteous account, that happens outside the Body today with every man’s hand increasingly against his neighbour.

If the Lord has supplied us with enough oil for our spiritual lamps, we will be immune to the vicious accusations that the IWWB studies will unrighteously engender (John 15:18-27). 

Mar 13:10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations [primarily within]. 
Mar 13:11 But when they [enemies within and without] shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. 
Mar 13:12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death [righteously and unrighteously spiritually and hopefully not physically].
Mar 13:13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 

Luk 6:21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 
Luk 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you [The Body have each other as friends], and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. 
Luk 6:23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

Lam 2:17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
Lam 2:18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Wow! There it is! All things are the Bride’s (1Co 3:22). Our tears precede our imminent jubilation.

Zec 2:7 Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. 
Zec 2:8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.

Lam 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. 
Lam 2:20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this [to the Bride, of course!]. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? [YES!]

During the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 66-73 CE, she, representing the “daughter of Jerusalem”, out of the desperation of hunger, ate her physical children, and so we devour our unrighteous children within. In the meantime, Satan, too, constantly requests the Lord’s permission to devour us.

Rev 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 
Rev 12:5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne [protected].
Rev 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

Even though we have “come out of her”, we still live in the wilderness that is Babylon and undetected, growing rich in our Lord’s righteousness for the duration of that figurative three and a half years.

Lam 2:21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied. 
Lam 2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’S anger none escaped nor remained [thankfully, and hopefully our enemies within]: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

Our swaddled sins are idols of the heart we stubbornly clutch that is the consummation of our lust of the eyes and flesh fixed with nails to our hearts.

Jer 10:3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
Jer 10:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

No greater ‘solemn day of our terrors’ will there be than to be cast into the Lake of Fire to deal with our sins we should have in this age.

The Lord is “mine enemy” (Lam 2:5, Php 3:18-19) who consumes our idols and every idle word contrary to His. 

Lev 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.

As we mature, we learn in patience (Luk 21:19) to recline in the Lord’s fiery coals as we animatedly converse with him as prefigured by Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace (much more agreeable than the poetry of Satan’s rotisserie). We learn not to beat ourselves up for the seemingly tedious workmanship He has committed us. Flailing and gashing our conscience is forbidden, and I am becoming less of a chief whip upon myself. Our gnashings and gashings upon ourselves can unwittingly become adorning scars, signs of our fake humility, more mortification than holiness for change.

Pro 27:5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.
Pro 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

May the Lord continue to be our ‘enemy-friend’ until all that is left is golden friendship.