What is the meaning of Lamentations 2:13? What can I say for you? • The prophet is stunned into near silence. When the living God judges, words fail (cf. Job 2:13; Habakkuk 3:16). • His inability to speak underscores the truth that the devastation Jerusalem faces is not exaggeration; it is the literal outworking of covenant warnings like Leviticus 26:31-33. • Even heartfelt human sympathy seems small beside divine wrath. Only the Spirit can supply words in such moments (Romans 8:26). To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? • Jerusalem’s ruin is unparalleled among the nations—because her privileges were unparalleled (Amos 3:2; Deuteronomy 7:6-8). • “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” (Lamentations 1:12) shows that no historical analogy adequately captures her fall. • When God’s chosen city is laid low, it signals how seriously He regards both sin and covenant promises (2 Chronicles 36:15-17). To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? • The title “Virgin” recalls past purity and the expectation of covenant faithfulness (Jeremiah 18:13). The contrast with present ruin heightens grief. • No ordinary comparison can soften the blow. Calamities listed in Isaiah 51:19—famine, sword, ruin—have converged, leaving no earthly comforter (Jeremiah 14:17). • True consolation will require more than kind words; it will require divine intervention (Isaiah 40:1-2). For your wound is as deep as the sea. • Depth pictures severity and unsearchable extent (Psalm 130:1; Jonah 2:3-5). • The wound is moral and physical: sin against the Lord (Jeremiah 30:12-14) and the resulting siege, starvation, and slaughter (Lamentations 2:20-21). • Like the sea, the pain seems boundless, humanly unmeasurable—an honest assessment of what rebellion costs (Isaiah 1:5-6). Who can ever heal you? • No human counselor, army, or physician can mend such a breach (Psalm 60:2). • Yet the question invites hope: the Lord Himself promises, “I will restore health to you and heal your wounds” (Jeremiah 30:17). • Ultimately, Christ embodies that promise: “He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted” (Luke 4:18; cf. 1 Peter 2:24). • The same God who judged will also redeem, proving both His justice and His steadfast love (Hosea 6:1-2). summary Lamentations 2:13 layers five vivid statements to convey Jerusalem’s utter desolation: speechless sorrow, incomparable loss, inconsolable grief, unfathomable wounds, and apparent hopelessness. Yet each line also hints at the only true remedy—God Himself. When sin’s depth is faced honestly, the way is cleared to seek the only Physician able to heal wounds “as deep as the sea,” the Lord who judges and then restores. |
    |