The Terrible Day of Covenant Wrath: Text: Lamentations 2:1
Introduction: When God Becomes the Enemy
We live in a soft and sentimental age. Our generation has constructed a god in its own image, a god who is always affirming, never offending, a celestial grandfather who pats us on the head regardless of our rebellion. This god is a manageable deity, a cosmic therapist whose chief attribute is niceness. But this god is an idol, a figment of our wishful thinking, and he is utterly useless when the real God, the God of the Bible, decides to act.
The book of Lamentations is a bucket of ice water in the face of such sentimentalism. It is a raw, visceral cry from the heart of a civilization that has been systematically dismantled by the very God who built it. This is not a lament over a natural disaster or a random act of violence. This is a lament over the deliberate, precise, and holy anger of God against His own covenant people. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, is not just mourning the fall of Jerusalem; he is grappling with the terrifying reality that Yahweh Himself has become the enemy of His people.
This is a truth our modern sensibilities cannot stomach. We want a God who is for us, who is on our side, no matter what. But the Bible is brutally honest. When God's people break His covenant, when they trample His law underfoot and give themselves over to idolatry and injustice, God does not simply look the other way. He takes up arms against them. He becomes their adversary. The covenant has two sides: blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. And when the curses come, they are not an unfortunate side effect; they are the active, righteous judgment of a holy God.
In this first verse of the second chapter, the poet begins to catalogue the sheer shock of what has happened. He is not questioning God's right to do this. He is reeling from the totality of it. He is trying to get his mind around the fact that the God who established Zion has now overthrown it, that the God who made Israel beautiful has now made her hideous. This is a necessary lesson for us. If we do not understand the holy wrath of God, we can never understand the glorious grace of the cross. If we do not see what our sin deserves, we will never be astonished by the mercy we have received.
The Text
How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has cast from heaven to earth The beauty of Israel, And has not remembered the footstool of His feet In the day of His anger.
(Lamentations 2:1 LSB)
The Shadow of Wrath (v. 1a)
The verse opens with a cry of bewildered horror:
"How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger!" (Lamentations 2:1a)
The word "how" expresses a stunned amazement. How could this happen? How could it be so complete? The subject of the verb is "the Lord," Adonai. This is crucial. Jeremiah is not blaming the Babylonians. The Babylonians were merely the axe in God's hand. The ultimate agent of this destruction is the Lord of the covenant Himself. This is not a tragedy; it is a judgment.
And who is the object of this judgment? "The daughter of Zion." This is a term of endearment, a poetic personification of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. She was God's chosen, His beloved daughter. This is what makes the scene so jarring. This is not an enemy being punished; this is a child being disciplined with the utmost severity. The language is intimate and familial, which only heightens the horror of the divine abandonment.
He has covered her "with a cloud in His anger." This is not the glorious cloud of His presence, the Shekinah glory that filled the Temple. This is not the pillar of cloud that guided and protected Israel in the wilderness. This is a dark, ominous storm cloud of divine fury. It is a cloud that obscures, that brings darkness and confusion. God has withdrawn His favor and has instead veiled His own city in the shadow of His wrath. He has blotted out her light. This is a picture of excommunication. The God who is light has plunged His own daughter into darkness because of her sin.
The Fall from Grace (v. 1b)
The prophet continues to describe the totality of the reversal of fortunes.
"He has cast from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel," (Lamentations 2:1b LSB)
The "beauty of Israel" refers to everything that made the nation glorious. It was their exalted status as God's chosen people, the glory of the Davidic throne, the magnificence of the Temple, and the intricate order of the Levitical priesthood. All of this was a gift from heaven, a reflection of God's own splendor bestowed upon them. But because they defiled that beauty with idolatry and covenant-breaking, God has violently thrown it down. The imagery is of a catastrophic fall from a great height. What was once heavenly, glorious, and transcendent is now earthly, common, and trampled in the mud.
This is a profound theological statement. The glory of God's people is not inherent; it is derivative. It comes from God, and it is sustained by covenant faithfulness. When that faithfulness is gone, God withdraws the glory. He will not allow His name to be associated with a people who despise His law. The church in the modern West needs to hear this. We boast of our Christian heritage, our cathedrals, our institutions. But if we have abandoned the faith that built them, they are nothing but hollowed-out shells, a "beauty" that God has already cast to the earth, even if the bricks and mortar are still standing.
The Forgotten Footstool (v. 1c)
The climax of this verse is the most shocking statement of all, describing the desecration of the holiest place on earth.
"And has not remembered the footstool of His feet in the day of His anger." (Lamentations 2:1c LSB)
What is God's footstool? The Scriptures identify it with the Ark of the Covenant, located in the Holy of Holies within the Temple (1 Chronicles 28:2, Psalm 132:7). Heaven is God's throne, and the earth is His footstool (Isaiah 66:1), but the place where His presence was uniquely localized on earth, where heaven and earth met, was the Temple, and specifically the Ark. It was the very center of Israel's worship, the symbol of God's covenant presence with them.
And in "the day of His anger," God did not remember it. This doesn't mean God had a lapse in memory. In Hebrew, to "remember" is to act in covenant faithfulness. To "forget" is to suspend that covenant favor. God looked upon the Ark, the very symbol of His covenant, and He did not spare it. He gave it over to the pagan invaders to be looted and destroyed. Nothing was held back. The holiest object in the world was not spared from the all-consuming fire of His wrath against sin.
This is the central point. If God would not spare the symbol, He would not spare the reality it represented. If God would not spare the Ark, He would not spare the people. There is no place, no object, no person so sacred that they can presume upon God's grace while living in rebellion. This is a terrifying thought, and it is meant to be. It is meant to strip away all our false securities and drive us to the only true security there is: Christ Himself.
The Day of the Lord is Christ
This passage is a dark and brutal depiction of the "day of His anger," the Day of the Lord. For Jerusalem in 586 B.C., that day came in fire and blood. But this historical judgment was a foreshadowing, a type, of a much greater and more terrible Day of the Lord to come.
On a hill outside Jerusalem, some six centuries later, the ultimate Day of the Lord arrived. All the themes of this verse converged on one man: Jesus Christ. He was the true "daughter of Zion," the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased. And yet, God covered Him with a cloud of anger. For three hours on the cross, a supernatural darkness covered the land, a visible manifestation of the Father turning His face away, pouring out the full measure of His wrath.
Jesus was the ultimate "beauty of Israel," the very splendor of God in human flesh. And He was cast down from heaven to earth. He who was in the form of God humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, and was executed like a common criminal, trampled in the dust of death. He was thrown down so that we, who were wallowing in the mud of our sin, might be raised up to heavenly places.
And on the cross, God did not remember His footstool. More than that, He did not remember His own Son. Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In that moment, the Father "forgot" the Son, treating Him as if the covenant of love between them was broken. He did this so that He could remember us. He poured out the full measure of His covenant curses upon Christ, so that for all who are in Christ, there is now nothing but covenant blessing.
The anger of God described in Lamentations is real, it is holy, and it is terrifying. Every one of us deserves to be under that dark cloud. But the good news of the gospel is that the storm has already broken. The full force of God's wrath was absorbed by Jesus Christ. He endured the ultimate lament so that we might sing the eternal song of praise. Therefore, do not trifle with sin. Flee from the wrath to come by fleeing to the cross where that wrath was exhausted. For in Christ, the day of anger has passed, and the day of eternal favor has dawned.