When I was a child, I did not enjoy my mother’s stories of growing up during the Great Depression of the 1930s. I found them disturbing. We may react the same way to the five poems of lament that Jeremiah gives in the book of Lamentations. Today, we begin the second poem of lament over the fall of Jerusalem. It is a dirge, or song of mourning, that details Judah’s suffering.

Jeremiah begins with what may be an ironic pun. He observes that “the LORD has covered Daughter Zion with the cloud of his anger!” (v. 1). On Sinai, the Lord’s presence was signaled by a dark cloud (Ex. 19:9; 20:21; 24:15– 16). The cloud of His glory appeared when Moses met with the Lord during the journey through the wilderness (Ex. 33:9). As they traveled, the Lord “went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way” (Ex. 13:21). The cloud was a symbol of God’s protection and presence. Now, Jeremiah pictures Zion as being overshadowed by the dark and stormy cloud of divine anger.

By speaking of the “splendor of Israel” and the Lord’s “footstool,” Jeremiah seems to be alluding to God’s special relationship with the city and its Temple, which the Lord had described as “a house for my name” (1 Kings 5:3–4; 8:19). David described the Temple as “a place of rest” and referred to the ark as God’s “footstool” (1 Chron. 28:2). It was an intersection point between heaven and earth. But that relationship had been severed, at least temporarily, along with the unique fellowship it offered. It is as if Judah, the kingdom, and its princes had been cast out of heaven and down to earth. This is sin’s terrible price. It shuts the door to heaven and cuts off access to God’s presence.

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