John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 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 Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly." — Lamentations 2:7 (ASV)

He proceeds with the same subject and adopts similar words. He says first, that God had abominated his altar—an expression not strictly proper, but the Prophet could not otherwise fully show the Jews what they deserved.

For if the Prophet had only spoken of the city, the lands, the palaces, the vineyards—in short, of all their possessions—it would have been a much lighter matter. But when he says that God had counted as nothing all their sacred things—the altar, the Temple, the ark of the covenant, and festive days—and that God had not only disregarded but had also cast away from him these things, which yet especially served to gain his favor, the people must have perceived from this, unless they were utterly dull, how severely they had provoked God’s wrath against themselves.

For this was the same as if heaven and earth were blended together.

If there had been an upsetting of all things, if the sun had left its place and sunk into darkness, if the earth had heaved upwards, the confusion would hardly have been more dreadful than when God thus put forth his hand against the sanctuary, the altar, the festal days, and all their sacred things.

But we must refer to the reason why this was done: because the Temple had long been polluted by the iniquities of the people, and because all sacred things had been wickedly and disgracefully profaned. We now, then, understand the reason why the Prophet elaborated so much on a subject in itself sufficiently plain.

He afterwards adds, He hath delivered all the palaces, and so on; as if he had said that the city had not been taken by the valor of enemies, but that the Chaldeans had fought under the authority and banner of God.

He, in short, intimates that the Jews had miserably perished because they perished through their own fault, and that the Chaldeans had been victorious in battle and had taken the city, not through their own courage or skill, but because God had resolved to punish that ungodly and wicked people.

It follows, in the last place, that the enemies had made a noise in the temple of God as in the day of solemnity. Here also the Prophet shows that God would never have allowed the enemies to exult insolently and to revel in the very Temple if the Israelites had not deserved all this; for the insolence of their enemies was not unknown to God, and he could have easily checked it if he had pleased.

Why, then, did he grant so much license to these profane enemies? It was because the Jews themselves had previously polluted the Temple, so that he abhorred all their solemn assemblies, as he also declares through Isaiah that he detested their festivals, Sabbaths, and new moons (Isaiah 1:13–14).

But it was a shocking change when enemies entered the place which God had consecrated for himself, and there insolently boasted and uttered base and wicked slanders against God!

But the sadder the spectacle, the more detestable appeared the impiety of the people, which had been the cause of such great evils.

For we should always remember what I have often stated: that these circumstances were noted by the Prophet so that the people might at last acknowledge themselves guilty for all these evils, which they would have otherwise ascribed to the Chaldeans.

Therefore, that the Chaldeans polluted the Temple, that they trampled all sacred things underfoot—all this, the Prophet shows, was to be ascribed to the Jews themselves, who had, by their own conduct, opened the Temple to the Chaldeans and exposed all sacred things to their will and pleasure.