John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 5:18

"For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk upon it." — Lamentations 5:18 (ASV)

Although he had generally included all kinds of evils, he now mentions the principal cause of sorrow: that Mount Sion had lost its beauty and its excellence. For that place had been chosen by God, as though He had descended there from heaven to dwell there; and we also know that its beauty is spoken of in lofty terms.

For there the face of God shone, as Moses and the Prophets often speak. It was then an extremely sad change that, where God had dwelt in Mount Sion, foxes now lodged there as in a deserted cave. For on Mount Sion was the tabernacle or the sanctuary; and God says that it was the tabernacle of meeting, מועד, moud, because there He wished to meet with His people.

Since, then, that place included God and His Church, it was, as I have said, a dreadful and monstrous thing that it had become so desolate that foxes took the place of God and the faithful. It was not without reason, then, that Jeremiah, after having spoken of so many and so bitter calamities, mentioned this as the chief, that Mount Sion was reduced to desolation, so that foxes ran there hither and thither.

For as it is the principal thing, and as it were the chief of all blessings, to be counted as God’s people and to have familiar access to Him, so in times of adversity, nothing is as sad as to be deprived of God’s presence. When David testified his gratitude to God, because he had been enriched by every kind of blessing, he added this:

I shall dwell in the house of God (Psalms 23:6).

For though he had spoken of wealth and riches and of the abundance of all things, yet he saw that his chief happiness was to call on God together with the faithful and to be deemed one of His people. So, also, on the other hand, the Prophet here shows that nothing can be sadder for the godly than when God leaves His dwelling and makes it desolate, in order to terrify all who may see it.

This had been predicted to them by Jeremiah himself, as we have seen in the seventh chapter of his prophecies. Go ye to Shiloh, he said, where the ark of the covenant had long been. Although that place had for a long time been the habitation of God, it was afterwards rejected with great disdain. Jeremiah then declared to the Jews, while they were still in safety, that such would be the condition of Jerusalem; but his prophecy was not believed. He now, therefore, confirms by the event what he had predicted by God’s command, when he says that Mount Sion had become the den of foxes.