John Gill Commentary Lamentations 2:21

"The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, [and] not pitied." — Lamentations 2:21 (ASV)

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets Young men and old men, virgins and aged women; these promiscuously lay on the ground in the public streets, fainting and dying for want of food; or lay killed there by the sword of the enemy; the Chaldeans sparing neither age nor sex. The Targum interprets it of their sleeping on the ground, ``young men slept on the ground in the villages, and old men who used to lie on pillows of fine wool, and on beds of ivory;'' but the former sense is confirmed by what follows:

my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword by the sword of the Chaldeans, when they entered the city:

thou hast slain [them] in the day of thine anger: thou hast killed [and] not pitied the Chaldeans were only instruments; it was the Lord's doing; it was according to his will; it was what he has purposed and decreed; what he has solemnly declared and threatened; and now in his providence brought about, for the sins of the Jews, by which he was provoked to your anger; and so gave them up into the hands of their enemies, to slay them without mercy; and which is here owned; the church takes notice of the hand of God in all this.