Lamentations 2:18

THE PEOPLE PRAY TO GOD FOR HELP

"Their heart cried unto the Lord:

O wall of the daughter of Zion,

let tears run down like a river day and night;

Give thyself no respite;

let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches;

Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:

Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,

that faint for hunger at the head of every street."

Duff considered these verses as a plea by the narrator in which, "He urges the city to cry to God for help."[21] However, the words, "Their heart cried unto the Lord," which stand at the head of the passage seem to identify all of this as the actual prayer of the people. However it may be, here is the divine answer to the question of, "What shall we do when total disaster, shame, sorrow and humiliation have overwhelmed us"? The answer: "Pray to God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength."

"O Wall ..." (Lamentations 2:18). "The wall is here apostrophized as a human mourner (Isaiah 14:31)."[22]

"The night ..." (Lamentations 2:19). "The night was mentioned as either a time of undisturbed reflection, or as itself a symbol of suffering and sorrow."[23]