Verses 1-9 deal particularly with the devastation of building in Judah and Jerusalem, and the rest of the chapter with the suffering of various classes of the inhabitations.

1. Try to imagine the desolation portrayed here and the intensity of the people’s sorrow. Cf. 1:12.
   What is said of God’s ‘right hand’ in verses 3, 4?
   Contrast with such passages as Exod. 15:6, 12; Ps. 63:8; 139:10.
2. What evidence in this chapter suggests that already the disaster of the judgment is having one of its intent effects?
   Cf. 2 Chro. 7:13, 14. Are we, as God’s children, as sensitive as we ought to be to his disciplinary dealings?

Notes

1. Verse 2. ‘Dwellings’: i.e., country dwellings as opposed to ‘strongholds’.
2. Verse 4. ‘Tent’ here denotes the city.
3. Verse 6a refers to the temple. ‘He has broken down h is tabernacle like a garden hut’.
4. Verse 22a. Instead of summoning worshippers to a festival, God has called together ‘terrors on every side’, so that none of his people escaped. Cf. Is. 28:21.