He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
He employs now another metaphor, that God, who was wont to defend his people, now took up arms against them; for stating a part for the whole, he includes in the bow every other weapon. When, therefore, he says that God had bent his bow, it is the same as though he said that he was fully armed.
The weight of these verses falls entirely on God's hand in the affliction. What cuts deepest is not that Jerusalem suffered, but that God made her suffer in His anger as an enemy. To those who prize His favor, His wrath is the true bitterness; His corrections in love wound most deeply because they come from Him.
AI summary
Commenting on Lamentations 2:1-9
He hath bent his bow like an enemy,.... God sometimes appears as if he was an enemy to his people, when he is not, by his conduct and behaviour; by the dispensations of his providence they take him to be so, as Job did, Job 16:9; he bends his bow, or treads it, for the bending or stretching the bow was done by the foot...