| Geneva Study Bible How hath the Lord {a} covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from {b} heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his {c} footstool in the day of his anger! (a) That is, brought her from prosperity to adversity. (b) Has given her a most sore fall. (c) Alluding to the temple, or to the ark of the covenant, which was called the footstool of the Lord, because they would not set their minds so low, but lift up their heart toward the heavens. Wesley's Notes 2:1 His footstool - His temple; but suffered the Chaldeans to destroy it. Cast down - That is, thrown them down from the highest glory and honour, to the meanest degree of servitude. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary CHAPTER (ELEGY) 2 La 2:1-22. Aleph. 1. How-The title of the collection repeated here, and in La 4:1. covered . with a cloud-that is, with the darkness of ignominy. cast down from heaven unto . earth-(Mt 11:23); dashed down from the highest prosperity to the lowest misery. beauty of Israel-the beautiful temple (Ps 29:2; 74:7; 96:9, Margin; Isa 60:7; 64:11). his footstool-the ark (compare 1Ch 28:2, with Ps 99:5; 132:7). They once had gloried more in the ark than in the God whose symbol it was; they now feel it was but His "footstool," yet that it had been a great glory to them that God deigned to use it as such. Beth. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 2:1-9 A sad representation is here made of the state of God's church, of Jacob and Israel; but the notice seems mostly to refer to the hand of the Lord in their calamities. Yet God is not an enemy to his people, when he is angry with them and corrects them. And gates and bars stand in no stead when God withdraws his protection. It is just with God to cast down those by judgments, who debase themselves by sin; and to deprive those of the benefit and comfort of sabbaths and ordinances, who have not duly valued nor observed them. What should they do with Bibles, who make no improvement of them? Those who misuse God's prophets, justly lose them. It becomes necessary, though painful, to turn the thoughts of the afflicted to the hand of God lifted up against them, and to their sins as the source of their miseries. | 
