Lamentations 2:17
The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
Lamentations 2:17 belongs to a mournful poem concerning the ruin of Jerusalem that had been foreseen and foretold as inevitable. It is part of a sad song commemorating the awful sufferings that came upon God's apostate people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The verse declares that the Lord carried out what He had purposed and commanded long before, throwing Jerusalem down without pity and causing its enemy to rejoice over it and setting up the horn of its adversaries. This came to pass because the people rejected His counsel, illustrating that persistent disregard of His warnings brings the consequences He has pronounced.
The chapter describes the severe tribulation that came upon the Jews under the Babylonians as great as and even greater than the suffering connected with Jerusalem's later destruction. This comparison shows that Jerusalem's later destruction was not the greatest tribulation ever experienced. Therefore the Jews in that later destruction cannot be identified as the elect who experienced the greatest tribulation spoken of in Matthew 24.