Lamentations 2:5
The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
The verse belongs to a sad song commemorating the awful sufferings that came upon the apostate people of God, the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It portrays the Lord as acting like an enemy bringing judgment on Israel through Jerusalem's destruction. That judgment swallowed up Israel and all her palaces, destroyed the strongholds, and increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
Its historical setting is Israel's severe suffering under the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. In that destruction the solemn feasts and annual sabbaths were also brought to an end. The desolation described is cited as evidence that suffering as great as, or greater than, the tribulation at Jerusalem's destruction had already fallen upon the Jews under the Babylonians.