Beth. The Lord hath cast down headlong, and hath not spared, all that was beautiful in Jacob: he hath destroyed in his wrath the strong holds of the virgin of Juda, and brought them down to the ground: he hath made the kingdom unclean, and the princes thereof.

“No envy hindered the progress of these affairs that advanced gradually and grew and increased day by day. Nor could any evil demon slander them or hinder them through human counsels, so long as the divine and heavenly hand watched over and guarded his people as worthy.But on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth. We envied and reviled each other and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another. Rulers assailed rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people and monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation rising to the greatest height of wickedness, the divine judgment with forbearance, as is its pleasure, while the multitudes yet continued to assemble, gently and moderately harassed the episcopacy. This persecution began with the brothers in the army. But as if without sensibility, we were not eager to make the Deity favorable and propitious; and some, like atheists, thought that our affairs were unheeded and ungoverned; and thus we added one wickedness to another. And those esteemed our shepherds, casting aside the bond of piety, were excited to conflicts with one another and did nothing else than heap up fights and threats and jealousy and enmity and hatred toward each other, like tyrants eagerly endeavoring to assert their power. Then, truly, according to the word of Jeremiah, "The Lord in his wrath darkened the daughter of Zion, and cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord also overwhelmed all the beautiful things of Israel and threw down all his strongholds." And according to what was foretold in the Psalms, "He has made void the covenant of his servant, and profaned his sanctuary to the earth—in the destruction of the churches—and has thrown down all his strongholds and has made his fortresses cowardice. All that pass by have plundered the multitude of the people; and he has also become a reproach to his neighbors. For he has exalted the right hand of his enemies, and has turned back the help of his sword and has not taken his part in the war. But he has deprived him of purification and has cast his throne to the ground. He has shortened the days of his time, and besides all, has poured out shame on him." All these things were fulfilled in us when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations. We saw the divine and sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the midst of the marketplaces and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them were captured ignominiously and mocked by their enemies. When also, according to another prophetic word, "Contempt was poured out on rulers, and he caused them to wander in an untrodden and pathless way."”

“the habitations of Jacob Heb. נְאוֹת, the houses of Jacob, an expression of נָוֶה, a dwelling. He has struck [them] to the ground He humbled them to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes These are the Israelites, who were called (Exod. 19:6): “a kingdom of priests.” and its princes There is a Midrash Aggadah (Lam. Rabbah 2:5) [that states that] these are the heavenly princes [whose assignments] He changed. The one appointed over fire He appointed over water, and He changed all the appointees because there were among the wicked of Israel those who knew the Ineffable Name, and they relied [upon the fact] that they could adjure the heavenly princes to save them from fire, from water and from the sword. Now, when he would adjure the prince of fire by his name, he would reply, “This dominion is not in my hands,” and similarly, all of them.”

“The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied,.... As he regarded not his own habitation the temple, nor the ark his footstool, it is no wonder he should be unconcerned about the habitations of others; as of the inhabitants of the land of Judea and of Jerusalem, particularly of the king, his nobles, and the great men; these the Lord swallowed up, or suffered to be swallowed up, as houses in an earthquake, and by an inundation, so as to be seen no more; and this he did without showing the least reluctance, pity, and compassion; being so highly incensed and provoked by their sins and transgressions: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; not only the dwelling houses of the people, but the most fortified places, their castles, towers, and citadels: he hath brought them down to the ground; and not only battered and shook them, but beat them down, and laid them level with the ground; and all this done in the fury of his wrath, being irritated to it by the sins of his people; even the daughter of Judah, or the congregation thereof, as the Targum: he hath polluted the kingdom, and the princes thereof; what was reckoned sacred, the kingdom of the house of David, and the kings and princes of it, the Lord's anointed; these being defiled with sin, God cast them away, as filth to the dunghill, and gave them up into the hands of the Gentiles, who were reckoned unclean; and thus they were profaned. Jarchi interprets these princes of the Israelites in common, who were called a kingdom of priests; and makes mention of a Midrash, that explains them of the princes above, or of heaven.”

“The Lord has destroyed not merely Jerusalem, but the whole kingdom. בּלּע, "to swallow up," involves the idea of utter annihilation, the fury of destruction, just in the same way as it viz. the fury is peculiar to עברה, the overflowing of anger. "He hath not spared" forms an adverbial limitation of the previous statement, "unsparingly." The Qeri ולא, instead of לא, is an unnecessary and unpoetic emendation. כּל־נאות, all the pastures of Jacob. According to its etymology, נוה means a place where shepherds or nomads rest, or stay, or live; here, it is not to be understood specially of the dwellings as contrasted with, or distinguished from the pasture-grounds, but denotes, in contrast with the fortresses (מבצרים), the open, unfortified places of the country in which men and cattle enjoy food and rest. "The strongholds of the daughter of Judah" are not merely the fortifications of Jerusalem, but the fortresses generally of the country and kingdom of Judah; cf. Jer 5:17; Jer 34:7. הגּיע לארץ, "to cast down to the ground" (used of the pulling down of walls, cf. Isa 25:12), is an epexegesis of חרס, as in Exo 13:14, and is not to be joined (in opposition to the accents) with what succeeds, and taken figuratively. For neither does חלּל need any strengthening, nor does הגּיע לארץ suitably apply to the kingdom and its princes. The desecration of the kingdom consisted in its being dishonoured by the disgraceful conduct of its rulers; cf. Psa 89:40.”