Lam 2:5

“and He increased in the daughter of Judah He increased in the congregation of Judah. pain and wailing Heb. תַּאֲנִיָה וַאֲנִיָה, pain and wailing. and He increased Heb. וַיֶרֶב. The “yud” is vowelized with a small “pattah” (seggol), which is an expression of increasing others. (Exod. 1:20): “and the people multiplied (וַיִרֶב) and became very strong,” is vowelized with a “hirik”, which is an expression meaning that he himself increased, and so every word whose radical ends with a “hey,” e.g. פנה, to turn, זנה to go astray, בכה, to weep, are vowelized in that manner when the “hey” is missing, when it speaks of itself [i.e., the simple (קַל) conjugation, not the causative], e.g. (Exod. 7:23): “And Pharaoh turned (וַיִפֶן).” But when he speaks of others [i.e, the causative conjugation (הפעיל)], it is vowelized with a small “pattah” (seggol), e.g. (Jud. 15:4): “and he turned (וַיֶפֶן) tail to tail”; (II Kings 25: 21): “And Judah went into exile (וַיִגֶל) from his land”; (ibid. 18:11): “and the king of Babylon (sic) exiled (וַיֶגֶל) Israel to Assyria.””

“The Lord was as an enemy,.... Who formerly was on their side, their God and guardian, their protector and deliverer, but now against them; and a terrible thing it is to have God for an enemy, or even to be as one; this is repeated, as being exceeding distressing, and even intolerable. Mr. Broughton renders it, "the Lord is become a very enemy"; taking "caph" for a note of reality, and not of similitude; he hath swallowed up Israel; the ten tribes, or the Jewish nation in general; as a lion, or any other savage beast, swallows its prey, and makes nothing of it, and leaves none behind: he hath swallowed up all her palaces: the palaces of Zion or Jerusalem; the palaces of the king, princes, nobles, and great men; as an earthquake or inundation swallows up whole streets and cities at once; See Gill on Lam 2:2; he hath destroyed his strong holds: the fortified places of the land of Israel, the towers and castles: and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation; exceeding great lamentation, for the destruction of its cities, towns, villages, and the inhabitants of them.”

“The Lord has become like an enemy. כּאויב is not separated from היה by the accents (Pesik and Mahpak before, and Kadma after); so that there appears to be nothing to justify the remark of Gerlach, that, "as if the prophet were hesitating whether he should state explicitly that the Lord had become an enemy, he breaks off the sentence he had begun, 'The Lord hath become...,' and continues, 'He hath destroyed like a mighty one.' " As to בּלּע, cf. Lam 2:2. "Israel" is the name of Judah viewed as the covenant people. The swallowing or destruction of Israel is explained in the clauses which follow as a destruction of the palaces and fortresses. The mention of the palaces points to the destruction of Jerusalem, while the "fortresses" similarly indicate the destruction of the strong cities in the country. The interchange of the suffixes ־יה and ־יו is accounted for on the ground that, when the writer was thinking of the citadels, the city hovered before his mind; and when he regarded the fortresses, the people of Israel similarly presented themselves. The same interchange is found in Hos 8:14; the assumption of a textual error, therefore, together with the conjectures based on that assumption, is shown to be untenable. On the expression, "He hath destroyed his strongholds," cf. Jer 47:1-7 :18; on תּאניּה ואניּה, Isa 29:2 : in this latter case, two word-forms derived from the same stem are combined for the sake of emphasis. "Daughter of Judah," as in Lam 2:2, cf. Lam 1:15.”