The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away.
The verb to think, has more force than what is commonly assigned to it; for it would be very flat to say, that God thought to destroy; but to think here means to resolve or to decree. The verb is often used in this secondary sense, to purpose or resolve or determine, as the result of thinking. The Vulg. and the Targ.
It is a very sad representation which is here made of the state of God's church, of Jacob and Israel, of Zion and Jerusalem; but the emphasis in these verses seems to be laid all along upon the hand of God in the calamities which they were groaning under.
Commenting on Lamentations 2:1-9
The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion,.... Either the wall of the city, as Aben Ezra; or the wall that encompassed the temple, and all the outward courts of it, as Dr. Lightfoot (s) thinks; this the Lord had determined to destroy, and according to his purposes did destroy it, or suffer it to be demolished; and so all...