Lamentations 2:16
All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee,.... Or "widened" {x} them; stretched them out as far as they could, to reproach, blaspheme, and insult; or, like gaping beasts, to swallow up and devour:
they hiss and gnash their teeth; hiss like serpents, and gnash their teeth in wrath and fury; all expressing their extreme hatred and abhorrence of the Jews, and the delight they took in their ruin and destruction:
they say, We have swallowed her up; all her wealth and riches were corns into their hands, and were all their own; as well as they thought these were all their own doings, owing to their wisdom and skill, courage and strength; not seeing and knowing the hand of God in all this. These words seem to be the words of the Chaldeans particularly:
certainly this is the day that we have looked for; we have found, we have seen it: this day of Jerusalem's destruction, which they had long looked for, and earnestly desired; and now it was come; and they had what they so much wished for; and express it with the utmost pleasure. In this verse the order of the alphabet is not observed the letter p, "pe", being set before the letter e, "ain", which should be first, according to the constant order of the alphabet; and which was so before the times of Jeremiah, even in David's time, as appears by the ninety ninth Psalm, and others. Grotius thinks it is after the manner of the Chaldeans; but the order of the Hebrew and Chaldee alphabets is the same Dr Lightfoot thinks {y} the prophet, by this charge, hints at the seventy years that Jerusalem should be desolate, which were now begun; the letter e, "ain", in numbers, denoting seventy. So Mr. Bedford {z}, who observes, that the transposition of these letters seems to show the confusion in which the prophet was, when he considered that this captivity should last seventy years. Jarchi {a} says one is put before the other, because they spoke with their mouths what they saw not with their eyes; "pe" signifying the mouth, and "ain" an eye.
{x} wup "dilatant", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
{y} Vol. 1. p. 129.
{z} Scripture Chronology, p. 685.
{a} E Talmud Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 104. 2.