The Lord Is Like an Enemy:

2:1 Alef. The opening word (How) invites the reader to contemplate the extent of Judah’s destruction. It also strikes a tone of lament over that same suffering. One can hear a note of disbelief that God would bring such a horrific judgment on his people. Indeed, it is total as expressed by the fact that the cloud of his anger has engulfed all of the Daughter of Zion. The expression Daughter of Zion is an intimate way of referring to Jerusalem by its most sacred space and then personifying it as a young woman. More than that, it denotes “a special link between Yhwh and Jerusalem like that between a father and a daughter” (Goldingay, Old Testament Theology, Volume 2: Israel’s Faith, p. 195). The cloud of God is sometimes a vehicular cloud, transporting God in a way …