Lamentations 2

God’s “footrest” was a term Bible writers used sometimes to talk about the earth, or the Jerusalem Temple, or Israel’s most sacred relic known as the Ark of the Covenant, located in the most sacred room in the Temple. Jews taught that God’s footrest was the lid on the Ark of the Covenant, a gold-covered chest that held the Ten Commandments (1 Chronicles 28:2). Two winged beings called cherubim rested at each end of the lid. The chest disappeared by the time the Jews returned from exile in the mid-500s BC. It may have been confiscated by invading Assyrians during Isaiah’s day or by Babylonians who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BC. See Isaiah 60:3.

Zion is an endearing nickname for Jerusalem and the hill on which the city was built, Mount Zion.

Many people in ancient times expressed grief and mourning by cutting their beards and head hair, dressing in what many Bible translations call “sackcloth,” and throwing ashes on themselves. Today, we’ll dress in black, wear armbands, or get memorial tattoos. By the way, memorial tattoos aren’t kosher: “Don’t do anything to commemorate the dead if it involves cutting your body or permanently painting yourself with tattoos. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:28).

When Moses was still alive, the Hebrew ancestors of the Jewish people renewed and expanded the agreement God had made with Abraham, to give them the land that became Israel. God promised them prosperity and peace if they kept the law he gave them through Moses. But he warned them of the punishment they would suffer if they disobeyed. The punishment was progressive, starting off with comparatively light penalties. But at the end of it all, God vowed to kick them out of the land if they persisted in breaking the law (Deuteronomy 28). That’s what happened.