How is the gold become dim!… the stones of the sanctuary, etc. "Alas for the sad sights of the capture of Jerusalem! The most fine gold has lost its brilliance now that the fire of Nebuzar-adan (2 Kings 25:9) has passed over it, and the precious stones, consecrated to Jehovah, have been cast out into the open street!"
Not that the latter part of this description can have corresponded to literal fact. None of the hallowed jewels would have been treated with such indifference. The expression must be as figurative as the parallel one, "to cast pearls before swine," in Matthew 7:6.
The precious stones are the "sons of Zion," who are compared to "fine gold" in Matthew 7:2, precisely as they are in Zechariah 9:16 (comp. Zechariah 9:13," Thy sons, O Zion") to "the stones of a crown."
They are called "stones of the sanctuary," in allusion, perhaps, to the precious stones employed in the decoration of the temple according to 1 Chronicles 29:2 and 2 Chronicles 3:6. But we may also translate hallowed stones, which better suits the figurative use of the phrase.
Those, however, who adopt the literal interpretation, explain "the stones of the sanctuary" of the hewn stones of the fabric of the temple, which are described as "costly" in 1 Kings 5:17. But how can even a poet have represented the enemy as carrying these stones out and throwing them down in the street?
On the other hand, in an earlier lamentation we are expressly told that the young children "fainted for hunger in the top of every street" (Lamentations 2:19).