Who are the inhabitants of Lebanon nested among the cedars on whom the pangs of pain will come?

The Lord speaks to Jerusalem, and he describes the city as the inhabitant of Lebanon, nested among the cedars. The reference to Lebanon and cedars draws on the imagery of Jeremiah 22:6–7 and Jeremiah 22:13–15 where it is used to describe the life of luxury that the leadership of Judah had built for itself. The image here is one of a city that has a deep sense of security and safety in its nest of luxury and self-indulgence, high up in a tree. The Hebrew word is qana and it means to build a nest.¹ This false sense of security is about to be dramatically shattered by the Lord’s judgment. The city will be pitied when pangs come upon you, pain as of a woman in labour. The personification of Jerusalem as a woman continues. Only now she is a woman in the throes of labour. But this is not a labour that will end with new life. She will be in anguish like a woman giving birth—only instead of birth pangs, the irony is that the judgment more accurately describes her death throes.²