The depressed condition of the people as described in the previous verse is the result of God’s judgment on them. The cause of their deepest sorrow that made their heart sick and their eyes dim was the destruction of the temple and the cessation of worship. This last description of the condition of the temple is also the climax of this song. The inhabitants that remained in Jerusalem suffered dearly from seeing the temple lying in ruins and from the impossibility of offering the prescribed sacrifices to the Lord there.1 That which had been the visible symbol of God’s presence with his people is now desolate. The visible symbol of their deliverance (see Psalm 121:1) is now gone, because God abandoned them. All that remain visible are the jackals.2 Jackals are animals associated with abandoned areas. Their presence between the ruins of the temple is an indication of the death in, and destruction of, Jerusalem.3
18 C'est que la montagne de Sion est ravagée, C'est que les renards s'y promènent.