To SWALLOW UP — a verb of complete, physical consumption: the ground that swallows Korah's company alive (Numbers 16:32), the great fish that swallows Jonah (Jonah 2:1), Pharaoh's lean cows swallowing the fat ones in a dream that turns out to mean famine (Genesis 41:4). Lamentations 2 uses it four times in sixteen verses (vv2, 5 twice, 16) for the destruction of Jerusalem — 'the Lord has swallowed up without mercy' — and then, in a single cruel turn, hands the identical verb to the ENEMY's own gloating mouth: 'we have swallowed her up!' (v16). The same act of consumption, first attributed to God, then repeated by the people who carried it out, as if both were true at once. → first discussed at Lamentations 2:2