איכה, פרק ד׳, פסוק י״ז

In moments of severe crisis, a desperate nation often clings to false hopes rather than turning to God for true redemption. During the final days of Jerusalem, the people exhausted themselves looking for salvation from foreign sources, only to find empty promises and useless alliances.

The primary approach among commentators is that this period was marked by a futile political and military reliance on foreign powers, specifically Egypt. The Israelites waited with desperate longing for the arrival of Pharaoh's army to rescue them, yet they placed their trust in a nation that ultimately could not save them [רש״י, תורה תמימה, צאינה וראינה, פלגי מים]. A vivid tradition explains the sudden retreat of these Egyptian forces. As the Egyptian auxiliary ships approached, God caused the bloated bodies of the ancient Egyptians who had drowned in the Red Sea generations earlier to float to the surface of the water. When Pharaoh's soldiers saw this, they remembered their history. Realizing they were about to fight on behalf of the very nation that had caused the destruction of their ancestors, they immediately turned around and returned to their own land [רש״י, תורה תמימה].

This misplaced trust in Egypt was deeply rooted in spiritual illusions. False prophets had planted these empty hopes of a successful military alliance within the hearts of the people. This overconfidence bred complacency and actively prevented the nation from repenting until it was simply too late [אלשיך]. As long as the people remained spiritually blind, followed their worst impulses, and refused to repent, any diplomatic attempt to win favor with foreign kings through gifts was doomed to fail. Their own sins brought about the destruction, and without God, no foreign nation could ever provide salvation [לחם דמעה].

Alongside these failed political strategies, others turned to idolatry and mystical forces. Even as the crisis reached its breaking point, the people continued to look toward statues and the stars of the sky for rescue, a hope that proved completely empty [אלון בכות]. Going further, the leaders and wise men of the generation attempted to protect Jerusalem by invoking angels and higher cosmic forces, such as the angels appointed over fire and water, and even tried to levitate the city into the air. They mistakenly assumed that God would merely withdraw His protection and abandon them to the natural astrological order, which they believed they could manipulate through magic and incantations. However, God actively thwarted their designs. He swapped the roles of the angels and turned all their mystical efforts into entirely useless endeavors [אלשיך, אלון בכות].