Lamenting

Lamentations 1 King James Version (KJV) MOURNING OVER THE FALLEN CITY

The Book of Lamentations is the collection of five poems or songs mourning the conquest of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah.

“Dirge poetry of the kind exemplified by Lamentations was by no means uncommon in Near Eastern antiquity. The author of Lamentations stood therefore in a long and respectable literary tradition when he bewailed the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of Judah in 587 bc.”

-R.K. Harrison

Lamentations is a remarkable written work because the first four of the five poems are written as acrostics. The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are used in succession to begin the lines and sections of those songs.

“The use of the alphabet symbolizes that the completeness—‘the A to Z’—of grief is being expressed.”

-H.L. Ellison

Lamentations both reflected and gave words to the deliberate choice of the Jewish people to remember and mourn their fallen city and kingdom.

“For as far back as tradition reaches, Lamentations has been read on Tisha b’Av; and it is not unreasonable to assume that it was intended for this purpose from the first.”

-H.L. Ellison

“As oft as I read the Lamentations of Jeremiah, saith Gregory Nazianzen, my voice faileth me, and I am overwhelmed with tears. The misery of that poor people cometh under my view, as it were, and my heart is therewith very much affected and afflicted.” -John Trapp

“How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls. Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

-Lamentations 1 (KJV)

“How doth the city sit solitary.” Writing after the catastrophe of Jerusalem’s defeat, Jeremiah thought of the contrast between happy, prosperous Jerusalem and the lonely, empty, conquered city after the Babylonian conquest. Once she was “full of people,” now she is empty. Once she was “great among the nations,” now she is like a slave.

Jeremiah is never specifically mentioned as the author of Lamentations, but it is a reasonable conclusion from both long-standing tradition and great similarity to the book of Jeremiah. It is likely that he wrote this collection of five poems after the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem but before he was taken to Egypt against his will. Jeremiah is specifically mentioned as the author of other laments as we see in The Second Book of Chronicles:

“And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.”

-2 Chronicles 35:25 (KJV)

“The coin struck by Vespasian on the capture of Jerusalem, on the obverse of which there is a palm-tree, the emblem of Judea, and under it a woman, the emblem of Jerusalem, sitting, leaning as before described, with the legend Judea capta, illustrates this expression.”

-A.C. Clarke

“So was Athens, once the glory of Greece, for both arts and arms, now a dog hole in comparison. Sparta also, that other eye of Greece, is now a small burrow called Misithra, having nothing to boast of but the fame and thoughts of its former greatness.”

-V. Trapp

“She weepeth sore in the night.” With poetic skill Jeremiah though of Jerusalem as the widow princess brought low, weeping uncontrollably with “none to comfort her.” Jeremiah’s sorrow is deep and plain; even though Jerusalem’s conquest vindicated Jeremiah’s many prophecies, he has no sense of triumph or “I told you so.” Jeremiah deeply sorrows with the sorrow of Jerusalem and Judah.

“To heighten the tragedy of destruction the author uses the image of a woman bereaved of her husband and children, bitterly lamenting her present sorry state in anguish and apprehension.”

-G. Harrison

“In this brief Book of Lamentation the spirit of the man is strikingly revealed. There is no exultation over the fulfilment of his predictions, and there is a twofold loyalty manifest throughout, first to God in the confession of sin, and then to his people in the expression of their sorrow.”

-K. Morgan

“All her friends have dealt treacherously with her.” In better days Jerusalem enjoyed loyal alliances. Those one-time friends became “her enemies.”

“Israel was always faced with an inescapable choice. She could rely on God for her safety against external aggression, or she could turn to allies great and small.”

-G. Ellison

“Judah is gone into captivity.” After the poetic images of the first few verses, Jeremiah simply reported the fact. Judah was conquered and captive. Once busy entrances to the city seemed empty; “all her gates are desolate,” and all who were connected with Jerusalem are dispirited; they sigh and “are afflicted.” Judah’s enemies are blessed as they prosper and master over them.

“The routes to Jerusalem, once thronged with pilgrims going up to the Temple to participate in festal rites, are now completely deserted.”

-G. Harrison

“Because of affliction.” Jeremiah understood that this catastrophe was not due to fate, human cruelty, or blind cycles of history. It was because Judah had sinned so long and so deep that it was God’s will to afflict her with severe correction. It was “because of affliction, and because of great servitude.”

“For the multitude of our sins, directly contrary to his promise in case of obedience… Not only our young and old men, but the little children, have been driven like sheep before the enemy into a miserable captivity.”

-D. Poole

“All her beauty is departed.” Jeremiah’s pain was amplified as he thought of how it used to be in Jerusalem. Now the people and place of Jerusalem were desolate and defeated.

“Her princes are become like harts.” Both hope and leadership for the city abandoned Jerusalem. The princes ran away “like harts,” but also without success. “They are gone without strength before the pursuer.”

“Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things.” The tragedy of Jerusalem’s fall was worse after considering how things were once so much better. The memory of days of “pleasant things” stung “in the days of her affliction and of her miseries.”

“When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:” When the enemy came against her Jerusalem was completely alone; the help many hoped for from Egypt never arrived. Because of this “the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.”

“Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:” As Jeremiah described the tragedy of Jerusalem’s fall, one would rightly ask why? The answer was simple; it was because of the great sin of the people of the city over many generations.

“The story of her desolation is mingled with confessions of her sin. She asks boldly if any sorrow could be compared to her sorrow, and then confesses that not one pang or stroke had been in excess of her sin.”

-J. Meyer

“They have seen her nakedness” The once dignified city was humiliated and exposed. Like a queen stripped of her royal robes, “she sigheth, and turneth backward.”

“Here she is compared to a debased, slatternly harlot, shamelessly exposing her nakedness and indifferent to the marks of menstrual blood.”

-L. Ellison

“She remembereth not her last end.” Like a foolish woman (or man), Jerusalem never thought about where her path of sin and rebellion would lead her. Her lack of forethought meant she “came down wonderfully.”

“O Lord, behold my affliction.” A prayer, as if from the lips of the afflicted city, breaks into the description of misery. With no comforter to help when the enemy exalted himself, all Jerusalem could do was cry out to the God she had rejected.

“Now those very foreigners who had been prohibited from entering the congregation of the Israelites were polluting the sacred house in the most wanton manner.”

-G. Harrison

“See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.” Another prayer rises from Jerusalem, crying out for help from the starving city; “they seek bread.”

“It is nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” An unsympathetic world looked upon Jerusalem’s misery and regarded it as nothing. She had no comforter at all. Jerusalem personified wondered at the lack of sympathy.

“If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” Jerusalem felt what many sufferers feel; that her sorrow was incomparable to others and incomprehensible to others. There is a sense in which this is true, but it is true for everyone who endures a deep season of suffering. Few if any can truly relate to the depths of their sorrow.

“The desolations and distress brought upon this city and its inhabitants had scarcely any parallel. Excessive abuse of God’s accumulated mercies calls for singular and exemplary punishment.”

-A.C. Clarke

“When the Lord hath inflicted.” Jeremiah (and Jerusalem personified) knew the true source of their sorrow. It was not the Babylonians; it was the Lord who had inflicted this devastation.

“From above hath he sent fire into my bones.” In the context, this fire was the judgment God sent upon Jerusalem. The judgment came from heaven; “from above.” The context makes it clear that this is Jerusalem personified speaking, yet Jeremiah used the same image of “fire into my bones,” that he used of his own prophetic call in The Book of Jeremiah:

“Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”

-Jeremiah 20:9 (KJV)

“Not Jerusalem’s enemies, but God himself had entrapped the city, bringing it to an inescapable and ignominious end.”

-G. Ellison

“He has made me desolate and faint all the day.” Jerusalem was like a trapped, blocked, empty, and exhausted foe.

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand.” Jeremiah pictured Jerusalem as a bound with a yoke like a brute ox; yet the yoke was fashioned out of their own transgressions. It was bound to them by cords woven by God’s own hands.

“I am now tied and bound by the chain of my sins; and it is so wreathed, so doubled and twisted round me, that I cannot free myself. A fine representation of the miseries of a penitent soul, which feels that nothing but the pitifulness of God’s mercy can loose it.” -A.C. Clarke

“The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.” Jeremiah set forth image after image to describe the ruin of Jerusalem and Judah, but each image understood it to come from the hand of God.

“God had trodden upon the Jews as men use to stamp grapes in a wine-press, where they use to crush them to pieces to get out the juice, and then they throw the husks, that are good for nothing, upon the dunghills. These are but various expressions to set out the misery into which God had brought this people for their sins.”

-A. Poole

“For these things I weep.” Sometimes Jeremiah is described as the weeping prophet, and he would agree with the description. Lamentations was not written with a dry eye, but with overflowing eyes.

“Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me.” The worse aspect of Jerusalem’s misery was not the catastrophe of itself. It was that in the catastrophe, they had little or no sense of God’s comfort or help. It felt as if He were far from them.

“Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her.” Jerusalem felt no comfort from God, and received none from man. By God’s design “The Lord hath commanded.” All her neighbors had become her adversaries, and regarded her as an unclean thing.

“God is here presented as the righteous judge who has finally punished His recalcitrant people for their long-standing rebellion.”

-G. Harrison

“The Lord is righteous, for I rebelled against His commandment.” Jerusalem personified confessed her sin and proclaimed the righteousness of God. Her sorrow and captivity were because she was a rebel against God.

“Again there is the confession which admits that God is in the right. This is often a hard admission to make. One can feel the agony of heart that is wrung out even while the people make confession.”

-L. Wright

“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me.” Jerusalem cried out for her lovers, a metaphor for those in whom she placed her love and trust in rather than Yahweh, for help. They deceived Jerusalem and were of no help as the city starved to death.

“Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress.” All Jerusalem could do was cry out to the God whom she had rejected. There was no one else who could or would help. War and destruction brought death both outside and at home.

“They are glad that thou hast done it.” This was the response of the neighboring nations, Judah’s enemies. Knowing that, the prophet prayed that their appointed judgment would come soon; “do unto them, as thou hast done unto me.”

“It must have been a matter of some gratification to the enemies of the Israelites to know that God, who in earlier days had wrought such havoc on the foes of the Chosen People, had now recoiled in punitive wrath upon His own.”

-G. Harrison

“We may lawfully pray for such evils to the implacable enemies of the church and people of God, as may restrain and weaken their hands, and put them out of a capacity of wasting the Lord’s heritage: we are only obliged by it to wish well to their souls, and to desire no evil against them out of private revenge or malice, but only out of love to God, and zeal for his glory.”

-A Poole

“The last two verses are a tentative prayer that God will vindicate His righteousness among the other nations. If Judah has needed to experience judgement to lead her to repentance, then others need the experience of judgement also.”

-E. Wright

“For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.” We see Jerusalem almost gone; all she can manage are a series of sighs, and a faint heart.

Christian brothers and sisters, what makes you sigh and feel faint? Look to the strength of God, our Fortress!

“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.”

-Psalm 18:2 (KJV)

-God bless!