Year 2, Week 17, Day 2 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 17, Day 2

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Lamentations 1-2.

Today’s reading takes us to the Book of Lamentations. While not explicitly stated, it is long assumed that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations. Jeremiah expressed great lament in the Book that bears his name. The Book of Lamentations is a response to the fall of Jerusalem somewhere around 586 BC. The Babylonians attacked Jerusalem, burned the city and temple, and took most of the survivors into captivity. This was a devastating, traumatic experience not only because Israelites were slaughtered and their city destroyed but also because it seemed that God had abandoned his people, his temple, and the Davidic line of kings. The Book of Lamentations contains five poems that give voice to the agony of the Israelites in the immediate after of tragedy. A lament expresses sorrow, confession of sin, and prayer to the LORD. The poems of Lamentations vividly describe the horrors of the war from the vantage point of an eyewitness. Four of the five poems use an acrostic form: chapters 1, 2, and 4, each has twenty-two verses and each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet; chapter 3 uses three verses for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet for a total of sixty-six verses.  Lamentation 1 personifies Jerusalem as a suffering woman: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave” (Lamentation 1:1). Lamentations 2 speaks from the point of view of a prophet, who authoritatively declares that Jerusalem’s suffering comes from the Lord: “The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation” (Lamentation 2:5).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading is the explicit link between the affliction that the people of Jerusalem were experiencing and the LORD’s hand in that trauma: “Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe…Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away…My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand…How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger” (Lamentations 1:5,8,14; 2:1). And the explanation connected to the LORD bringing about this affliction was sin: “The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity…Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading” (Lamentations 1:18; 2:14).

The lamenting is expressed with great sorrow and through many tears: “She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies…For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed…My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city…Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!” (Lamentations 1:2,16; 2:11,18). The lamenting is also expressed with much despair and deep shame: "All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. “Look, O LORD, and see, for I am despised…Look, O LORD, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death…The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground” (Lamentations 1:11,20; 2:10).

The LORD arranged for Jerusalem’s destruction: “The LORD has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes” (Lamentation 2:17). All of the sorrow, tears, despair, and shame feels as if the LORD had destroyed them “without pity.” But perhaps it would be best to see the long-suffering compassion that the LORD displayed prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, while the LORD was sending prophets whom the people ignored: “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe