The dictionary says that a lament is ‘a passionate expression of grief or sorrow’ and that’s what we find in the book of Lamentations. We find the heart-breaking outpouring of a human heart which is in deep sorrow, expressed in poetry. When you read through it, you can’t miss the grief being expressed and the heartache as the writer reflects after his beloved Jerusalem is totally destroyed and now lays in ruin.
Although not mentioned in the book itself, it’s widely accepted that Jeremiah was the author because of the similarities between the Book of Lamentations and the Book of Jeremiah itself, Jeremiah 7:21 / Lamentations 1:15 / Jeremiah 9:1 / Jeremiah 1:18 / Lamentations 1:6.
According to tradition, Jeremiah retired after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to a cavern outside the Damascus gate, where he wrote this book. That cavern is still there to this day and in the face of a rocky hill, on the western side of the city, the locals now call it ‘the grotto of Jeremiah’.
The Book of Lamentations is a kind of follow-up to the Book of Jeremiah in as much as it tells the grisly story of how the people died by the famine and by the sword. Lamentations shows the sorrow that Jeremiah felt at the fall of Jerusalem. There’s no doubt he was an eyewitness to the actual fall and we see him sitting on a hill, opposite Jerusalem, and giving us all the sad details of the fall. I suppose we could say that Lamentations is all the sad and gory details of the fall of his beloved city.
In Lamentations 1 we see Jeremiah dwelling on the various miseries oppressed by which the city sits as a lonely widow weeping sorely. In Lamentations 2 we read about these miseries which are described in connection with the national sins that had caused them. In Lamentations 3 we read of hope for the people of God. The punishment would only be for their good, a better day would dawn for them.
In Lamentations 4 we read about his laments over the ruin and desolation that had come upon the city and temple but realises it’s because of the people’s sins. In Lamentations 5 we read a prayer that Zion’s reprimand may be taken away in the repentance and recovery of the people.
An acrostic is a composition in which the initial letters of each line or unit, when taken together, spell something meaningful. An alphabetic acrostic starts with the first letter of the alphabet, and each successive line begins with each successive letter, until the alphabet is finished.
One of the many interesting rhetorical features of the Hebrew Bible is its use of alphabetical acrostics. These acrostics are not ‘hidden codes’, they are literary compositions in which the writer has used the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the initial letters for a sequence of verses. Psalm 25 / Psalm 34 / Psalm 37 / Psalm 119.
The first four poems, chapters, are acrostics, each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet taken in order. The first, second, and fourth have each twenty-two verses, the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
The third has sixty-six verses, in which each three successive verses begin with the same letter. The fifth isn’t acrostic. The main reason they were written this way was probably because they would be easier to remember.
Lamentations is basically a really a book of very sad poems, Jerusalem which once stood in all its splendour was now in ruins, God ‘lived’ there in the temple but this to also lay in ruins. Nebuchadnezzar had come in and totally destroyed it all, along with killing many Jews in the process. The young men were taken into captivity, the Babylonians raped the young Jewish women.
We must remember that Jeremiah saw all of this, he knew exactly what had happened, but he also recognised that God’s own people weren’t so innocent, they broke God’s laws time and time again, they became as evil, as the false gods they ended up worshipping and so God had to punish them, 2 Chronicles 36:14-17.
No wonder he’s heartbroken, but amongst all the heartbreak and sorrow there’s a glimmer of hope, he knew that God actually does care about His people and so he prays that one day, his people could return to their beloved city.
We can almost hear the pain in Jeremiah’s voice as he describes Jerusalem as a woman whose husband and children have been taken away from her. She’s a city in great mourning and feeling extremely lonely, especially when she reflects upon her once greatness, Isaiah 47:8 / Revelation 17:7.
Those who were once her political allies are described as ‘her lovers’ and so in some way she feels as though they should have helped, but they didn’t, they weren’t able to and so she feels betrayed even by them, Jeremiah 40:11 / Isaiah 39:5-7 / Isaiah 47:8-9.
Oh, the heartache of this once vibrant city, where thousands of people travelled along the roads to join in with the feasts, now ceased to come, the feats had stopped, the priests had no one to serve and the city lay in ruin. The Israelites had now become slaves to the Babylonians and they in turn had become very wealthy.
Jeremiah is quick to point out that all of this was the Lord’s doing, the city was in ruin because of the people’s sins and as a result, God punished them. Just as Jeremiah speaks about Jerusalem as a woman, he also speaks about the people of Jerusalem as the ‘daughter of Zion’. The leaders of Jerusalem are described as ‘princes’ but Jeremiah says there is no leadership left, they’re gone.
We can imagine the Jews being in captivity, reminiscing over the good old days when things were going great and as a result of remembering their past, it’s easy to understand why they would cry out, when they came to understand this was all because of their sinful actions. They’ve now become the laughing stock of the nations around them.
There’s no escaping the greatness of her sin, she is described as a woman who’s become unclean. Her once pure heart has now become a heart full of evil and weaknesses and her evil character wasn’t a secret anymore, it became known to all, and as a result everyone turned away from her.
It’s clear the people lived for the here and now and didn’t stop to consider their future, it’s also clear that they forgot God and what God had concerning their future if they disobeyed Him, Deuteronomy 28:24 / Jeremiah 25:9-11.
The Babylonians came, entered the temple and took all the treasures out of it, Jeremiah 52:18 / Daniel 5:2. Any treasure which was left over, the Jews used to bargain with for food in order to survive, 2 Kings 25:3, this is desperate times which need desperate measures.
We read of a cry of desperation from Judah, to anyone who can help, the city is on its knees, begging for some kind of compassion. Again, we read of a hint of confession from Judah, they admit that it was because of their own sins that they are being punished. We can almost hear the sorrow in their words, the pain is like fire in their bones, God’s punishment has really broken His people.
Her punishment was so great, they feel like they’ve been given a yoke to wear around their neck. The young men either died in war or had been taken into captivity and so there was no relief from the sorrow and grief that the people were suffering.
Jeremiah says that the people couldn’t stop crying because no one came to comfort them. Others stay away from them just like they would avoid an unclean woman during her period, Isaiah 23:11 / Leviticus 20:18.
If people want to get right with God they first have to admit they are sinners, and that’s what we see happening here, they openly admit that they have ‘rebelled’ against God, Jeremiah 9:21.
Like we often do today, especially with our children, they wanted others around to learn from their mistakes, they basically say, ‘the reason our city and our people are in the condition they are now, is simply because we sinned against God, please don’t make the same mistake because you reap what you sow’, Job 4:5 / Proverbs 22:8.
The nations that the Israelites trusted for deliverance, disowned them. Just like what happened to Egypt, the Israelites were punished for working against God’s plan to discipline His people for their rebellion. And so, when the disaster came, the character of the religious and civic leaders was revealed as they selfishly looked out for themselves in order to survive.
It seems, since they admitted their guilt, they finally would just accept God’s punishment upon them, they finally got it and understood why they were being punished. Just as a side note, Israel never committed idolatry again when they finally came out of captivity.
Remember that God had used His prophets not only to warn Israel about what would happen to them if they rebelled against Him, Deuteronomy 32:25, but He also used the prophets to warn other nations that He would bring swift judgment and punishment on anyone who tried to harm His people. We know that God used the Assyrians and the Babylonians to punish His own people, but we mustn’t forget that those nations, didn’t see it that way, they wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.
But their arrogance became the basis upon which God’s judgment upon them was just. Those nations around who done nothing but rejoice at what was happening to Judah and Jerusalem were themselves going to suffer because they rejoiced at what was happening to God’s people.
There are times in our lives when we must be broken for the healing process to begin, it’s during those dark, sorrowful times we must turn to God who will lovingly and gently restore us to Himself. We all have to take responsibility for our own actions, since we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s standards, Romans 3:23, we need to recognise our own sinfulness.
As Christians we were blessed to obey the first law of forgiveness, which was at out baptism, Acts 2:38 and as Christians were blessed if we obey the second law of forgiveness, which is when we confess our sins to God, 1 John 1:9.
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."