A Christian's Guide to Studying and Applying the Old Testament
Text: Lamentations 1 (NKJV)
1 How lonely sits the city
That was full of people!
How like a widow is she,
Who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces
Has become a slave!
2 She weeps bitterly in the night,
Her tears are 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.
3 Judah has gone into captivity,
Under affliction and hard servitude;
She dwells among the nations,
She finds no rest;
All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.
4 The roads to Zion mourn
Because no one comes to the set feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries have become the master,
Her enemies prosper;
For the LORD has afflicted her
Because of the multitude of her transgressions.
Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion
All her splendor has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
That find no pasture,
That flee without strength
Before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction and roaming,
Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things
That she had in the days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
With no one to help her,
The adversaries saw her
And mocked at her downfall.
8 Jerusalem has sinned gravely,
Therefore she has become vile.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Yes, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
She did not consider her destiny;
Therefore her collapse was awesome;
She had no comforter.
“O LORD, behold my affliction,
For the enemy is exalted!”
10 The adversary has spread his hand
Over all her pleasant things;
For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,
Those whom You commanded
Not to enter Your assembly.
11 All her people sigh,
They seek bread;
They have given their valuables for food to restore life.
“See, O LORD, and consider,
For I am scorned.”
12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Behold and see
If there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
Which has been brought on me,
Which the LORD has inflicted
In the day of His fierce anger.
13 “From above He has sent fire into my bones,
And it overpowered them;
He has spread a net for my feet
And turned me back;
He has made me desolate
And faint all the day.
14 “The yoke of my transgressions was bound;
They were woven together by His hands,
And thrust upon my neck.
He made my strength fail;
The Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.
15 “The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst;
He has called an assembly against me
To crush my young men;
The Lord trampled as in a winepress
The virgin daughter of Judah.
16 “For these things I weep;
My eye, my eye overflows with water;
Because the comforter, who should restore my life,
Is far from me.
My children are desolate
Because the enemy prevailed.”
17 Zion spreads out her hands,
But no one comforts her;
The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob
That those around him become his adversaries;
Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
18 “The LORD is righteous,
For I rebelled against His commandment.
Hear now, all peoples,
And behold my sorrow;
My virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.
19 “I called for my lovers,
But they deceived me;
My priests and my elders
Breathed their last in the city,
While they sought food
To restore their life.
20 “See, O LORD, that I am in distress;
My soul is troubled;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very rebellious.
Outside the sword bereaves,
At home it is like death.
21 “They have heard that I sigh,
But no one comforts me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
They are glad that You have done it.
Bring on the day You have announced,
That they may become like me.
22 “Let all their wickedness come before You,
And do to them as You have done to me
For all my transgressions;
For my sighs are many,
And my heart is faint.”
Devotional Thoughts and Commentary:
איך , translated as "How" to start verse 1, has been adopted by some as the title to the book. Certain words bear connotations that go far beyond their literal meanings, and this word is a typical word to introduce an elegy. Great Jerusalem, geographically at the heart of Judaism, is to be mourned, since she has fallen.
As I mentioned in the introduction to the book, verse 1 is a study in contrasts. The great one is now a widow and the noble leader is now the vassal.
For what does Jerusalem (as capital of Judah, being representative) suffer so terribly? Verse 2 introduces to us the idea that Judah did not place her faith in יהוה, the true God, but in her surrounding heathen nations and their false gods (Jeremiah 2:20-25 showing the allusion by the same author to the false gods). The "lovers" of verse 2 are her false, heathen friends. While they dealt in treachery, we will see that God is faithful (Lamentations 3:22-23). Again in verse 5, what is the cause of these afflictions? "Because of the multitude of her transgressions." This is also evident in verses 8, 9, and 18. Sin has consequences. These physical reminders of those consequences are an actual dramatic understatement of the full, spiritual consequences of sin found in Romans 6:23 ("the wages of sin is death").
Verses 1-11 are the front section of this poetic verse (chapter), and they are basically describing the woe that has befallen Judah and its capital, Jerusalem.
Verses 12-15 then present a series of metaphorical promotions to give the reader a better visualization of just how bad things were. "fire... net... yoke... trampled... crush..." are the terms that the author used to describe this episode. Not a very positive light, to be certain.
Finally, verses 16-22 present a first-person narrative from the perspective of Jerusalem herself. We are reminded in verse 18 that through all of this tragedy (from a human perspective), God is righteous. Is a judge evil for pronouncing sentence on the guilty? Certainly not, and as has been explored in Romans (see also Romans 3:10, 3:23, and 5:12), everyone in the world is guilty in sin. God's judgment does not make Him evil, and our human tragedy stems from human sin. Whether directly a result of our personal (or national) sin as we see here or the result of sin the entire race is guilty of by the federal headship of Adam as the father of the race (Romans 5:12), all tragedy, death, badness, and wickedness we experience is tied to human sin. Through all this, God remains perfectly righteous. We should also notice that the confession of sin does not immediately nor necessarily alleviate any or all of the physical consequences of sin. It does have spiritual and eternal ramifications, but we are often forced to live with the temporal consequences (such as AIDS resulting from an immoral sexual encounter).
Applications:
As I pointed out in the discussion above, this period was a specific consequence to a specific set of sins committed by Judah. This should remind us that sin has consequences. Romans 6:23 brings this further into focus, telling us that "the wages of sin is death." Spiritual death is what we earn through sin; it is what we are due.
Other Studies from Lamentations
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