Lamentations Lamentations
Lamentations
Introduction
At a Glance
Author: Traditionally Jeremiah
Audience: Originally exiled Judah, but these revelations of lament speak to everyone
Date: Likely soon after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC
Type of Literature: Liturgical poetry of lament
Major Themes: Articulating grief and suffering; confessing sin and grieving judgment; divine abandonment and continued hope
Outline:
I. Zion the abandoned widow — 1:1–22
II. Zion the destroyed — 2:1–22
III. Zion the hopeful — 3:1–66
IV. Zion the punished — 4:1–22
V. Zion the prayerful — 5:1–22
About the Book of Lamentations
“How lonely sits the city once thronged with people!” These words begin the book of Lamentations, a collection of poems filled with lament and sorrow over the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple of Yahweh. “Once great among the nations,” the first verse continues, “she is now lonely like a widow. Once a fair princess ruling among the provinces, now a shackled servant.” How lonely, indeed, and tragic, giving voice to the collective hearts of God’s people whenever the storms rage and tides rise, when the streams of abundance turn into desert wilderness, and when what was great and fair becomes lonely and toilsome.
The central theme of Lamentations is found in its title: mourning over the loss of Israel’s homeland and temple worship, utilizing the familiar funeral dirge as a framework to grieve their loss. A lament is characterized as a passionate cry of anguish and distress, rising from the depths of our being for things that have happened to us and things our behavior has caused. Lamentations reflects both, coming at a turning point in the history of Israel. Judah and Jerusalem were conquered by the Babylonians and the people deported. # Babylon is not mentioned in Lamentations, but the historical setting is clearly when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. King Zedekiah is not mentioned either. The temple was destroyed, their hopes dashed. The book makes clear the reason: because of the people’s sin and rebellion. The destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple as national punishment stands unique in the Bible for its significance. One era ends and captivity begins—all because Judah refused to listen to the loving calls of Yahweh to return to his heart, hardening their hearts in disobedience and continuing in their idolatrous, rebellious ways.
Lamentations is written in a series of alphabetical acrostics. The Talmud remarks, “Why was Israel smitten with an alphabetical dirge? Because they transgressed the Torah from Aleph to Taw, from the first to the last letter of the alphabet.” # Sanhedrin 104, Midrash; Torah Temimah. Like other books of Hebrew poetry, Lamentations utilizes synonymous parallelism, a powerful effect that rhythmically emphasizes the meaning of the text in a way that’s prayerful and liturgical, almost acting as a communal or even self-guided worship service for repentance, remembrance, and returning to the heart of God.
Metaphors and imagery are ubiquitous in Lamentations. They are used by the author to help the community come to grips with the cataclysmic events as well as to articulate their grief. While we moderns tend to psychologize grief, coming to grips with it through introspection and therapy, the Jews performed their grief, processing it through ritual and symbol with the use of poetry. Lamentations parallels other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures as well: funeral laments, the psalms of lament and complaint, Job’s objections against his friends and statements of dissatisfaction against Yahweh, and even the prophetic oracles uttered against the nations.
Lamentations is a book for any people grasping for the right words to express the deep longings of suffering and pain, from their heart to God’s. May you find your own words to express your own suffering and pain in the richly layered and textured poetic words used to express Judah’s. Then rest in the revelation-truth that the same Lord Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies, is listening to your cries and ready to answer them.
Purpose
The book of Lamentations was written for the reason the name of the poetic book suggests: to offer a framework for communal, ritual mourning, grieving, and lamenting. It is raw, it is honest, and it is authentic in its assessment of suffering and sin in the life of the community as much as in the individual believer. In this way, the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations share complementary vocabulary. Lamentations even carries shades of similar books of complaint and grief in the Hebrew Scriptures, like Psalms and the book of Job, as well as the later prophets and even what King David voiced throughout his reign in the historical books.
As with these books, Lamentations offered a vehicle through which the community of God’s people could mourn their loss, articulate their grief, remember the cause of their suffering, and petition Yahweh for grace and mercy, healing and help. Four fragments of Lamentations were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls from the ancient ruins of the Qumran community, showcasing their enduring, historical heritage among the people of God. This legacy has continued to endure, offering God’s people a framework to mourn and lament along with one crucial ingredient: hope. For this book reminds readers that alongside ongoing suffering and the struggles of the human condition are the promises of God’s character, covenant, and coming salvation.
Author and Audience
Although there is no inscription within the Hebrew text to indicate Jeremiah as the author, both the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate include these words: “And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, that Jeremias sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem.” # Brenton translation, public domain. See 2 Chron. 35:25. The authorship of Lamentations is nearly universally recognized as compiled by Jeremiah. Unlike his prophetic book calling on the nation of Judah to repent and turn from their ways back to the heart of God, this one is prayerful and liturgical, functioning to help the people take stock of their fate with an eye toward the end of their punishment and humiliation. Originally written for exiled Judah, Lamentations served as a manual for lament during their captivity in Babylon.
The destruction of their homeland, the razing of Jerusalem, and the toppling of the temple led to public ceremonies of mourning during their seventy years of captivity. Zechariah recorded that during the fifth month of the Jewish calendar, the July/August period during which the temple was destroyed, people had wept over the rubble and ruins of its destruction for many years. Such ceremonial lamentations helped the people mourn and remember the tragic consequences of their rebellion, out of which this book of poetic laments and rituals also grew. Similarly, people today have found in these poems a voice to articulate their own grief, help them pray through their suffering, and find hope in the God whose “fresh mercies greet [us] with every sunrise” (Lam. 3:23).
Major Themes
Articulating Grief and Suffering. The book of Lamentations is one of the most majestic explorations of human suffering and the realities of the human condition, with all its disappointments and tragedies, frailties and consequences. It is natural for us to avoid discussing such suffering, to sweep it under the rug, or to numb it away in any number of ways. Yet we still have a need to process grief, loss, and death in all its forms, whether because of our fallen world or because of our sin or that of others. This book, perhaps above all others in God’s Word, has been gifted to us from his heart for that exact purpose.
Consider Jeremiah’s honesty as he plumbed the emotional depths of life’s tragedies and poured out his heart to Yahweh: he is “in deep trouble” and his “gut is churning” (Lam. 1:20); his “groaning seems endless” and he is “sick at heart” (1:22); he has “no tears left” as he mourns the loss of life in Jerusalem (2:11); he has been driven to “dark places with no light” (3:2); he has been made “an object of ridicule” (3:14) and has been filled with “bitterness” (3:15). With breathtaking honesty and profound authenticity, Lamentations voices the frustrations and fears we all face when confronted with loss and grief, despair and suffering, articulating the groanings of the heart when we are left speechless.
Confessing Sin and Grieving Judgment. More often than not, sorrow and suffering result from sin, whether ours or others’, and God’s resulting judgment. This is what Jeremiah himself bemoaned: “Jerusalem has committed a horrible sin and has become an object of scorn. . . . Her filth stains her skirts—she never pictured this outcome” (1:8–9). The rebellious ways of God’s people contributed to their destruction, which should not have been a surprise. “Yahweh has done everything he planned and has carried out his word. As he ordained long ago, he has destroyed without pity” (2:17). Jeremiah’s entire prophetic ministry was warning the nation of Judah against Yahweh’s impending judgment for their sins; they refused to listen, leading to their destruction.
However, that was not the end of it. Through judgment’s accompanying grief and pain, Jeremiah gave voice to the community’s sins: “My gut is churning and my heart is burning—how rebellious I have been!” (1:20). Jeremiah called on the community to examine how they had lived “and return to Yahweh’s heart” to “pray, offering up [their] hearts in [their] hands to [their] God above” (3:40–41). His petition culminated in a simple prayer: “We have sinned and rebelled” (3:42). These five words are vital for starting the process of forgiveness and redemption for anyone confessing his or her own sins and grieving God’s judgment.
Divine Abandonment and Continued Hope. What do you do when all seems lost, when you feel abandoned by both the world and the Lord, when your body is weakened from suffering and pain, when your mind is filled with worry and your heart is overcome by grief? Never stop trusting the Lord to unfold his heart of divine love to you. For Lamentations 3:21–22 declares: “Yet there is one ray of hope when I remember this: Yahweh’s tender mercies have no end, and the kindness of his endless love is never exhausted.” Such hope was instantiated in the magisterial hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” offering the continued promise of renewal and rebuilding, a promised future full of yet-unrealized abundance and joy.
Although the book leaves the question of abandonment unresolved, Yahweh having disciplined his people for their rebellion, a hopeful eye is still cast toward future restoration. Given God’s heart for his people and everlasting commitment to his covenant, Lamentations mourns with hope; it grieves with expectation. It continually presents the longings for restoration before God’s throne with the continued hope that they will be heard and resolved, resting in the truth that “you, Yahweh, reign forever! Your throne endures from age to age” (5:19).
Matthew Henry’s concluding observations still ring true: “Let us, in all our trials, put our whole trust and confidence in his mercy; let us confess our sins, and pour out our hearts before him. Let us watch against complaints and despondency; for we surely know, that it shall be well in the end with all that trust in, fear, love, and serve the Lord.” # Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, Lam. 5:17–22.
Lamentations
The Prophet’s Sorrow
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