Lamentations 2

Introduction

We began to study the book of Lamentations last Sunday evening. And you’ll remember that the background to the book is the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Let me remind you briefly of the history. In 2 Kings 23, we read that the southern kingdom of Judah became subject to Egypt. But shortly after that, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, invaded the land and Judah became subject to Babylon. At that time, Nebuchadnezzar removed all the treasures from the temple and from the royal palace and he took away all the gold articles that Solomon had made for the temple and for the worship of the Lord. And as well as taking these treasures and articles, Nebuchadnezzar also took away all the officers and fighting men and all the craftsmen and artisans. Only the poorest people were left. Judah was stripped of its best people and its wealth.

Zedekiah, the king of Judah, then rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. And so, Nebuchadnezzar sent his army to lay siege to Jerusalem. The siege began in the ninth year of King Zedekiah’s reign and it ended in the eleventh year and the people inside the city suffered terribly when they ran out of food. The king and his army tried to flee, but they were captured by the Babylonians. The palace and temple were then destroyed along with most of the houses in the city and the city wall. Most of the remaining people were taken into exile and the high priest and other officials were executed.

Jerusalem, the city of God, was left in ruins. Back in 1 Kings, Solomon was king. God had given him wisdom and wealth and God enabled him to build a magnificent temple and palace. The temple was like heaven on earth. And the people enjoyed peace and prosperity. And people from faraway nations came, not to attack Solomon, but to honour him and to pay tribute to him. But by the end of 2 Kings, it was all in ruins. The people in the northern kingdom of Israel had gone into exile to Assyria. Now the people in the southern kingdom of Judah had gone into exile to Babylon. And the city of Jerusalem was in ruins.

And the writer of Lamentations, who may well have been Jeremiah the prophet, lamented before the Lord, calling out to him for help because of what had happened to Jerusalem. He said in verse 1 of chapter 1: ‘How deserted lies the city, once so full of people.’ Once it was full of people who lived there and who worshipped there. But now it was deserted. The streets were empty. No one gathered at the city gates. Instead of the sound of joy and celebrations, there was only the sound of weeping.

And why had it happened? The writer of Lamentations tells us in verse 5 of chapter 1: ‘The Lord has brought her grief because of her many sins.’ And again in verse 8: ‘Jerusalem has sinned greatly’. And again in verse 12: ‘Is any suffering like my suffering that was afflicted on me, that the Lord has brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?’ The Lord was angry with his people because of their many sins. The Lord, of course, is patient. For years and years, he was patient with his rebellious people and he put up with their sins and shortcomings and their rebellion and unbelief. He sent them prophets to warn them and to call on them to repent: to give up their wickedness and to return to him so that they would receive his forgiveness and not his wrath. But they would not listen. They refused to repent. And so, eventually the Lord did what he said he would do and he turned on them in his fierce anger and sent the Babylonians to destroy the city and to take them into exile. The fall of Jerusalem happened because of their many sins. And now the writer laments before the Lord and he looks to the Lord for help.

And as I said last week, the whole of chapter 1 was, in a sense, a prayer to God on behalf of his suffering people. And that’s what Christ our Saviour is doing for us, right now in heaven, where he appears before God the Father on our behalf to intercede for us. He brings before the Father our cares and concerns and needs and he asks the Father to help us. Because he was made like us in every way, apart from sin, he knows our needs. And because the Father loves his Son he’ll answer his prayers for us and he’ll send us the help we need.

Today we come to chapter 2. In verses 1 to 10, the writer describes what the Lord did to Jerusalem and its people. In verses 11 to 13, the writer describes his sorrow over what has happened. In verses 14 to 19, he addresses the people of Jerusalem. And then, verses 20 to 22 are a kind of prayer to the Lord about the suffering of the city.

As I said last week, the chapter is an acrostic poem, which means that each of the 22 verses begins with successive letters from the Hebrew alphabet. This was a literary device which may have been a way for the writer to set down in an orderly and comprehensive way everything he wanted to say and needed to say about the suffering of God’s people.

Verses 1 to 10

Let’s turn now to verses 1 to 10. I have an old NIV Bible at home which I’ve had for thirty years or more. And I don’t do it now, but many years ago I used to use coloured pencils when I read it to underline words and phrases and to make marks in the margin to highlight certain themes. And I’m pleased to see now that when I was a young man and used to mark my Bible like that, and before I had been to college to study theology, I still got the point of verses 1 to 10. I can tell that I got the point of verses 1 to 10 because in my old NIV, I’ve highlighted the words ‘he has’ throughout the passage. And the ‘he’ in the phrase ‘he has’ is the Lord. So, he has hurled down the splendour of Israel from heaven to earth. He has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. He has torn down the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah. He has brought her kingdom and princes down to the ground. He has cut off every horn. He has withdrawn his right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire. Like an enemy he has strung his bow. And on and on it goes.

The writer is making it clear for us that these things have happened to Jerusalem because of the Lord. He has done these things to them. And he’s done these things to them because of his wrath or because of his fierce anger. And so, the chapter begins in verse 1 with the writer saying: ‘How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger.’ The word translated ‘How’ is the same word he used to begin chapter 1 and it’s a word for expressing shock. It’s a gasp of disbelief. Can you believe it? Can you believe what the Lord has done? He has covered the city with a storm cloud of anger.

By likening God’s anger to a cloud, he means that it’s everywhere. His anger has engulfed the city. And the phrase ‘the Daughter of Zion’ should perhaps be translated, ‘Daughter Zion’. It’s a term of affection for Jerusalem. So, God has covered Daughter Zion, little Zion, with his anger. It’s unbelievable. But it’s true. And he has hurled down the splendour of Israel from heaven to earth. All her former glory has gone. This once great city, which people used to marvel at, has become rubble. When he refers to their splendour, it’s possible that he’s thinking specifically of the temple, because the temple was the thing that made Jerusalem great, because the temple was God’s dwelling place. It was his home among his people. And the writer goes on to refer to God’s footstool, which is probably a reference to the ark of the covenant which was kept in the Most Holy Place. God was seated on his throne in heaven, and the ark of the covenant was his footstool. But look: he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. In the psalms, it sometimes says that God remembered his people. And when it says that, it means he remembered to act on their behalf. And so, by saying he has not remembered his footstool, it means he hasn’t done anything to protect it. In fact, it’s worse than that, because he was actively working against Jerusalem.

And in the following verses the writer tells us that God has destroyed the dwellings or houses of Jacob; and their strongholds or fortresses; and their kingdom and their princes or rulers; and their palaces. In verse 6 he refers to God’s dwelling and to his place of meeting. So, the writer is referring to the temple. And it has been laid waste. And the Lord has made the people forget the appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In other words, they no longer happen, because there’s no one to celebrate the feasts and Sabbaths. And God has spurned both priest and king. And he’s rejected his altar in the temple and he’s abandoned his sanctuary. He’s handed over to the enemy the walls of Jerusalem’s palaces. And their enemies have raised a shout in the house of the Lord. That’s in verse 7. But this is not a shout of worship, but a shout of victory over God’s people. And the Lord has torn down the wall around Jerusalem. The writer depicts the Lord in verse 8 as a builder who stretches out his measuring line. But he’s not stretching out his measuring line in order to build, but in order to destroy. The ramparts and walls are depicted as lamenting or weeping because they have wasted away. They have been destroyed by the Lord. And the gates of the city have sunk into the ground and the king and other rulers have been taken into exile. The law is no more, he says in verse 9. It’s no more, because there’s no one to teach it or to hear it. And their prophets no longer find visions from the Lord. There were some prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel who received visions from the Lord. But God refused to speak to other prophets as a sign of his anger against the people.

So, God has destroyed the city. He has torn it down. He has swallowed it up. He has covered it with the cloud of his anger. And so, according to verse 10, the elders who are left sit on the ground in silence and with dust on their heads and sackcloth on their bodies. And the young woman who are left have bowed their heads to the ground. These old men and young women are mourning because of what God has done to his people.

Application

Before going on, let me say a few words about God’s wrath or his anger. When we think of wrath, we often think about someone who is consumed with rage. We think of anger as a surge of passion. Anger takes us over. So, we’re feeling calm and happy, but then someone does something to us or someone says something to us or something happens to us and we’re overwhelmed by anger. We lose control. This surge of passion takes over us and we feel angry.

But God’s anger is not like that. When we were thinking about the attributes of God a few years ago on Wednesday evenings, I explained that God’s anger is not like our anger. It’s not a sudden surge of passion. Instead it’s the decree of God to punish those who remain unrepentant. So, when we read in the Bible about God’s wrath, the Bible is telling us, not so much about how God feels, but about what he’s determined to do.

And I should make clear that anger is not one of God’s attributes. In our Shorter Catechism we confess that God is infinite and eternal and unchangeable in his being and wisdom and power and holiness and justice and goodness and truth. He is all of those things and he’s all of those things wholly and completely. So, he is wholly and completely wise and powerful and holy and just and good and true. But we don’t say that God is infinitely and eternally and unchangeably angry. He’s not infinitely and eternally and unchangeably angry. Instead the Bible makes clear that God is slow to anger and he’s patient with us. The psalmist says that his anger lasts only a moment, whereas his favour lasts a lifetime. He means that God’s anger towards his believing people lasts only a moment, because his anger, or his wrath, is his decree to discipline us for as long as it’s necessary. And so, it’s not infinite or eternal or unchangeable.

When God’s believing people sin against the Lord, without confessing it or turning from it, he decrees that we must be disciplined just as parents will decree or decide that their disobedient children will be disciplined. And whenever a disobedient child responds to the discipline, the parents bring it to an end. And whenever God’s disobedient children respond to his discipline, then he brings it to an end.

The discipline comes to an end. But God’s love for his people never ends. It goes on and on and on and on. His angers lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime. And so, when he sent his people into exile in Babylon because of their persistent rebellion, it lasted for about 70 years. And then it came to an end and the Lord allowed the people to return to the Promised Land and to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the temple of the Lord.

And what we read here about God’s wrath in Lamentations 2 is a message for us. When God’s people go astray, when we turn from him and go our own way, or when we give in to sin and continue in it, without confessing it and without turning from it, then God may very well decree that we need to feel his anger and experience his discipline. And as the writer of Hebrews says, no discipline seems pleasant at the time. It’s painful. It is hard. But later on, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. That is to say, the harvest that God’s discipline produces in our lives is righteousness and peace. God uses our hardships to shape us and to mould us and to renew us in his image so that we learn to do what’s right.

As I said last week, the book of Job reminds us that not every person who suffers is suffering because of sin. Sometimes we suffer like Job for doing what’s right. But when we suffer, we should examine ourselves and consider whether there is sin in our lives which we’re cherishing instead of confessing. And so, we should listen to our conscience, that God-given ethical organ which commends us when we do right and which condemns us when we do wrong. Listen to it, because it will tell you when you’re doing wrong.

And the good news is, that when we turn from our sin and turn to God through Christ for forgiveness, then he’s willing to remove his discipline from us and to forgive us. And so, he restores our joy.

So, God’s anger is not a surge of passion. As one writer (Kaiser) says, it not unreasonable or unexplainable. It’s perfectly understandable, because it’s his decision to discipline the unrepentant. And when we repent and turn back to the Lord, he pardons us for all that we have done wrong for the sake of Christ our Saviour who has paid for our sins with his life.

Verses 11 to 13

Let’s turn back to the text and we’ve reached verses 11 to 13 where the writer describes his sorrow over what has happened. This is his own personal grief. He says in verse 11 that his eyes fail from weeping. That is, his eyes are worn out by weeping. He’s been weeping so much and for so long that it’s affected his eyes and he can’t see because of his tears. Many years later, the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem because of the destruction that was to come on it. And here, in Lamentations 2, the writer is weeping over Jerusalem because of the destruction that has already come on it.

He also says that he is in torment within and his heart is poured out on the ground. He means he is physically and emotionally drained. And he feels like this because his people are destroyed and because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. He’s referring to the time of the famine which happened because the city was under siege. And so he goes on to remember how the children and infants asked their mothers for bread and wine. That is, they ask for food and drink. But there is none. And so, the children faint in the streets of the city for lack of food. And their lives ebb away in their mother’s arms. Their mothers are trying to console them, but there’s nothing their mothers can do. No wonder the writer is weeping. No wonder he is emotionally and physically spent, when he has had to watch these things and see the suffering of the people.

In verse 13 the writer addresses Jerusalem. Once again, he’s personifying the city, depicting it as if the city were a woman. And he calls her Daughter of Jerusalem. That should be ‘Daughter Jerusalem’. It’s a term of affection. ‘Virgin Daughter of Jerusalem’ is the same. He’s speaking with affection to Jerusalem, because he loves the people of the city. He asks: ‘What can I say for you?’ That is: What can I say for you to undo what has happened? But nothing he says can undo what has happened to her. He also asks: ‘With what can I compare you…? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you?’ So, is there any kind of comforting comparison he can draw to encourage her? He wants to be able to say to her: ‘Compared to what happened to X, what happened to you is not so bad.’ But there are no comforting comparisons. Her suffering is unique. Her wound is as deep as the sea.

And then he asks at the end of verse 13: ‘Who can heal you?’ Is there anyone who can heal Jerusalem? But there’s no-one who can heal Jerusalem, except the Lord. If the people were to turn to him, then they would experience his grace and mercy and his forgiveness. He would arise over them with healing in his wings. But while they remain unrepentant, there’s no one who can heal them or help them.

Verses 14 to 19

In verses 14 to 19, the writer addresses the people of Jerusalem. And he refers to their prophets who were false and worthless. He says those false prophets did not expose the sin of the people in order to ward off their captivity. He says that the oracles which the false prophets spoke were false and misleading.

Now, by calling them ‘your prophets’, he’s saying that these were the prophets they wanted. They didn’t want the Lord’s prophets — men like Jeremiah — who declared the word of the Lord and who summoned them to repent. They didn’t want the Lord’s prophets. They wanted their own prophets, who would say nice things to them and would tell them only what the wanted to hear. They wanted a prophet like Hananiah, whom we read about in Jeremiah 28, who said that God was going to break the yoke of Babylon and restore what had been taken from Jerusalem. But Hananiah was making it up. And they wanted men who would say ‘peace, peace’ when there was no peace. The false prophets misled them. But they wanted to be misled so that they could continue in their sins. And they refused to listen to a true prophet like Jeremiah.

And so, according to verse 15, all who pass by claps their hands at Jerusalem. They scoff and shake their heads. They mock Jerusalem, saying to the people: ‘Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth?’ The mockers are quoting the Scriptures. In Psalm 50, Jerusalem is describes as perfect in beauty. In Psalm 48, the city is described as the joy of the whole earth. But because of the sins of the people, and God’s wrath on her, she is no longer beautiful or a source of joy. And their enemies open their mouths wide against Jerusalem to scoff at the city and to gnash their teeth with malice. They say they have swallowed her up and they also say that this is the day they were waiting for. They longed for this day to come when Jerusalem was destroyed. And now it has arrived and they are delighted.

And in verse 17 the writer tells the people of Jerusalem that the Lord has done what he planned. So, he has fulfilled his word. He has done what he has decreed. In verse 16, the enemy nation took credit for Jerusalem’s destruction, but they only succeeded because the Lord had decreed it. And the Lord had decreed their destruction because they did not turn from their sin and rebellion, even though God had sent them prophet after prophet to warn them. And because they did not listen, because they refused to repent, he has now overthrown them without pity and he has let their enemy gloat over them and he has exalted the horn, or the strength, of their foes.

And since that’s the case, then the people need to return to the Lord. They need to cry out to the Lord. They need to let their tears flow like a river. They must give themselves no relief and their eyes no rest. They must arise and cry out in the night, pouring out their heart — all their sorrow and sadness — in the presence of the Lord. They must lift their hands to the Lord in prayer for the lives of their children who are fainting for hunger. So, the writer is appealing to the people to pray. Turn to the Lord and seek his favour.

Verses 20 to 22

And so, we come to verses 20 to 22 where someone begins to pray to the Lord. Most of the commentators are agreed that the speaker in these verses is Jerusalem. The writer is depicting the city as a woman who is calling to God in prayer.

And she begins by saying tov the Lord in verse 20: ‘Look, O LORD, and consider.’ Notice the way that the name ‘the LORD’ appears in verse 20. It’s LORD in capital letter. And that tells you that this is God’s covenant name. This is the name which signifies God’s commitment to his people and how he has bound himself to his people to be their God and to delivery them from their sin and misery. If anyone will help them, it’s the LORD who has bound himself to them with a promise.

And Jerusalem is asking the Lord their God to consider this question: ‘Whom has you ever treated like this?’ She’s saying to God that he’s never treated anyone the way he’s treated them. He’s never let any other nation suffer they way he’s let them suffer. But they are his people! They are his covenant people whom he chose for himself!

Jerusalem then recites some of the terrible things that have happened to them. So, women were forced to eat their offspring. During the famine, people were so desperate for food that they even ate the flesh of their children who had died. Priests and prophets were killed. Young and old lay dead in the streets. Young men and maidens were been killed by the sword. ‘You have slain them’. That is to say, God has slain them by sending the Babylonians against them. He has slain them in the day of his anger; and he’s slaughtered them without pity.

Now, this is not an accusation. Jerusalem is not accusing the Lord. She’s not telling him off for doing someting wrong. Instead she’s describing her suffering to the Lord, because she believes that, when he hears about it he will be moved to pity her. She’s saying to him: Consider this terrible thing that has happened to us. And have mercy on us!

Jerusalem says in verse 22 that, as the Lord summons people to a feast day, so the Lord has summoned a terrifying army against her. In the day of the Lord’s anger, no-one escaped or survived. And therefore, those she cared for and reared have been destroyed by her enemy.

Application

So, the Lord has done these terrible things to Jerusalem, because the people of Jerusalem had turned from the Lord and he was angry with her. And now the writer appeals to the people to turn to the Lord in prayer and to seek his help.

How can they turn to him when he is angry with them? How can they seek his help when he’s the one who has afflicted them? It’s because the God who afflicted them is the Lord their God, who has bound himself to them with a promise to be their God and to take care of them always. So, even though God sent this disaster on them, the writer believes that God still cares for them and that he will show them pity because of the suffering that has happened to them.

Remember the words of Psalm 103? The Lord is merciful and gracious. He’s slow to anger and he’s abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide nor will he keep his anger for ever. He does not deal with us according to our sins. He does not repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord show compassion to those who fear him.

This was what the Lord revealed about himself. This is what he is like. And since that is what the Lord is like, then the writer of Lamentations is telling the people to turn to the Lord their God in prayer and to seek his help, because he does care for them. He is slow to anger, because for years and years he put up with their sins. And now that the day of his anger has come, it will not last for ever, because he does not always chide and he does not keep his anger for ever. His anger lasts for a day and not for ever. And so, turn to him. Turn to him and he will remove his anger and show you compassion.

And the Lord their God is the Lord our God. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians told us that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He chose us in Christ and bound himself to us with a promise to be our God and to take care of us always. When we sin against him, and continue in it, without confessing it or turning from it, he will discipline us. But his anger is only for a day and it will not last for ever. And so, when we turn from our sin and turn back to him, he will not treat us according to our sins and he will not repay us according to our iniquities. Instead he’ll remove our sins from us and he’ll deal with us according to his compassion and mercy and love, which is as high as the heavens are above the earth.

And he’s able to remove our sins from us because of Christ our Saviour, who came into the world as one of us and who has paid for our sins with his life, when he died on the cross to make peace for us with God.

And since God loves us, then we know that we can go to him whenever we’re suffering. We can go to him in prayer and lay before him all our sorrow and sadness and all the things that are making us weep. Since he loves us, then we can go to him in prayer and seek his help.

And how do we know he loves us? How do we know he cares? We know he loves us because didn’t he give up his Son for our salvation? And he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all that we need? There’s nothing that will separate us from his love for us in Christ Jesus. Not trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword. Not even our own sins will separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. And so, in every trouble, we should turn to the Lord our God for help.