A Glimmer of Light: Studies in the Book of Lamentations

© 2010 Paul Young. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/22/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-1686-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-0492-3 (ebk)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Further Reading

BOOKS BY PAUL YOUNG

About the Author...

This book is dedicated to the members and friends of Ebenezer Gospel Chapel,

Maesteg.

Over the years people have come and gone from our fellowship but a faithful core has always remained with us. They have received my ministry with very good grace and have given me great encouragement.

I thank God for them.

Preface

The book of Lamentations is one of the neglected books of the Bible. It is not often the substance for preaching in the modern church and I am sure that I have never heard anyone speak, at any length, on this small book of the Old Testament. The reasons for this neglect may be many but here are a few possible explanations for avoiding Lamentations.

1. The title has serious negative connotations. Generally laments are given at funerals or times of deep distress and in the modern Western world we tend to ignore or try to ignore the intrusions of death or disease. We want happiness and not sadness, lightness not darkness, illusion rather than reality.

2. The book of Lamentations seems to be a small appendix of the much larger volume by Jeremiah. It is squeezed between the two substantial prophecies by Jeremiah and Ezekiel and seems inconsequential next to two such giants. Thus Lamentation is easily skipped as we move from Jeremiah to Ezekiel.

3. The Old Testament, as a whole, is often neglected by many churches and so Lamentations can be lost because of this general neglect.

4. That whole area of the Bible known as the Prophets, both Major and Minor Prophets tend to be neglected by Christians today and so Lamentations is simply part of that larger neglect.

5. The subject matter of Lamentations is generally very distressing and sad. It reflects a dark time in the history of Israel which in this book is referred to as the southern kingdom of Judah. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong for the nation and Lamentations is a detailed account of deep and terrible suffering. In our society we do not want to be reminded of the tougher, harder side of life and the traumas of Lamentations is an example of what we don’t want to hear. It is too unpalatable for a modern generation.

Of course, not all is doom and gloom in the book, though on the whole that would summarise its contents. We may not be familiar with the book as a whole but some isolated verses of the book are often quoted in one form or another, as the following make clear:

"Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." (1.12) This verse is generally seen as prophetic of our Saviour’s sufferings.

"The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth…" (2.15) Although describing Jerusalem, it could also be a description of our Saviour.

…the apple of thine eye… (2.18)

…his compassions they fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. (3.22-23). These particular verses must have inspired the writer Thomas O. Chisholm to write the well-known and wonderful hymn, Great is Thy faithfulness

The book could be summarised as "mourning and lamentation" (2.5). It was a terrible time for the people of Judah and Jerusalem. However, a glimmer of light begins to emerge as the people begin to turn back to God and seek His blessing through prayer. Eventually their trials and tribulations will be over and they will once again be restored.

These messages were first preached over a twenty-five week period in my home church of Ebenezer in Maesteg. They were later revised and used as radio scripts for the ‘Truth for Today’ programme which was aired by Trans World Radio. This may account for a certain repetition in places and for the directness of application.

The Bible readings at the start of each chapter come from the English Standard Version but a variety of versions are used in the text. The quotations come from many sources, though a high percentage is taken from John Blanchard’s books Gathered Gold and More Gathered Gold.

The original radio scripts are now given a more permanent format and go out with the prayer that they will be a blessing and an inspiration to the people of God in what are increasingly difficult and dark spiritual days.

Paul Young

Introduction

Those whose hearts are not pierced by the sword of God’s justice shall certainly be cut down and destroyed by the axe of his judgements. (Francis Burkitt)

Lamentations 1.12; 2.17; 3.22-27 & 3.31-33

Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.

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.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke of his youth.

For the LORD will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

Lamentations is a fascinating book tucked away towards the end of the Old Testament. It is a very short book and consists of just five chapters. It can be read very quickly, easily in half an hour. Yet it is far from being the most familiar part of Holy Scripture and many Christians today know little or nothing about its message. We rarely hear it spoken about or its text preached upon in our churches these days. It maybe that the title ‘Lamentations’ with its connotations with sadness and mourning discourages many people from giving it serious consideration. Yet it does contain some of the best known and best loved verses in the Bible and we gain many valuable insights into the nature of God through this book and also we become increasingly aware as we read these five chapters of God’s dealings with His people when they sin.

The Author

‘Scripture does not tell us who the author is, so in effect the book is anonymous.’ (Brooks). Yet it is generally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah and the fuller title of the book is often written as ‘The Lamentations of Jeremiah’. However many manuscripts simply give it the heading, ‘Lamentations’, while others just refer to it as ‘How’ which, of course, is the opening word of the book. Jeremiah is likely to have been the human author for the following reasons.

i. He was a Biblical writer and his prophecy is one of the larger books of the Old Testament and Lamentations is seen as a sort of appendix to the great prophetic volume that Jeremiah wrote.

ii. Jeremiah was an eyewitness of the events described in Lamentations as he lived through the siege and fall of Jerusalem and saw the awful events that accompanied its destruction. At that time he was the prophetic leader in Israel. Interestingly on the face of the Hill of Calvary is a dark recess, a hollow or small cave known today as ‘Jeremiah’s Grotto’. This is said to be the place where the prophet gazed and wept over the ruination of the beloved city of God. Lamentations is a full description of that destruction.

iii. There are similarities of style and phraseology between the prophecy of Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations and this would suggest a similar author.

iv. The two books dovetail together and clearly complement each other. The prophecy shows the sin of Israel. The nation is revealed as shamelessly indulging in idolatry, sinfulness and taking no notice of the prophet’s warnings or message. The book of Lamentations shows the appalling consequences of ignoring those warnings and it also shows the awful reality of God’s judgement upon sin. It acts as a salient warning for us today.

So the author, although essentially unmentioned, was probably Jeremiah the prophet. However, as attention is not focused upon the messenger we are forced to study the message of the book and not the writer. This enables us to hear more clearly the voice of God.

The Background

Jeremiah became a prophet of God in the thirteenth year of the reign of "Josiah son of Amon king of Judah" (Jeremiah 1.2) and that would have been the year 627 B.C. In the year 605 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon attacked Jerusalem and subdued the whole of the eastern Mediterranean coastline and incorporated the territory into his empire. He was a great military commander and a tremendous empire builder. In 597 B.C. he attacked Jerusalem a second time and the eighteen year old king Jehoiachin was taken captive to Babylon. In his place the Babylonians installed his uncle Mattaniah as king, he was also known as Zedekiah, and was never popular amongst the people of Jerusalem because he was a Babylonian appointment.

Gradually a strong anti-Babylonian party developed in Jerusalem that wanted to look to Egypt for support in a rebellion against Babylon. Jeremiah’s advice to them was a resounding ‘No’ and that they should not look to rebel and should never seek help from Egypt. However in the end Zedekiah the king ignored that advice and followed the counsel of the pro-Egyptian lobby. The result was as inevitable as it was dreadful.

In 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar returned to Jerusalem and there was an eighteen month siege of the city. This produced the most dreadful living conditions for the inhabitants and eventually the city fell. We read the accounts of its downfall in 2 Chronicles 36 and Jeremiah 52. Zedekiah who had been an evil king was deported to Babylon as well as many of the inhabitants of the city. This desperate judgement from God had resulted from the terrible idolatry which was being practiced in Jerusalem, where even the priests had become evil and practiced detestable things in the temple area of the city.

Judah was left as a province of Babylon under the governorship of Gedeliah, however after two months he was assassinated by Ishamael, a member of the royal family of Judah. There were fears of serious Babylonian reprisals and the people felt it wise to go to Egypt for safety. Jeremiah went with them to try and encourage them to keep God’s Word even though they were utterly reluctant to listen to his message and certainly even more reluctant to obey it.

This removal to Egypt, following the earlier exile to Babylon, left the land of Judah very seriously depleted of population and so the ruined city of Jerusalem would stay in that condition for a very long time.

That is the background to the message of Lamentations. It is a background of intrigue, rebellion, invasion, deportation, destruction and death.

The Subject

Clearly the book focuses upon the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. The wretched condition of the people is bewailed, but also the sin that brought about such judgement is deeply lamented. The nation had become so vile that the Lord had left His sanctuary in Jerusalem and evil forces had destroyed it. So we see…

i. The people of the nation had turned their backs upon God and lived in iniquity and sin. This included the leaders such as priests and prophets.

ii. The Lord is righteous and His judgement is just reward or just desserts for such evil.

iii. The people were called to repentance through a thorough examination of their lives and so they were called to turn from sin.

iv. There was the call to punish evil-doers whose actions had brought destruction and desolation upon the holy city.

Lamentations has been described as ‘one of the most tragic books in the Bible’. The prophet was not ecstatic that his messages had been fulfilled but mourned and wept over the consequence of the people’s sins. We must remember that we do not rejoice over the disaster that hits other people, even if it is of their own making.

Today the book is chanted by Jewish patriots at the Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem every Friday. It is read in Jewish synagogues on the 9th day of the month Ad. It is the day of mourning over the destruction of the temple and takes place sometime in July or August. Thus the subject of the book is sadness over the turmoil and devastation of Jerusalem due to the sinfulness of its inhabitants.

The Structure

This is one of the Bible’s ‘exquisite books of poetry’ (Mears). It is five beautiful and distinct poems bound together in the one book. Each chapter is a poem and each poem is twenty-two verses in length apart from chapter three which is sixty-six verses (3 x 22). We must remember that there are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and this series of poems was originally written in Hebrew.

The poems are written in acrostic form but that is obviously obscured in translation. So verse one corresponds to the first Hebrew letter, verse two to the second and so on and that is true for each chapter except chapter three. In that chapter three verses begin with each Hebrew letter in turn. So the verses correspond to the number and order of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This is an impressive and incredible achievement and we can understand how impressive if we were to try and write a similar acrostic with the English alphabet. Most of us would find such an exercise impossible.

So this is a clever means of writing and would require great intelligence and literary skill. Yet why were these poems written in such a way?

i. Such a method of writing was a strong aid to memory. These messages would be easier to recall because of the way they were written.

ii. Such an alphabetical arrangement would indicate the awful extent of Israel’s sin. They had, as it were, sinned from aleph to tau or as we might say in English from A to Z. This was total sinfulness with no sin not indulged and no law of God left unbroken.

iii. It might also imply that the law of God has total application and should affect all parts of a person’s life. It should command a man’s whole attention and desire. There should be no place in our lives which is not under the control and authority of Christ.

Each poem, except the last, deals with the sad ruined condition of the city. Also included is a justification for God to deal so drastically and so sternly with His people. This was discipline of the highest order. Each poem ends with a prayer, except poem number four, but that is remedied by the fact that poem number five is all prayer. Let me quote from Mears, ‘It is not all sorrow. Above the clouds of the poet’s weeping over the sins of his people, God’s sun is shining. In Lamentations 3.22-27, the light beats through to throw a shining rainbow across the murky sky.’ The IVF Bible Commentary says, ‘The soul weighed down by God’s judgements, is nevertheless confident of His unconquerable mercy.’

So the keynotes in the book of Lamentations are:

i. The doom of the present and the hope of the future.

ii. An ‘instructive insight into the inner life of the circles faithful to God after national collapse.’ (Wiersbe).

We notice that Jeremiah did not desert the people but continued to discharge his prophetic office and duty. He opened the door for prayer to God so that the people in their extremities might venture to flee to God for mercy. Jeremiah closely identifies with the sufferings of the people, so closely that he recounts their sufferings as if they were his own.

Someone has written, ‘the touching significance of this book lies in the fact that it is the disclosure of the love and sorrow of Jehovah for the very people He is chastening – a sorrow wrought by the Spirit in the heart of Jeremiah.’ The book also contains Messianic portions and in a number of instances we have direct and clear references to our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter One: in this chapter we see Jerusalem pictured as a widow, weeping for the loss of her children. She has no one to comfort her and that fact is mentioned four times (v.2, v.9, v.17, v.21) and she has no rest (v.3).

Chapter Two: in this chapter the siege of Jerusalem is vividly portrayed and there is a strong focus upon God who has inflicted such desolation on the inhabitants of the city. Yet there is a realisation that only the hand, ‘that has wounded them can make them whole again.’

Chapter Three: in this central and longest chapter of the book we read of the awfulness of God’s displeasure, but consolation is drawn from His unchanging character. The people are called to self-examination and repentance.

Chapter Four: in this chapter the horrors of siege are outlined in stark, realistic dreadfulness and Zion’s former splendour is contrasted with the humiliations of the city’s present downfall and destruction.

Chapter Five: in the final chapter there is one long, earnest appeal to God to remember His people. So the book ends with the longing that God would restore His people to their former glory, their former home and most importantly of all to their former relationship with Himself.

Lamentations is a desperate description of desolation where the only course of action left to the people is to trust God in the dreadful darkness of their present condition. There is no other course of action. So it is a warning to us that God hates sin and will punish sinners but in His great mercy God will deliver those who trust Him. As those who know Christ as Saviour, and who know His glorious deliverance, let us say in the words of the writer of Lamentations, "great is your faithfulness" (3.23) and "the Lord is good" (3.25). These are expressions of wonderful assurance for the true Christian and so we praise God today for His mercies which are new every morning.

End thought: The Lord has a golden sceptre and an iron rod. Those who will not bow to the one shall be broken by the other. (Thomas Watson)

Chapter 1

The City and the Sanctuary

It is in mercy and in measure that God chastiseth his children. (John Trapp)

Lamentations 1.1-7

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. 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. Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting-place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly. 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. From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hands of the foe, and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her, they mocked at her downfall.

Today we are familiar with images of devastated cities, with destroyed buildings, rubble in the streets and hopeless despair etched upon the faces of the distraught inhabitants. We have seen such pictures of cities on old World War II film footage and on our televisions screens after terrible disasters such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. In California there has been the devastation caused by raging fires that ran out of control and one ninety year old man was so distressed when he saw his home go up in smoke that he collapsed and died. In a similar way Jeremiah looked upon his home city of Jerusalem, which was ransacked, destroyed and largely deserted, and wept. He then sat down and wrote this great book of Lamentations and clearly sorrow filled his heart as the words flowed from his pen.

In these opening verses he compared the city with a widow, bereft of her husband and children, who feels utterly humiliated, abandoned and destitute. There was no one around to offer any sort of comfort as the second verse says, "she has none to comfort her" and that terrible fact is highlighted again in verses 9, 17 & 21. It was a deeply sorrowful state of affairs and it was the Lord’s doing as v.5 makes clear, "The Lord has brought her grief because of her many sins." So this was God’s discipline and punishment upon a nation that had abandoned Him and turned to idolatry with all its evil practices. This is a clear warning for us today not to abandon God for the material idols of the day.

The City (v.1-3)

These three verses have been called the opening words of this ‘political funeral song’. (Genkel). Yet the depth of feeling is deeper even than a funeral. It is in these verses that the theme of the book is established and that theme is that a calamity of the highest order has overtaken the Southern Kingdom of Judah and its exalted capital city of Jerusalem. The book commences with the word "How" and is used a number of times in Lamentations and this is for two very good reasons.

i. It is the characteristic Hebrew expression for lamentation.

ii. This is not the ‘how’ of questioning but of surprise and agony as in ‘how terrible’ or ‘how awful’. We must notice that there is no question mark at the end of the sentence but an exclamation mark which supports the notion that the prophet is not asking a question. Jeremiah can only wonder how such a sorry and sad state of affairs could be inflicted upon his beloved city of Jerusalem, the city of God.

The city is