The very word “Lamentations” comes from the word “lament”
which means to mourn or grieve.
Unfortunately, grief is a part of life.
Only a very few escape grief throughout their entire lives. In fact I would say that only those whose lives have been shortened would be able to avoid this awful emotion we call grief. This book is devoted entirely to grief and
ways to express it. The cause of the
grief expressed in Lamentations is the fall of the once great nation of Judah
and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Added to that is the captivity, at which time
almost all the citizens of Judah were taken off to be slaves in the far-away
land of Babylon.
Traditional among theologians is the acceptance of Jeremiah as
having authored the entire book. It
makes sense that this “weeping prophet” would have had the mindset to express
such thoughts on paper. Also, we know
that Jeremiah lived through the captivity and the sad events leading up to
it. Only an eye witness to all of these
events would be able to document them with such detail and emotion.
I have mentioned before that I’m not “wired” in such a way
to be a lover of poetry. However, I
understand its value. The book of
Lamentations is one of the more lengthy poems in the Bible. It is unique in that it is written entirely in poetry
form. We have discussed back in the Book
of Psalms what an acrostic poem is.
{It’s a poem using all of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet in proper
sequence.} The Hebrew alphabet has twenty-two
letters, therefore each chapter contains twenty-two verses (except chapter 3,
which contains twenty-six verses. I
cannot explain that). Lamentations was
written around 600 BC. During this
particular time period, the acrostic poetry form of writing was used to express
completeness which is why all letters of the alphabet was used. Also, using this form of poetry, the content
was easier to memorize.
This is not a long book and it is interesting (howbeit
somewhat depressing) to read in one sitting.
Not many sermons are preached out of this book, although perhaps there
should be, considering my opening paragraph.
Chapter 1 - Jerusalem
When Jeremiah was first called as God’s spokesman about
forty years ago, Jerusalem was a thriving city, full of life. It was during Josiah’s reign and Josiah was instituting
reform in Judah which brought the city to an even livelier place. And, just like all Judeans, Jeremiah was
aware of what Jerusalem was during Solomon’s reign, when it was the jewel of
the entire world. In the first chapter
Jeremiah is asking “How can this happen?”
He couldn’t express just how amazing such a transformation was as he was
describing the desolation he was witnessing.
He was very good at describing it in this chapter, giving us as the
readers a vivid picture of what it looked like.
He reflects frequently of the “old days”, referring to festivals and
commerce. There were no signs of those
things any more.
Chapter 2 - The Explanation
This chapter continues on about the desolation of Jerusalem,
then tries to explain why. We see that
God was upset with Jerusalem and has cast upon it exactly what it
deserved. Again mentioning in verse 14
that even after their captivity the citizens did not think they had ever done
anything wrong. It also speaks of
neighboring nations ridiculing Jerusalem (vss 15-16). This speaks of Jerusalem being a witness to
the world for God, but in the negative, rather than the positive sense.
Chapter 3 - Jeremiah Weeps
This chapter is the longest poem in whole book. It dedicated three verses for each Hebrew letter. In this poem Jeremiah seems to be thinking
out loud and talking mostly about himself and how he has personally been
affected. He even mentions again about
that particularly fearful time in his life when he was threatened with being
put to death (vs 25>).
Chapter 4 – Religious Leaders
This chapter seems to concentrate on the Priests and
Prophets of the two latest generations of Judeans. They were clearly at fault for being silent
about the apostasy and the iniquitous lifestyle that they actually seemed to
encourage.
Chapter 5 - Jeremiah’s Prayer
Take a moment and read this final chapter in this book. Jeremiah is praying. You can tell how knowledgeable he is about
God and How God thinks. He is simply
making an appeal to God for Him to cool His anger. But I find it interesting that Jeremiah is
stating his prayer in such a way that he is less than confident that it will
make much difference. {Remember,
Jeremiah knows that God has already sentenced Israel to seventy years of
captivity.
This singe post begins and concludes our study of
Lamentations. I like Jeremiah and have
enjoyed learning a bit more about him.
In the next post we will begin the Book of Ezekiel.
