Jerusalem Calls On The World To Behold Her Pitiable State (Lamentations 1:12-19).
(Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Behold, and see,
If there be any sorrow like to my sorrow,
Which is brought upon me,
With which YHWH has afflicted,
In the day of his fierce anger.
In words that have moved the hearts of people in many generations Jerusalem calls on the world to pause as they pass by the ruined city and behold her sorrows and afflictions. And then he explains their cause. They are due to the fact that YHWH has afflicted them because He is severely angry with them. YHWH's anger is not of course to be seen as like our anger. It is rather descriptive of His antipathy to sin, and His reaction against it. God's holiness results in God's wrath against sin. Note that this was ‘the day of His fierce anger', one of many ‘days of YHWH'.
The words remind us of Another Who hung on a cross as our representative and substitute, bearing for us the wrath of God against sin. He too could say to those who passed by, ‘Is it nothing to you all you who pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow -- with which God has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.' It reminds us that we can be spared the wrath of God because He bore it in our place, being made sin for us, and taking on Himself ‘the wrath of God' (the necessity in God, because of what He is, to justly punish sin).
(Mem) From on high has he sent fire into my bones,
And it prevails against them,
He has spread a net for my feet,
He has turned me back,
He has made me desolate,
And faint all the day.
Jerusalem then speaks of three ways in which YHWH has dealt with her:
· He has sent the destructive fire that had come from on high which has burned her to her very bones. That fire was figurative, descriptive of God's wrath, but it resulted in real fires as the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, systematically burning it.
· He has ensnared them in a net spread in order to catch their feet in it. Note the implication that YHWH had intended to ensnare them, it was, however, only because they were walking in rejection of Him. And in the end it was an act of love, for He intended to restore them if and when they repented and came back to Him. The ‘turning back' may refer to the hunter's ploy by which he ensures that his trap is filled, turning the frightened animals back so that they are caught in his net. In other words Jerusalem was like an animal driven towards a trap, caught in the snare and awaiting its fate.
· He has made them desolate and faint. The idea is of the desolation of their hearts in the face of what has happened to them, and of the faintness that resulted from lack of food. All their sufferings are to be seen as at the hand of YHWH.
All this is a reminder to us that God is Light (1 John 1:5) as well as Love (1 John 4:8). Though He may bear long with us He will not allow sin unrepented of to go unpunished in the end.
We need not think that we are exempt. We too may be called on to experience His destructive fire, to be caught in His snare, and to end up in a state of desolation at what is happening to us, as many an individual has discovered, and as the church has often experienced through the centuries when it has been unfaithful to Him. Paradoxical though it may seem it is often a sign of His love. It is His way of bringing back to Himself those who are truly His, and yet have strayed for a while, and punishing those whose profession is merely formal.
(Nun) The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand,
They are knit together,
They are come up on my neck,
He has made my strength to fail,
The Lord has delivered me into their hands,
Against whom I am not able to stand.
Under the guidance of the prophets they recognise that YHWH has taken their transgressions and woven them together to make a heavy yoke on their necks, similar to the wooden yoke that oxen wore over their necks when they pulled the plough. And under that heavy yoke their strength fails, and they are not able to stand. For that heavy yoke is the victorious enemy who have come against them, against whom they have no hope. It is a cry of despair, a cry of recognition of deserved judgment, and yet it is also in the end a cry of hope. For the very reason for making this lament is the hope that God will hear and respond to their cry, as history reveals that He does. It will, however, only be through a hard and difficult path.
Note the change from ‘YHWH' to ‘the Lord (adonai)'. It is the sovereign Judge Who is now acting.
(Samek) The Lord has made as nothing,
All my mighty men (warriors) in the midst of me,
He has called a solemn gathering against me,
To crush my young men,
As in a winepress the Lord has trodden,
The virgin daughter of Judah.
‘The Sovereign Lord' continues to act. He has rendered powerless the warriors of Judah/Israel, He has made them ‘as nothing' (to be treated with contempt), by the very size and ferocity of the forces that have come against them.
The idea of ‘calling a solemn assembly' usually has worship and joy in mind. So the gathering here is seen by God as for a religious purpose. But the joy will be that of the conquerors, not of Judah. For here the religious purpose is the judgment of Jerusalem. It is seeing what happens as something which has religious intent and contributes to the praise of YHWH, because Judah/Israel are getting their deserts.
All who read these words would be familiar with the pits in which the grapes were placed and then trodden down by the workforce until they were squeezed dry of all their juice which would be channelled off and collected in wineskins. Here the winepress is the Lord's, and the treaders are the Babylonians, whilst the squeezed grapes are the Judeans. The blood-red juice was a solemn reminder of the blood that had run so freely in the streets of Jerusalem. Compare the vivid picture in Isaiah 63:1-6 speaking of God's similar judgment on Edom. See also Revelation 14:19; Revelation 19:15 where the world will experience the same.
‘The virgin daughter of Judah.' Compare Lamentations 2:13; Isaiah 47:1 (of Babylon); Jeremiah 6:2; Jeremiah 8:11; Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 14:17). The idea is of one who had once been pure, but is now helpless, and brought down to shame. The virgin has been raped.
(Ayin) For these things I weep,
My eye, my eye runs down with water,
Because the comforter who should refresh my soul,
Is far from me,
My children are desolate,
Because the enemy has prevailed.
The destruction of the Temple had been a shattering blow for Israel, and for their faith. Up to that point they had believed that YHWH's hand would protect it, that somehow He would not deal so severely with His people (compare Jeremiah 7:2-14). Now they had been proved wrong, and the ruins of the Temple indicated to them that YHWH had in a sense deserted them, that He was ‘far from them'. The One Who alone could have comforted them and refreshed their souls was no longer near. Or at least that was how it appeared to them at that moment. (In their exiles the prophets would encourage them in order to demonstrate that YHWH still had a purpose for them. But that was not how they saw it at this moment).
So ‘Jerusalem' wept copious tears, tears streaming down the faces of her people. For as they looked at the total desolation, and the victorious enemy, they were aware that they had no one to turn to. The repetition of ‘my eye' emphasises the point. They felt utterly forsaken.
Many of us experience times in our lives when we feel that God has forsaken us because we cannot understand what is happening to us. For His ways are not our ways, and sometimes He leads us through the valley of thick darkness. But we should comfort ourselves with the thought that it is in the end so that we might be purified, as Israel was being purified.
(Pe) Zion spreads forth her hands,
There is none to comfort her,
YHWH has commanded concerning Jacob,
That those who are round about him should be his adversaries,
Jerusalem is among them,
As an unclean thing.
Zion is here the equivalent of Jerusalem. Here she cries out in her sad condition. The spreading forth of the hands while standing up to pray was a common method of praying. Thus here Jerusalem is depicted as calling on God to hear her in her distress. But it appears to her to be in vain. No one acts on her behalf. No one comforts her. The One Who would have been her Comforter has turned against her because of her many sins, and even her erstwhile allies have become her enemies because they now see her as ‘unclean', deserted by the gods and by men. And Jerusalem recognises that this also is due to the hand of YHWH. It is He Who has commanded it. Here people have been brought to a full stop in order that they may face up to how much they have offended God.
There is a reminder to us here that if our trust is in the world it will always let us down in the end. And a reminder that we should treat our sin more seriously.
(Tsade) YHWH is righteous,
For I have rebelled against his commandment,
Hear, I pray you, all you peoples,
And behold my sorrow,
My virgins and my young men,
Are gone into captivity.
Jerusalem acknowledges the fact that what has happened has not called into question the righteousness of YHWH. Rather it has underlined it. For it has happened precisely because her people had rebelled against the commandments of the Righteous One. This was initially, of course, the prophet's viewpoint speaking on behalf of Jerusalem, but it would gradually become a part of the thinking of the whole people as a result of the prophetic endeavours, and this lament.
Then Jerusalem calls on ‘all you peoples' to behold her sorrow, in that the prime of her youth, her virgins and young men, have gone into captivity.
For ‘YHWH is Righteous' compare 2 Chronicles 12:6; Isaiah 24:16 (translated ‘glory to the Righteous One'); Jeremiah 12:1. Note the return to ‘YHWH' rather than ‘Lord'. They are recognising that He is their covenant God against Whom they have rebelled.
(Qoph) I called for my lovers,
They deceived me,
My priests and my elders,
Yielded up the spirit in the city,
While they sought food for themselves,
To refresh their own beings.
Jerusalem admits that she has been failed by both her allies, and by her own leadership. Her ‘lovers' are those that she has cosied up to among the neighbouring countries. But when called on to fulfil their promises they had deceived her. Egypt, for example, on whom she had greatly relied, had made great promises, but had been unable to live up to them). And in some cases her neighbours had rather assisted her enemies (although sometimes having no alternative). Meanwhile her own leadership, the priests and elders (secular statesmen) whom she had looked up to, and on whom she had depended, had given up any effort to help the people because they had been too involved in their own self-preservation. Indeed many of them had actually perished as they searched for food.