EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(ה) Lamentations 1:5. Her adversaries are become the head, as was threatened if unfaithful to the Lord (Deuteronomy 28:44); her enemies prosper, are in peace, and rest secure, knowing that all resistance is over, so completely has she been crushed. This was brought about not by their might, but because Jehovah has afflicted her for the greatness of her transgressions; and the sufferings befall the most innocent also; her young children have gone captives, the most ominous of all her disasters, driven like a band of the enslaved in Africa, before the adversary.
(ו) Lamentations 1:6. She has not only been harried of her most precious and tender charges, also from the daughter of Zion is departed all her beauty. God Himself, whose Shechinah made Zion the perfection of beauty, no longer shined there; no longer was there a worship of Him in the beauty of holiness, and even her princes are become like harts that do not find pasture; enfeebled by the scanty diet of the close siege, they have lost vigour, and go without strength when chased before the pursuer, so as to be easily caught. This is in evident allusion to the flight and capture of the King and his men of war, within a few miles from Jerusalem, when it was besieged by the Chaldean army (2 Kings 25:3-5).
(ז) Lamentations 1:7. Again a change of aspect is presented. Already the city ruined, the people exiled, the holy mountain desecrated have been regarded. Now the poet gives the name of the city, which he shrank from pronouncing before, and uses it as a generic, all-embracing term, Jerusalem remembers, adding an item of pungency to her deep sufferings, in the days of her affliction and—a probable meaning of the following word is wanderings, as in margin of Revised Version here. In chap. Lamentations 3:19, where the same word is again employed, the margin gives outcast state as a fresh rendering. That of the Speaker’s Commentary is to be preferred—homelessness, describing the state of the Jews cast out of their homes and driven into banishment; all her pleasant things which were from the days of old. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. “Sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.” When her people fell into the band of the adversary, and there is no helper to her; the adversaries see her, they sneer at her cessations (desolations in Revised Version). This last Hebrew word occurs only here. Its root means to cease, and so this derivative is applied, as by Plumptre, to “the enforced Sabbaths of untitled land, and the Sabbaths conspicuous for the absence of any religious rites.” This seems far-fetched, except as to the latter part, and this should be considered as but a portion of the Jewish customs which had been discontinued. If Romans derided the Jews for cessation from work on the seventh day of the week, Babylonians would not. They may have mocked at the faith of Israel in the supremacy of Jehovah, seeing they regarded Him as a subjugated national deity; but “it was no subject of wonder to the Babylonians that the Jews celebrated a weekly day of rest, as they had one of their own (sabbatu)”—(Cheyne).
HOMILETICS
THE TANTALISING INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENEMIES OF THE CHURCH
I. They contentedly enjoy the fruits of their conquest. “Her adversaries are the chief; her enemies prosper.” Her foes have become her masters; her enemies enjoy quiet prosperity—Geikie (Lamentations 1:5). Judea has become so utterly crushed that her conquerors revel in their spoils without fear of resistance, or any attempt at reprisals on the part of the vanquished. If we allow our vices to become our masters, we have the chagrin of seeing them rioting in indulgence while we are powerless to interpose.
II. They have no concern to know the cause of the Church’s calamities. “For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions” (Lamentations 1:5). What of that? It is no concern of theirs to pry into moral causes. The invaders wish to strike a blow at imperious Egypt. Judah stands in the way, and, becoming troublesome, must be crushed. They knew not, nor did they care to know, that they were but instruments in the hands of a Higher Power to punish a nation for its sins. It was brought home to Judah that her disasters were provoked by her manifold transgressions, and it was an aggravation of her sufferings that her enemies were utterly regardless and apparently ignorant of all this. Had they understood it, they might have shown more pity.
III. They are indifferent to the sufferings they inflict. “Her children are gone into captivity. Her princes have become like harts … without strength before the pursuer” (Lamentations 1:5-6). The young children are driven before the adversary, not as a flock of lambs which follow the shepherd, but for sale as slaves. The princes are hunted down to exhaustion. In the ancient sculptures nothing is more affecting than the mournful processions so often depicted of tender women and young children driven in gangs as captives before their heartless conquerors. In olden times the treatment of prisoners of war was characterised by the most brutal cruelty. They were regarded as an encumbrance, and were often butchered wholesale to save further trouble. They were subjected to degradations from which death would have been a merciful relief.
IV. They make no allowance for the feelings of the conquered regarding their losses. “From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. Jerusalem remembered all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old” (Lamentations 1:6-7). In the midst of her distress Jerusalem remembered the happiness of former days, when the Temple stood out in all the beauty of its architecture, and as the symbol of holiest worship; when the throne was the centre of imperial power and magnificence; when the land was prosperous, and the people united and content. Now the Temple is shattered past recognition, the most distinguished citizens are in exile, the land is desolate, and the people plunged in misery. But all this is nothing to her enemies; they heed not what their victims have lost; they are more interested in what their conquests have gained.
V. They make sport of the Church’s utter discomfiture. “The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her Sabbaths,” her calamities, her ruined circumstances (Geikie; Henderson). The more literal meaning is her Sabbatisms. Foreigners ridiculed the custom of the Jews in ceasing from labour every seventh day, and attributed their ruin to what appeared to them a strange, fanatical practice. Oh, had those Sabbaths been as faithfully observed in spirit as they were in form, how different would have been the career of Judah! The Church is familiar with the scoffs of unbelievers. While she is true to God, they are powerless to harm. It is when she is conscious of unfaithfulness that they begin to irritate.
LESSONS.—
1. It is a hard time for the Church when her enemies triumph.
2. God is the refuge of the Church in time of trouble. He is never indifferent to her sufferings.
3. The Church should learn to make the best of prosperous times.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lamentations 1:5. “Her adversaries are the chief; her enemies prosper.” New masters:
1. Soon make evident their newly-acquired superiority.
2. Rule with severity when actuated by a spirit of enmity.
3. Enjoy without compunction the prosperity secured by the ruin of others.
—“The Lord afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions.” Sin:
1. Is a transgression of the law of God.
2. Has a tendency to multiply itself.
3. Is a prolific source of trouble.
4. Is punished by the Being against whom it is committed.
Lamentations 1:5-6. National disaster. I. Involves the suffering of innocent children. “Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy” (Lamentations 1:5). II. Quenches the splendour of its reputation. “From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed” (Lamentations 1:6). III. Degrades and harasses its most illustrious rulers. “Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer” (Lamentations 1:6).
Lamentations 1:7. Sad memories.
1. When contrasting present miseries with former joys.
2. When reflecting on the suddenness and completeness of our calamities.
3. When mingled with the heartless mockery of the authors of our misfortunes.
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Lessons from the world’s treatment. Three men are my friends, He that loves me, he that hates me, and he that is indifferent to me. Who loves me teaches me tenderness; who hates me teaches me caution; who is indifferent to me teaches me self-reliance.
Loose talk leads to loose conduct. Indulgence in verbal vices soon encourages corresponding vices in conduct. Let any one talk about any mean or vile practice with familiar tone, and do you suppose, when the opportunity occurs for committing the mean or vile act, he will be as strong against it as before? It is by no means an unknown thing that men of correct lives talk themselves into sensuality, crime, and perdition. Bad language easily runs into bad deeds. Select any iniquity you please, suffer yourself to converse in its dialect, to use its slang, to speak in the character of one who relishes it, and I need not tell you how soon your moral sense will lower down to its level. Becoming intimate with it, you lose your horror of it. To be too much with bad men and in bad places is not only unwholesome to man’s morality, but unfavourable to his faith and trust in God. It is not every man who could live as Lot did in Sodom, and then be fit to go out of it under God’s convoy.—The Christian Commonwealth.
New masters: Tyranny not permanent. By the volcanic eruption among the Tonga group in 1885, a new island was formed. When it was visited a few years after, the soil below the surface was still hot, the temperature at a depth of seven feet being 100° Fahr., while at the surface it was only 74°. With the exception of two young cocoa-nut trees, which seemed not very hardy, there was no vegetation but a few bunches of grass, and a moth and small sandpiper constituted the animal population. It is thought the island will disappear in a few years, as the waves are rapidly wearing the shore-line away. Such has been the history of many a vaunted human tyranny. Its policy was inaugurated with noise and heat, and threatened to revolutionise the existing order. But when it had spent its force and cooled down, it revealed its barrenness, and, worn away with the ever-active waves of time, it at length disappeared.—The Scottish Pulpit.
Sin a poison. What poison one fang of the old serpent will throw into our moral system! Look around and see how many have been poisoned with the desire for strong drink, with lust, with avarice, with pride, with anger, with unbelief. Fiery serpents are among us, and many die of their venom. If we tolerate the least sin, it is a burning drop in the veins of the soul. One touch of the fangs of this serpent will work immeasurable sorrow, even if the soul be saved from death. It is only the power of God that keeps us from being destroyed by this viper. Had he his will, he is a spirit so malignant that no heir of heaven would survive. O God, keep Thine own! Deliver us from the evil one!—C. H. Spurgeon.
Sin defies law. A woman named Guerin, in a rage of jealousy, murdered her unfaithful husband. Going to a villa where she learnt he was living with another woman, she stood at the door and called his name. Hearing her voice, he went out to speak to her, and had scarcely crossed the threshold when she stabbed him in the abdomen. He staggered back into the house, and after a few minutes crawled to the window and said in a feeble voice, “Kiss our child, for all is over.” The recital of this incident in the court in Paris, told as a woman could tell it, and she a principal actor in the scene, and the evidence adduced that Madame Guerin had borne an irreproachable character and was an excellent mother, so moved the jury that they acquitted her without a moment’s hesitation, amid a storm of applause from the public in court. A gush of sentiment disarmed the rigour of the law and choked the voice of vengeance. One wrong does not justify another. But sin defies law and justice, and spreads confusion wherever it reigns.—The Scottish Pulpit.
Avoid the example of the bad. I would desire all young men often to remember the saying of Lactantius, “He who imitates the bad cannot be good.” Young men, in these professing times, stand between good and bad examples, as Hercules in his dream stood between virtue and vice, solicited by both. Choose you must who to follow. Oh, that you were all so wise as to follow the best! Life, heaven, happiness, eternity, hang upon it.
Sad memories. A small boat was picked up one morning on the north shore at Troon. It had the appearance of having broken away from a vessel during a great gale in the Clyde. It is a dangerous moment when a young man breaks away from the happy associations of his early life, whether in church or home. Chafing under restraint, he plunges heedlessly into the wide world in search of a larger liberty. Unaccustomed to self-control, he is swayed by every varying current, drifts out to sea, and is ultimately picked up a partial wreck on some far-off shore. Then it is that he is tormented with painful memories; he sees his folly, and laments his reckless severance from the moral restrictions of a happier time. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”—The Scottish Pulpit.
Memory and music. Music touches every key of memory, and stirs all the hidden springs of sorrow and joy. We love it for what it makes us forget, and for what it makes us remember.
Beware of melancholy. Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach. A lady was once given two-and-twenty recipes against melancholy. One was a bright fire, another to remember all the pleasant things said to her, another to keep a box of plums on the mantelpiece and a kettle simmering on the hob. She thought this mere trifling at the moment, but did in after life discover how true it is that these little pleasures often banish melancholy better than higher and more exalted objects, and that no means ought to be thought too trifling which can oppose it either in ourselves or others.