EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(ש) Lamentations 4:21. The children of Edom had exulted over the destruction of Jerusalem, and urgently culled for its completeness. They said, Rase it, rate it, even to the foundations thereof (Psalms 137:7). Now they are addressed in bitter irony, Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, take a full measure of your malicious joy, but with all that your triumphing will be short; you cannot escape pungent woes, however extended your territory may be, that dwellest in the land of Uz, a district of country bordering on Edom’s land, and which seems to have been overrun by Edomites. To thee also shall the cup pass, the cup of the wine of the wrath of God which is mingled in His anger.
The strong feelings of indignation, which were almost hereditary among the Israelites, against the Edomites, may be partly accounted for from the idea that variance with one’s own kith and kin is often expressed by more bitter terms than variance with strangers, and partly by the consciousness which Israel had of its spiritual calling which the “profane” nature of Esau’s descendants tended to render inoperative.
(ת) Lamentations 4:22. No hint marks the transition from the grim scenes of calamity in which the Jews had been involved to this glimpse of light and renewal. The abruptness must be due to the conviction that, as Israel is the people with whom Jehovah has entered into covenant, all cannot be over with them, however they are pressed down by adversity. If they forsake Him, they will be chastised till they acknowledge and repent of their apostasy. Then He will have pity fur His name’s sake. Punishment will come to a termination; Ended is thine iniquity, daughter of Zion. The consequences following an evil procedure would, as it were, drain to the dregs the cup of wrath and grace would begin to appear. “A Messianic hope” is created, He will no more carry thee into captivity, by the Chaldeans, at any rate. This promise is dependent for its fulfilment upon the righteous state of Israel. Avoiding the sins which had brought the present term of punishment, they would not be subjected to such punishment again. The exiles who returned from Babylon were greatly purified and elevated by the trials which had been passed through, and if there had been due progress in spiritual things, as the prophet Malachi declares there was not, no further casting out of the land of promise would have taken place. But they crucified the Lord of glory. Their house is left unto them desolate, and they are scattered over the earth till they turn again to the Lord. The allotment to Edom is a contrast; He visits thine iniquities, daughter of Edom; He discovers thy sins. He sees they are persisted in, and shame and woe follow the exposure. “God covers sin when He forgives it (Psalms 32:1-5). He discovers or reveals it when He punishes it” (Job 20:27). The safety of God’s people connotes the destruction of His enemies (Revelation 19:20).
HOMILETICS
THE FATE OF THE MALEVOLENT
I. Their malicious joy over the unfortunate is brief. “Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom” (Lamentations 4:21). Edom, though related to Judah, was her most relentless enemy. It was the enmity of inveterate envy. Judah had outdistanced Edom, and rose to superior greatness and power. This was the offence Edom could never forgive. She watched the downfall of Judah with a savage delight, and when the catastrophe came, which she did her best to accelerate, she gloated over it with a fiendish joy (Psalms 137:7; Jeremiah 49:7-22). The prophet now ironically calls upon Edom to take her fill of her unnatural merriment, for it would soon be silenced and changed into a song with a different tune. Having made common cause with the enemies of God’s people and become their aiders and abettors in oppression, Edom must share in the calamities that overwhelmed them. Edom is the type of the enemies of the Church in all ages, who, instigated with “envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,” exult in the misfortunes of God’s people. What a revelation is this of the possible wickedness of the human heart! Well might Vianny write, “The heart of the wicked swarms with sins like an anthill with ants. It is like a piece of bad meat—full of worms.” But the triumph of the morally bad is short.
II. They will be certainly punished for their wickedness.
1. It will be a punishment involving suffering and disgrace. “The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked” (Lamentations 4:21). “Thou, too, shalt be drunk with the shame of ruin: thou, too, shalt expose thyself to contempt.”—Geikie. The wine-cup of the Divine wrath will by-and-bye be placed in the hands of His enemies, and they must drink it—drink it till they are infatuated with the intoxicating draught, and commit follies and sins that sink them into utter contempt. Now they know something of the bitterness of the suffering over which they had gloated when others were the victims.
2. It will be a righteous punishment. “He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will discover thy sins” (Lamentations 4:22). To uncover and expose sins is equivalent to punishing them. Edom was punished not arbitrarily and from caprice, but because of her iniquity. The Divine chastisements are in harmony with the law of universal righteousness. God knows exactly the time and the measure of punishment. The cup of His wrath is not passed on to either individual or nation until it is full. The wicked cannot escape.
III. Their punishment will be intensified by the deliverance of the people whose miseries they ridiculed. “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion: He will no more carry thee away into captivity” (Lamentations 4:22). Judah shall not be exiled again for the iniquity, the guilt of which is now expiated. It would be unjust to punish twice for the same offence. She has borne the punishment: it is finished; and she is now free—free to enter upon a course of obedience which will secure promised blessing. The tables are now turned. Judah is free: Edom is the sufferer; and it adds sharpness to the thorns that now distress her to know that her hated rival is delivered and is again in the ascendant. Envy gives the soul no rest, and deteriorates its capacity for nobler feelings.
“The cankering rust corrodes the brightest steel;
The moth frets out your garment, and the worm
Eats its slow way into the solid oak:
But Envy, of all evil things the worst,
The same to-day, to-morrow, and for ever,
Saps and consumes the heart in which it works.”—Cumberland.
We should be careful not to exult over the miseries of others, as we know not how soon we may be in the same plight, and the memory of our inhuman conduct will increase our own suffering.
LESSONS.—
1. Only the wilfully malicious can rejoice over the distresses of others.
2. Inveterate wickedness is sure to receive its just recompense.
3. Punishment is concerned only with the guilt already incurred.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lamentations 4:21-22. Two kinds of joy. I. The joy of the envious. “Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom” (Lamentations 4:21).
1. Is full of malice.
2. Is cruel.
3. Is unreal—the dry chuckle of the scornful. II. The joy of the free. “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion” (Lamentations 4:22).
1. Indicates relief from suffering.
2. Despair has given place to hope.
3. Has the ring of grateful reality.
Punishment. I. Discovers and exposes sin. “He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will discover thy sins” (Lamentations 4:22). II. Stupifies and degrades the victim with the contents of its mingled cup. “Thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked” (Lamentations 4:21). III. Is sure to overtake the transgressor. “The cup also shall pass through unto thee” (Lamentations 4:21). IV. Does not cease till its mission is fulfilled. “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion” (Lamentations 4:22).
Lamentations 4:22. A message from God to thee. I. Our first message is one of comfort.
1. A joyous fact. “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished.” Christ hath for His people borne all the punishment which they deserved.
2. To whom this message is sent. To the sinner conscious of his sin.
3. A precious promise. “I will no more carry thee away into captivity.” Thou art in captivity now, sorrowing on account of sin; but it is the last thou shalt ever have. In the world to come there is no captivity for thee. II. A burden of woe. “He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom.”
1. The daughter of Edom dwelt carelessly in the land of Uz, as if secure from danger.
2. Made merriment over the sorrows of others.
3. Cherished a vain hope, a self-sufficient confidence.
4. Was very proud. III. Why are there these different messages?
1. The reason of the message of mercy is sovereign.
2. Of the message of woe, Divine justice. IV. What claim have these messages on our faith? To be devoutly believed, because both messages are plainly revealed in the Word of God.—C. H. Spurgeon.
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Malice.
“For malice will with joy the lie receive,
Report, and what it wishes true, believe.”
—Yalden.
Reproof of malice. St. Augustine is said to have had these two lines inscribed on his table to remind his guests of his wishes—
“Whoever loves an absent friend to jeer,
May hence depart, no room is for him here.”
A malevolent tongue. The tongue of the slanderer is a devouring fire, which tarnishes everything it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain equally as on the chaff, on the profane as well as on the sacred; which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys.—Massillon.
Wickedness. There have been men splendidly wicked whose endowments threw a brightness on their crimes, and whom scarce any villainy made perfectly detestable, because they never could be wholly divested of their excellences; but such have been in all ages the corrupters of the world, and their resemblance ought no more to be preserved than the art of murdering without pain.
—I have seen men who, I thought, ought to have a whole conversion for each one of their faculties. Their natures were so unmitigatedly wicked that it cost more for them to be decent than for other men to be saints.—Beecher.
Sin will find yon out. Men’s sins often find them out, though no visible sign or token may betray this fact to the world. All may outwardly stand fair; there may be no breach in the worldly prosperity; nay, this may be ampler, more strongly established than ever; while yet there may be that within which forbids to rejoice, which takes all the joy and gladness out of life—the memory of that sin which was nothing when committed, but which now darkens all—the deadly arrow poisoning the springs of life, which will not drop from the side, which no force, no art of man’s device can withdraw. To such Dr. Trench’s advice is, to turn the tables on our sins, to find them out, and to take them all to God to be condemned, pardoned, and subdued; “condemned by Thy righteous judgments, O Father; pardoned by the precious blood of Thy dear Son, and subdued by the mighty operation of the Holy Ghost.” This is the good, old-fashioned preaching of Apostles and preachers of the very oldest times.
The downward career of evil. In the Rabbinical books of the Jews they have a curious tradition about the growth of leprosy, that it began with the walls of a man’s house; then, if he did not repent, entered his garments, till at last the disease covered his whole body. And thus it is with the growth of sin. It begins with neglect of duty; it may be of prayer, or the warning voice of conscience is unheeded. Habits of sin are formed, till at last the soul that lets God alone is let alone by God.—Pilkington.