Lamentations

Lamentations

Introduction

The book of Lamentations is a short collection of poetry written after the fall of Judah, lamenting the state of the portion of the nation remained in the land after the fall. The authorship of Lamentations is unknown. It has been attributed to Jeremiah, but there is no early evidence to support such authorship. If it were written by Jeremiah, it would have to be entirely prophetic, as he did not remain in the land of Judah, but went with other refugees to Egypt (Jeremiah 43:5-7).

The poems are all alphabetic poems, according to the Hebrew alphabet. Each chapter has twenty-two verses (except Chapter 3, which has sixty-six) because, in the original Hebrew, each line begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In chapters 2 and 4, the ascending order is slightly confused, in that P comes before O. Whether this is the work of the original author or is due to some later rearrangement of the text, we do not know. Chapter 3 is three times as long because in it each letter of the alphabet gets three consecutive verses. All of this is quite lost in translation for us, but the highly structured, formulaic feel is still available.

The Lord Is in the Right

Chapter 1 eloquently describes the situation for the remnant in Judah. In verses 1-5 it tells of the fallen glory of the city and of the suffering of the people. Further, these verses explain that, though the people are in the wrong, their situation is due to the actions o the Lord. This line of thinking is reiterated in verses 18-22, where the author clearly states that the Lord is in the right. However, to attribute the downfall completely to the actions of the Lord is to ignore the fact that the people repeatedly did what they should not have done and did not do what they should have.

We know from reading Job, for example, that bad things happen to people for reasons we cannot explain. We know from reading about the life of Jeremiah or the life of Christ that people sometimes put themselves at risk in order to serve the will of the Lord. The story of Israel and Judah of is a story of people who continually made bad choices and eventually paid for their own mistakes. It is a story that tells us that there is Right and Wrong, and our actions do make a difference. In this first lamentation, the author seems to have come far enough to realize just that, but perhaps nothing more.

Who Can Heal You?

The suggestion that the Lord is completely to blame for the situation is even stronger in Chapter 2, where in verses 1-5 the Lord is described as acting with fierce anger, and more than once as acting as an enemy. Throughout the chapter the Lord is described as the aggressor, and the fault of the people is not mentioned. In verse 13, the poet suggests, in the same vein as the old spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”, that there is no suffering to compare to that of the people of Judah, and asks who can heal them.

There is a sense, of course, in which this is just self-centered wallowing. We know from the latter chapters of Jeremiah that God was bringing judgment not only on Israel and Judah, but on all the nations. (See also Jeremiah 25: 27-29) There is a sense in which it was accurate, however. We are all individuals, and our problems are our own. And, we all sometimes feel the need to rail at the Lord and fall further into self-pity rather than appealing to the Lord for help. The Lord is a big God and can easily withstand our self-centered lamentations, but it is not the encounter that God desires, because it is not the encounter that changes our lives.

Why?

Skipping, for the moment, to Chapter 4, we see the astonishment of the people that such things could happen to them, the chosen people of the Lord. Verse 12 says no one on earth expected Jerusalem to fall, and verse 20 says they believed they had the protection of the Lord’s anointed king. Behind this chapter is the unasked question of “why?” Even though the people will admit to their sin or, in this chapter, to the sin of their prophets and priests, there is still the question of why a loving God would treat them so unmercifully.

The question continues in Chapter 5, which begins in verse 1 asking the Lord to remember what has happened to the people. The following verses are another litany of their fallen state. In verses 19-22, the poet asks why, when the Lord has power over all things, they still suffer. The book of Lamentations ends with the awful hypothesis that the Lord has become so angry as to reject them forever.

Hope

While this is a dramatic ending for the book of Lamentations, it is not the final word. No matter how desperate our situation may seem there is always hope. Though we may never know the why of our situation, because we cannot know the mind of God, the heart of God has been revealed to us, and we know that God always loves us. This thought was not lost even on the writer of Lamentations, as we see in Chapter 3, verses 19-33.

Though we may speak of “The patience of Job” and remind ourselves to wait patiently for the Lord, there is none so patient as the Lord. Sometimes we have to be patient with ourselves, that we may put aside our self-righteousness, our self-pity, our self-denial, or whatever else it is that separates us from the salvation of the Lord, which is always waiting for us.

Here Endeth the Words of Jeremiah

Here Endeth the Words of Jeremiah

Jeremiah Chapters 46-52

Concerning the Nations

The final chapters of the book of Jeremiah contain messages that the Lord gave Jeremiah concerning the nations surrounding Judah. Chapter 46 concerns Egypt, whose inexorable destruction is summarized in verses 25-28. These verses also contain a promise of rescue to the remnant of Judah in exile in Egypt. Chapter 47 is a message about the Philistines, and in verses 6 and 7 it depicts the complete inevitability of the situation: the people are up against the Lord. Chapter 48 is a lengthy message concerning the awful fate of Moab. Lest we begin to think that the God in these chapters is beginning to sound like the vengeful, angry, Old Testament God of our archetypal understanding, we should take care to understand that the Lord does not take any pleasure in the message, or in the events that will transpire. This is indicated, for example, in the lament for Moab contained in verses 36-38.

There are messages to many nations in Chapter 49: Ammon, Edom, Damascus, and others. This long list and the message in verse 12 concerning the cup is reminiscent of the passages in Chapter 25 where Jeremiah is commissioned by the Lord to deliver a cup to the nations. This commission begins in verses 15 and 16. The verses immediately following are list of the cities to which Jeremiah must deliver the cup, and they include those for which we have recorded messages in the later chapters. In verses 27-29, the Lord speaks of the inevitability of the cup, and of a sword that is coming for all who live on the earth. In verses 30 and 31, it is clear that the sword is a sword of judgment.

In our study of chapter 25, we discussed the fact that the cup was also the symbol for salvation, and that by rejecting salvation, the people brought judgment upon themselves. God is not only the God of Israel and Judah, but of all people. It is easy to say that these neighboring nations were punished because they acted against Israel and Judah, and there may be some degree to which that is true. More than that, they were people unto themselves; God had plans for them, and they rejected those plans. Israel faired no better in her struggle against the will of the Lord, and we would do no better, ourselves.

Here Endeth the Words of Jeremiah

Chapter 50 is a long message to the Babylonians, in much the same stile as the messages to the other nations. The message continues through most of Chapter 51. However, in verses 59-64 of that chapter, there is a story that tells us that Jeremiah wrote these words (or had them written) on a scroll and gave them to an official who was going into exile in Babylon, so that he could read them ceremoniously there. If we compare the lineage of this official to that of Baruch given in 32:12, it would appear that this official was Baruch’s brother.

Chapter 52 is almost a copy of 2 Kings 24:18-25:30, but it differs in some areas of detail. For example, verses 28-30 gives much smaller numbers taken into exile than the account in 2 Kings. How the account came to be placed at the end of Jeremiah and why it differs from 2 Kings are a mystery, but we can assume that its purpose is to stand as witness to the fulfillment of prophecy.

The Word of God

Jeremiah is not an easy book to read: it is repetitive, it does not respect chronology, and it speaks, from time to time, of an angry God bringing terrible judgment on the people. It is also hard to read because it speaks of a people, not unlike ourselves, who clearly deserve judgment. The people had made idols for themselves, they had tried to reduce God to the level of an idol, they had tried to depend on themselves and do without God.

The book of Jeremiah tells us that the fall of Judah came because the people turned from their God. There is a danger in founding our theology on this observation. It may lead us to believe that God will punish all those we believe deserve to be punished. This is just what Israel and Judah thought. They thought they were special because God loved them, and their enemies would be defeated. But God loves everyone, even our enemies.

It would be a mistake to focus on the fall of Judah as a nation. The greater fall came when the people broke their covenant with the Lord. If, in the fall of the nation, the Lord is depicted as an angry God, in the spiritual fall the Lord is depicted as a patient, loving, forgiving God. In this aspect, the book of Jeremiah is fascinating. It is clear that Jeremiah is not sent to offer words of condemnation, but to offer words of salvation. In the end, the book of Jeremiah is not about the people, or about their idolatry, or their punishment, but about our God, who is a God of love, always in the business of redemption.

The Lord Your God

The Lord Your God

Jeremiah Chapters 40-45

Judah, Babylon, and Egypt

The first section of Chapter 40, in verses 1-6, tells of Jeremiah being freed from captivity and offered the chance either to go to Babylon or to remain in Judah. This presentation of the story sounds somewhat different than what we read in 39:11-14. We may infer from either presentation that, just as some of Jeremiah’s fellow countrymen assumed he was a Babylonian sympathizer, the Babylonians had heard of him and his message and had assumed the same thing. In the current chapter, Jeremiah is offered a chance to come into their country under their protection. The account in the previous chapter makes no mention of this, and the setting of the encounter with Jeremiah is also different. In either case, however, Jeremiah is left under the protection of Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians have installed as the leader over Judah.

The rest of the chapter and the entirety of Chapter 41 are a more elaborate version of an account which is summarized in 2 Kings 25:22-26. Briefly, after Gedaliah was installed to govern the people, a man named Ishmael lead a revolt and assassinated Gedaliah. Ishmael’s motives are not clear, but his revolt was stopped and he escaped. Afraid of the Babylonian response to the uprising, the people made ready to escape to Egypt.

Our God

In Chapter 42, the people come to Jeremiah to ask him to enquire of the Lord regarding their flight to Egypt. The exchange of pronouns in verses 1-6 is very telling. The people begin by asking Jeremiah to consult “the Lord your God.” That is, they want Jeremiah to consult his God. Jeremiah responds, saying using the phrase translated in our Bible “the Lord your God” but of course he means the God of the people. The people then say they will do whatever “our God” tells them to do.

Jeremiah does consult the Lord, and it is interesting to note that, even for a prophet of God, the answers do not come immediately (verse 7). The answer is summarized in verses 19-22, where Jeremiah says that the people should not go to Egypt, though he knows they will.

In Chapter 43, as recorded in verses 1-7, the people respond that Jeremiah must be lying, because “our God” would not say such a thing. Jeremiah, who told the people they must go to Babylon, but stayed with them when they stayed, and told the people they must not go to Egypt, went with them when they went.

So, in Chapter 44, we find a remnant of Judah in Egypt, in much the same situation as we found the entire nation of Judah at the beginning of the book. Just as the people of Israel were to lose their faith in the one true God, and to follow after the idols of the indigenous peoples of the land, the remnant of Judah believed that they knew better than God what was good for them, and we read in verses 7-10 that they went off to Egypt and began to worship the idols of the people there.

In verses 15-18, the people respond to Jeremiah, no longer acknowledging the word of the Lord, or that Jeremiah speaks for the Lord, but simply that he speaks “in the name of the Lord.” In their response, the people completely reject the authority of the Lord, believing that they know best, and that it is best that do as they have always been taught to do.

Baruch

Chapter 45 is yet another chapter out of time with the surrounding chapters. Though we have been reading about the time following the reign of Zedekiah, this story takes place during the reign of Zedekiah’s predecessor, Jehoiakim. It is unclear exactly what has transpired. The story tells of some response from the Lord to Baruch by way of Jeremiah, but it is unclear exactly what Baruch has requested. The setting, established in the initial verses, is after Baruch had dictated the scroll for Jeremiah. We know from that story (in Chapter 36) that Jeremiah and Baruch suffered some hardship because of the scroll, and this may be the complaint that Baruch brought to the Lord.

The Lord’s response, however, seems to suggest that Baruch expected more. He had served the Lord, and expected reward. The Lord’s only promise was that Baruch would be safe.

The Lord Your God

When we try to own God – to talk about your God and our God – and how your God might do this, but my God would not do that, we try to limit God. We think we know God, and we expect God to behave a certain way, and we are angry when God behaves some other way. When we make God small enough, we have no need for God at all, and we can make our own gods, live our own lives. When we do that, we have sealed our fate. There is no worse punishment than to live without God.

We can know God, but not through our reason; it is not something we achieve. We can know God through faith, through the gift of God’s revelation to us. In this, we have something over the people of Judah. “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers by the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last few days, he has spoken to us by his Son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2a) Still, like the people of Judah, we may not always listen, and may, even now, not be what we should be. But the Lord says “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt.” (Jeremiah 31: 3b-4a)

Zedekiah’s Choice

Zedekiah’s Choice

Jeremiah Chapters 37-39

Wrongly Accused

Chapter 37 begins by briefly describing how Zedekiah came to be king. This is the sort of thing that makes Jeremiah a difficult book to keep up with, as we are used to a certain chronology in our reading which is almost completely absent in the book of Jeremiah. Previous chapters have already dealt with periods of Zedekiah’s reign, and these chapters have been interspersed with chapters concerning the reign of Jehoiakim. However, while they may be presented out of chronological order, such historical facts as there are in Jeremiah are in general agreement with 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.

From verses 1-12, we may understand the general situation. The Babylonian army had withdrawn from Judah in order to concentrate on a conflict with Egypt. As a result, Judah was experiencing a period of relative calm. There were those who believed that the Babylonians would be defeated, and they would be saved, but this was not the word the Lord gave Jeremiah.

Jeremiah attempted to take advantage of the calm period to travel to his home land to “get his share” of some property. It is not clear what this means. We have read in Chapter 32 that Jeremiah bought a field, but at the time of that story Jeremiah was imprisoned by Zedekiah. Perhaps, and this is only a guess that is consistent with what we know, the story in Chapter 32 happened later than the story in this chapter, and when Jeremiah was unable to reach his home town, his cousin came to him to complete the deal.

Whatever the reason may have been that Jeremiah was attempting to leave the city, he was prevented from reaching his destination, because he was wrongly accused of being a deserter. This accusation came from the Irijah, grandson of the prophet Hananiah. Irijah may have had a familial bone to pick with Jeremiah, and this may explain why, instead of turning him over to the king as a deserter, he threw him into a private dungeon.

King Zedekiah eventually has Jeremiah freed from the dungeon and brings him in for a private meeting. The exchange between them, which is recorded in verses 17-20, speaks to the character of both men. First, there is Jeremiah who, when asked for a word from the Lord says plainly and bluntly that the king will be handed over to the Babylonians. This is just the sort of preaching that has gotten Jeremiah in trouble, but he does not shrink from it, because he is a man of the Lord. Jeremiah goes on to ask after all the false prophets who had been telling the king that everything would be fine and nothing bad would happen. It is not a particularly good time to gloat, but Jeremiah is a proud man, and he cannot resist the temptation. Finally, Jeremiah begs the king to save him from the dungeon, where he is sure he will lose his life, because Jeremiah is after all human and, like the rest of us, does not wish to die.

Then there is King Zedekiah, who asks desperately for a word from the Lord. The word he gets is the word he has been getting all along, but Zedekiah was hoping for a different word. This conflict will continue in subsequent chapters.

Just Accusations

In the previous chapter, Jeremiah was wrongly accused of deserting to the Babylonians, but in Chapter 38 he is correctly accused of subversion. In 32:1-5, we read that Zedekiah himself had imprisoned Jeremiah because of the things he said. Imprisonment did not contain Jeremiah’s influence however, and in verses 4 and 5, some officials come to the king and argue that Jeremiah should rightly be put to death for the things he is saying against his king and country. The argument is legally correct, and the king is not in a position of such power to defend Jeremiah, so he releases Jeremiah to the officials, who throw Jeremiah into a large cistern, were Jeremiah sinks down into the mud.

A man named Ebed-Melech comes to the king and tells him that Jeremiah will die if something is not done, and the king has a change of heart and sends thirty men with Ebed-Melech to rescue Jeremiah. In verses 11-14, we read that Ebed-Melech was a very practical man, who knew what it would take to get Jeremiah out of the mud, and get him cleaned up again.

Once Jeremiah is rescued, the king has another private interview with him, to ask him again for a word from the Lord. This conversation is recorded in verses 14-28. At first, Jeremiah is reluctant to speak, both because he fears for his life, and because he knows that Zedekiah will not accept his council. The king reassures Jeremiah and we learn also that the king fears for his life if he accepts Jeremiah’s council. Jeremiah tells the king that, if he surrenders to the Babylonians, things will be well for him and for the rest of the city. If not, things will be dreadful. In the end, the king swears Jeremiah to secrecy about their conversation.

Zedekiah’s Choice

In Chapter 39, Zedekiah makes his choice. We do not know what influenced him. There may certainly have been some pride involved, but we can also easily imagine that there was pressure from the officials and others in his country not to give up to this foreign influence. At any rate, he fought as long as he could, and then attempted to flee. Though he was not killed, his end was horrible. The city he tried to defend was destroyed, the people were taken into captivity, his own sons were killed before him, and his eyes were put out.

By contrast, Ebed-Melech, who showed faith in the Lord, escaped.

Jeremiah is certainly a book of choices. In 2 Kings 24:20 we are told simply that the fall of Judah was due to the Lord’s anger. But in Jeremiah we are told on the one hand that the plight of the people is a result of their actions (4:18) but are also constantly told that forgiveness is available (for example 3:12-13).

It would be easy to say Zedekiah’s hardships were a result of his sin – his reward on earth for the choices he made. However, in order to draw such a conclusion we would have to totally overlook the life of Jeremiah, who gave up family, all social customs, went through weird pantomimes, constantly struggled with a word from the Lord that put him at odds with his own people, including the religious people of his day, and often had his very life put in danger because he followed the will of the Lord.

Jeremiah may not have been perfect, but he was a good man, trying his best to do what God would have him do. If the message of Jeremiah is that bad things will happen to you if you do not listen to the word of the Lord, how does the life of Jeremiah fit in to that message?

There are a number of sayings of Jesus which apply to this question. None of them are easy to understand. He said “I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) When we look at the life of Jesus, it becomes clear that he was not talking about an abundance of things. About material things, in fact, we are told to seek first the kingdom of God, and these things will be added, as well (Matthew 6:33). Exactly how this will happen, we are not told.

Finally, we are told that whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for his sake, will save it (Luke 9:24). Zedekiah, I think, was trying to find a way to save his life. It did not matter that God was offering him a way to save his life, because to save his life that way, he would have to lose the life he knew. That is why he kept asking for a word from the Lord, but not listening when he heard it – because he wanted to hear some other word from the Lord. I do not make this observation as a theologian or Bible scholar, just as one who has been there before.

Hearing the Word of the Lord

Hearing the Word of the Lord

Jeremiah Chapters 34-36

Freedom

These chapters come from a section of Jeremiah where the threat from the Babylonians is somewhat less emanate, and it has been suggested that they correspond to a period in which Babylon was heavily occupied in a conflict with Egypt, and temporarily withdrew its siege of Judah. In Chapter 34, we read of a particularly cynical reaction on the part of the people to this temporary relief.

In verses 8-11, we are told that Zedekiah had led the people to a partial renewal of the covenant of the Lord, and that this renewal at least included freeing their Hebrew slaves. Of course, during the time of siege, this was a fairly easy thing to do, as slaves were extra mouths to feed, and with a reduced military heavily engaged in battle, control of the slaves may have been an issue. Once the siege was lifted, however, it was another matter. There was much rebuilding to do, there were crops to be replanted, and people’s lives generally needed to be put back in order. Slaves were needed for this. It was a matter of national security, and also of personal comfort.

Some of the people of Jeremiah’s day believed that the Lord did not exist, or would not act one way or another. We have read the message of Jeremiah to those people, that the Lord is actively seeking a loving relationship with us. Others believed that nothing would happen to them because they were a special people, living in a special place. In verses 17-18, we read the message of the Lord to these people, that it was the covenant relationship that made them special. But it is always our choice to participate in that relationship. The Lord said that these people were given their freedom, and would be separated from him, just as the two halves of the calf were separated in the original covenant ceremony (Genesis 15:7-17).

Faithfulness

In 34:7, we read that only two of the fortified cities of Judah remain against the onslaught of the Babylonians. As a result, refugees from the surrounding areas have begun to enter Jerusalem. In Chapter 35, we read about a group of these refugees, the Recabites. In the opening verses of the chapter, Jeremiah, under the instruction of the Lord, invites the Recabites into a public place and sets before them bowls full of wine and cups for them to drink the wine with, and tells them to drink. The Recabites refuse, because they have their forefather took an oath never to drink as a part of continuing the nomadic lifestyle the people had as they wandered in the desert. They never built houses, for example, but continued to live in tents.

In verses 12-17, we read that the Lord commended the Recabites for their faithfulness. It is important to note that the Lord had nothing to say about their specific practices. Though the Bible has passages dedicated to drunkenness, this passage does not teach temperance any more than it teaches us to leave outside the city in a tent. Instead, the Lord uses Recabites as an object lesson, just as the breaking of the clay jar and the buying of the field have been used in previous chapters. It was the faithfulness of the Recabites that was important, and the Lord says that these sons of Recab were faithful to the commandment of their forefather, but the people of the Lord were not faithful to the word of the Lord.

It is true that we can be faithful in earthly ways to earthly things, to our work, to the routine of our lives, even to our church, and somehow not be faithful to our Lord. If the Lord speaks to us, will we answer?

Hearing the Word of the Lord

Chapter 36 records the Lord’s instruction to Jeremiah to write down what the Lord has told him. This instruction is also recorded in 30:1-2. In that passage, we are not told of the consequences of the instructions, but in this later chapter, the consequences are very interesting. Jeremiah has been banned form the temple because those in authority no longer wish to hear his preaching. So, Jeremiah dictates his prophecy to Baruch, and sends Baruch to the temple to read it. Those in the temple react with fear. They send Baruch and Jeremiah into hiding and take the scroll to the king. In verses 20-26 we are told that the king had the scroll read to him and, as each section was read, the king cut it off and burned it in the fire. While the officials in the temple reacted in fear, the king and those around him reacted as if with complete indifference.

Yet, they could not have been completely indifferent. They had banned Jeremiah in an attempt to silence him, the king burned the scroll because he did not like what it said, and then he ordered both Baruch and Jeremiah arrested. They were not indifferent. They did not want to hear what Jeremiah had to say.

We, of course, have the benefit of history and the divine process of cannon. We now know that Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord. For Jehoiakim, there were other prophets who claimed to know the scriptures and speak for God, and they were saying things he wanted to hear. Why should he have listened to a prophet who was saying new things, terrible things about his own country, and things contrary to what everybody knew about the will of the Lord?

We do have the benefit of the divine process of cannon, and we accept by faith the Bible as God’s Holy word, but hearing the word of the Lord is still not easy. Jeremiah heard the word and it caused him to say and do unpopular things. Jehoiakim would not hear the word because it conflicted with his own plans. We, too, must be willing to come into confrontation with the word of the Lord. It may contain plans for our lives which we are not willing to hear. But it also contains such wonderful assurance. Just in recent chapters, we have read of the Lord’s covenant, “You shall be my people, and I shall be your God” (30:22) and of the Lord’s unfailing love: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (31:3) This is the word of the Lord, and it will never pass away (Luke 21:23).