Lamentations is one of those much forgotten and neglected books of the Bible. Nestled between Jeremiah and Ezekiel it is easy to pass over and, as one of the most tragic books in the inspired record, its dark themes are not naturally appealing, which may create a tendency to shy away from it in private study and public preaching. However, Lamentations will greatly reward those who stop to ponder its content, and that is what this article is designed to encourage.
The book was written in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 b.c. Following a long siege, the city was decimated. Her walls were torn down, her palaces burned, and her temple plundered and destroyed. As for the inhabitants of the city, the majority had been slain or enslaved while only a remnant remained struggling for existence in the face of cruel persecution and famine. The national, social, physical, psychological, and spiritual devastation of Judah and Jerusalem was horrific. To the Jew, the unthinkable had happened, even the impossible: Zion, the city of God, had fallen!
In introducing this book, Matthew Henry gives us some wise advice on its importance and the manner in which it should be approached: “Since what Solomon says, though contrary to the common opinion of the world, is certainly true, that sorrow is better than laughter, and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, we should come to the reading and consideration of the melancholy chapters of this book, not only willingly, but with an expectation to edify ourselves by them; and that we may do this, we must compose ourselves to a holy sadness and resolve to weep with the weeping prophet.” [1]
Introduction to Lamentations
Title & Author
In the Hebrew Bible, Lamentations receives its title from the first word of the book איכה ekah, meaning how. The word is not interrogative, intending a question, but rather exclamative, carrying a sense of astonishment: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” (1:1). Chapters 2 and 4 also begin with exclamations of wonder. The title of the book in the Septuagint (LXX) is “The tears of Jeremiah.” The Latin Vulgate follows the Septuagint, calling it “The Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet,” and it is from this tradition that we get the title “The Lamentations of Jeremiah” in our English Bibles.
Concerning authorship, the book is anonymous, but the traditional view from at least the third century b.c. was that Jeremiah was the author. At that time, Jeremiah was identified as the author in the title of the LXX and to the title the translators added this preface: “And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation.” From that time until the eighteenth century, Jeremiah’s authorship was almost universally accepted; but since then modern scholars claimed that certain phraseological, stylistic, and theological differences between Lamentations and the prophecy of Jeremiah meant that both books could not come from the pen of the same author. E. J. Young critiques a number of these objections and rejects them; he then shows on the contrary the similarities between the books and concludes “arguments offered against Jeremianic authorship are not sufficiently cogent.” [2] In this article we accept the traditional view that Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations.
Genre
It is not immediately obvious in the English Bible, but Lamentations is a poetic book. Its position in the Hebrew Bible hints at this, where it is found in the third division of the Scriptures—Kethubim or The Writings. More specifically, it is a collection of funeral dirges or laments; there are five in total, and these are marked by the chapter divisions in our Bible. Together they sing of the destruction of Jerusalem as if the city had died. Those familiar with Scots/Irish culture have an illustration in the piper. He plays for the fallen in battle; you find him at the head of a funeral procession but his strain is not a reel, it is a slow, painful lament. Here then are five laments for Jerusalem which to this day are read by Jews on the anniversary of the later destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d.
There is an alphabetic structure underlying each of the poetic laments. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 each have twenty-two verses matching the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and each verse begins with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. Chapter 3 is three times longer than the other laments, having sixty-six verses, but the same pattern is followed here only with groups of three verses. Chapter 5 is the exception. It again has twenty-two distinguishable verses but it does not follow in alphabetic sequence as the others do. The alphabetic or acrostic structure is, of course, not specific to Lamentations. It is found, for example, in Psalm 111 and Psalm 119, but when it is employed we should take note, as the human author and the Holy Spirit have something specific to teach us. We suggest three possible explanations for the alphabetic structure of these laments.
Conscious Sorrow
Sometimes, in grief, we can lose control and are not quite sure what we are saying or how to describe our pain. The structure of Lamentations shows these laments are not the product of such uncontrolled grief. Instead, each one is the fruit of conscious reflection, not impassioned outbursts. The grief expressed is no less painful for being reasoned. That pain would rather be increased as the full extent of the city’s destruction has been considered and digested. Time has been taken to evaluate the situation fully and describe the emotions of the heart.
Comprehensive Sorrow
Jeremiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem were brought to great depths of grief. As one reads these laments, a picture of comprehensive grief is painted. The various causes of grief are described in detail with the extent of the emotional response provoked in the afflicted soul. In the underlying alphabetic structure of Lamentations, the Holy Spirit may be suggesting that what is given here is a brief compendium of spiritual grief, an A–Z of sorrow. Bruce Waltke writes, “The acrostic form provides an emotional catharsis for the purging of emotions by allowing the writer to express his feelings from A–Z.” [3]
Commemorative Sorrow
The design of this alphabetic pattern is also an aid to memory. The destruction of Jerusalem was monumental in the history of the Jewish nation. They must never forget the reasons for this devastation and the consequences of it. So God gave them a book in a format that could be easily committed to memory from childhood, a book of commemorative sorrow. Although we do not benefit from these features in our English Bible, the fact that it exists in the original ought to impress upon the church in all ages the importance of this neglected book.
Preaching from Lamentations
In dealing with this theme, we will look at three ways to preach from Lamentations. First, we will look at preaching an expository series. Then we will consider thematic and textual preaching before focusing on how to preach Christ from Lamentations.
Preaching an Expository Series
If you have preached an expository series through Lamentations, you are among a great minority of preachers. George Barlow writes in his introduction to the book, “Preachers appear to have shunned the Book of Lamentations, as if it lacked suggestiveness for homiletical purposes…. It may be that the undertone of melancholy that runs so sadly through the five elegies of which the book is composed, has created the impression that the theme is too monotonous to admit the freshness and variety expected from the pulpit of the present day.” [4]
This is borne out in the history of preaching. The closest thing to a sermonic exposition of the book is Calvin’s eighteen lectures that make up his commentary. [5] A search of the various internet audio sermon databases will show that we moderns continue to neglect Lamentations. On the whole, one will find relatively few sermons, and most of these on isolated texts in the book. If a series of sermons are preached, these tend not to treat the whole book and are more thematic in character.
Despite this, Lamentations actually lends itself to an expository series of messages. It has a very simple and obvious structure: the five chapter divisions identify five individual laments. Each of these chapters, with the exception of chapter 3, can be comfortably expounded in one sermon. A closer examination of the book and a longer sermon series is, of course, possible; however, the longer the series becomes, the more difficult the preacher will find the book to preach due to the repetitive nature of the content of each lament. Even when preaching a shorter series, the preacher will need to reckon with this repetition from the outset and decide how he will deal with it so as not to be preaching the same thing each week to his hearers.
For instance, chapter 1 is the most general of the laments and most of the themes of the book are found more or less in seed form in this chapter. It is possible to introduce these themes in a general way from chapter 1 and then add the detail when progressing through the book. An example of this would be the imprecations Jeremiah makes against the nations. These are found in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, but by far the strongest statement is at the end of chapter 3. Bearing this in mind, the preacher could wait until that point to give a thorough treatment of the subject and draw in the other relevant passages when doing so.
What all this stresses is the importance of thorough groundwork before embarking on an expository series of sermons. The whole of the book and the whole of the sermon series must be kept in view when preaching any part of it.
Textual & Thematic Preaching
If you have not or do not plan to preach an expository series through Lamentations, it will yet serve you well to be familiar with the content and themes of the book. Lamentations will then be of more use to you in the course of your ministry, supplying texts to preach from or answering a need to preach on a particular theme. We draw attention here to five main themes in the book.
1. Sin—The Reason for Jerusalem’s Fall
Sin is identified as the reason for Jerusalem’s fall from the very first chapter, where we learn that Jerusalem’s sins were many, and for her many sins she fell. “For the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions” (1:5). Her sins were also grievous: “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned” (1:8). Judah’s sins were worse than the sins of other nations because she sinned against so much light and privilege. Every section of society was guilty, but this guilt increased according to the position of responsibility one held in the covenant nation. Therefore, the prophets and priests are singled out for particular condemnation (2:14; 4:13) because they both sinned themselves and caused the people to err.
As Lamentations is a poetic book, it is replete with many vivid pictures of the doctrines it sets forth, furnishing the preacher with many biblical illustrations of these truths. This is true of the figures Jeremiah uses to expose the sinfulness of Jerusalem’s sin. In 1:8, she is a harlot who uncovered her nakedness to all without shame. In 1:9, she is unclean like a menstrous woman, but whereas such uncleanness would ordinarily be private, the magnitude of Judah’s sin was such that her shame was public. “Her filthiness is in her skirts,” i.e., her menstrual blood had stained her skirts so that her disgrace appeared to all. For that sin God has brought her down astonishingly. Sin was the reason of Jerusalem’s fall which is a solemn reminder how serious a thing the sins of God’s covenant people are today.
2. Judgment—The Reality of Jerusalem’s Fall
Nebuchadnezzar’s armies besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and reference is naturally made to this in Lamentations. Yet, in many passages, the human agents disappear from view as Jehovah is seen as the God of history and providence who used these agents to His own righteous ends. “The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath...” (2:2; see also 2:4-5). In short, as Dillard and Longman state, “The power behind this carnage was God.” [6]
The reality of Jerusalem’s fall is God has judged and this was the chief cause of her pain. While He will yet judge the nations, He has judged Judah. Judgment has begun at the house of God. Lamentations therefore describes covenant judgment and is very closely related to Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 28, God told Israel of curses that would fall on them for unfaithfulness to His covenant. Lamentations 2:17 refers back to this passage and tells us these curses have now fallen on Jerusalem: “he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old.”
As the city sings her destruction in Lamentations 4:6, she informs us of another solemn fact: “For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.” While this certainly contrasts the sudden judgment of Sodom “in a moment” with the prolonged destruction of Jerusalem, it also tells us something about covenant judgment reiterated by Christ to Capernaum where He had done many wonderful works: “It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee” (Matt. 11:24). Lamentations therefore gives us an insight to what God will do to an unfaithful church or to an individual who rejects the blessings of the gospel—a covenant child who breaks covenant with God or someone who apostatizes from the faith. It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the judgment than for him, and so preachers are furnished with a host of applications to the contemporary church.
3. Sorrow—The Result of Jerusalem’s Fall
Like the book of Job, Lamentations deals with the reality of suffering in the experience of God’s people. But while there are obvious similarities between the books, there are also distinct differences. One of these is that whereas Job describes the experience of an afflicted individual, Lamentations presents the outpoured grief of an individual and the corporate body of the Old Testament church. There is clear solidarity between the two: Jeremiah is crushed because they are crushed (cf. Jer. 8:21).
The laments display the grief of a remnant of Jews who witnessed God destroying their civil and religious institutions. We are principally instructed by their grief to lament the sins and afflictions of the church. This needs to be emphasized today; a corporate aspect of sorrow has been squeezed out of the church by our modern individualism and aversion to grief. It is a fault of the sermons and commentaries of many good men on Lamentations that they fail to get beyond the individual in application and the church is left no further on in knowing how to lament the corporate sins and afflictions of the body of Christ.
The poetic nature of the book supplies us with many rich metaphors describing the depth of grief and intense spiritual and emotional pain. There is speechless astonishment, broken-hearted mourning, and sore weeping. “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people” (2:11). One cannot mistake this for something superficial or manufactured; it is the natural product of a shattered heart. It is not the mere talk of sorrow so common in the modern Reformed church, but real sorrow because sin has sacked Jerusalem and now “Zion is a wilderness and Jerusalem a desolation.” Deep individual and corporate sorrow is the result of Jerusalem’s fall.
4. Comfort—The Reassurance in Jerusalem’s Fall
God’s wrath is more frequently spoken of in Lamentations than His mercy, and yet His mercy occupies the central place in the book. Literary analysis has revealed that Hebrew poetry is often built around a chiastic structure in which the most important truths are found in the middle of the composition. Walter Kaiser recognizes a chiasm not so much in the individual poems of Lamentations, but in the arrangement of the five laments. [7] Taking account of this structure, the book therefore reaches its climax in chapter 3, and it is in the central section of that central chapter that Jeremiah reveals the mercy of God for Jerusalem’s comfort. “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness…. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him” (3:21-26).
Here the church in her sorrow has its gaze fixed on God’s mercy, compassion, faithfulness, and goodness. Each time God is mentioned, it is by His covenant name Jehovah to remind His desolate people that He is still the God of covenant mercy. Yes, He destroyed Zion and interrupted the Davidic dynasty, but He did not void His promise (Ps. 89:34). Because of this mercy, Judah was not utterly consumed and their situation now, while very serious, was not hopeless. This will always be true of God’s people in their afflictions; mercy and forgiveness remain with Him.
5. Repentance—The Recovery of Jerusalem’s Fall
Jerusalem is lamenting in this book, but she is also repenting; Lamentations is designed to aid the reader in this. Consider the themes we have introduced: sin, judgment, sorrow, and mercy. They are all, in fact, motives to and marks of repentance. A sense of sin teaches men their need of repentance, and the rod of God acts as a spur to repentance. Godly sorrow is the true emotion of repentance while mercy is that loving cord God draws us with, encouraging us to come to Him for forgiveness. So repentance is in view to the very end of the book where the final plea is, “God grant us repentance!” “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old” (5:21).
The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks in question 87, “What is repentance unto life?” The answer is: “Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of, and endeavour after new obedience.” This evangelical doctrine is illustrated throughout the whole of Lamentations, with chapter 3 providing a notable summary.
- 3:1 “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.”
- 3:21ff “‘It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not….”
- 3:39-40 “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.”
These then are some of the themes to look for when studying and preparing to preach this book: Sin, Judgment, Sorrow, Comfort, and Repentance. Now we want to examine how to preach Christ from Lamentations.
Preaching Christ from Lamentations
“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). If what Jesus said of the Old Testament is true, then Christ will be found in Lamentations. He is in the Law and the Prophets, and also in the Psalms or the writings (Luke 24:44). The following is not intended to be an exhaustive list but four suggestions of how to preach Christ from Lamentations.
1. Christ the Sufferer
“‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger” (1:12). These words have often been taken as a reference to the sufferings of Christ. Examples of this can be found in the use of the text in Handel’s Messiah [8] and many of the sermons preached on the passage where the words are assigned to Christ as if He asked the question. However, it must be kept in mind that Jerusalem’s sufferings are what is in view in Lamentations 1:12. It is her voice that is heard appealing to her neighbors for pity while she holds out her condition as something without parallel. To apply the text directly to Christ is an unwarranted accommodation; however, we can find Christ three ways from this text.
- Symbolically
- Responsively
- Similarity
In the descriptive poems of Lamentations, there are also a number of texts that allude to the sufferings of Christ by the use of strikingly similar language. Compare Lamentations 2:15-16, 3:8, and 3:30 with Psalm 22:1-2, 7-8; Matthew 27:39-44, 46; and Isaiah 50:6. All such texts in Lamentations, if not direct prophetical references, are certainly illustrative of the Savior’s sufferings.
2. Christ the Sorrower
By the pen of Jeremiah, Jerusalem mourns her destruction in five funeral songs. Tragically, she did not learn and the city fell again some six centuries later in 70 a.d., after rejecting the Messiah. In that first-century destruction, the Jews turned again to the book of Lamentations; still to this day, on the anniversary of that fall in 70 a.d., the book of Lamentations is read in their synagogues.
When He was on earth, Christ predicted Jerusalem’s fall. Foreseeing her ruin, He raised His own lament over the city’s pending doom. “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now are they hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee” (Luke 19:41-44). If we allow this text to speak for itself, it is clear that Jesus wept because He foresaw that Jerusalem would be destroyed and her children would perish. Numerous prophets over many years had published peace and promised the coming of the Messiah; now He had come to save. It is Palm Sunday, and Jesus travels from Bethany to Jerusalem on a donkey, the road thronged with pilgrims shouting “Hosanna,” meaning “Save now” (Ps. 118:25-26; Mark 11:10). As He begins His descent of the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem comes into view; in the midst of the surrounding jubilation, He beholds the city and weeps because the majority in Jerusalem would reject Him and perish.
Christ laments over Jerusalem like Jeremiah and the remnant of Jews who witnessed the city’s previous fall. Because of this, Lamentations offers a window into the sorrow of Christ over the rebellious city upon whom covenant judgment would fall. Texts like Lamentations 2:11 are illustrative of His grief. “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth.”
3. Christ the Comforter
“For these [things] I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me” (1:16). The Comforter spoken of here is understood by Jewish commentators to be the Messiah. John Gill quotes the Babylonian Talmud and rabbis such as Kimchi, who says, “The name of Messiah is Menachem ~xnm the Comforter.” Among the texts cited is Lamentations 1:16. [11] This is why the devout Simeon was one who “waited for the consolation”—or comforter—“of Israel” (Luke 2:25). When he saw the infant Christ in the Temple, he took Him in his arms and exulted, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Luke 2:29-30). The Comforter he waited for had come, “a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel” (Luke 2:32)—and what joy filled his heart and that of Anna (Luke 2:36) and others who lived in expectation.
In Lamentations 1:16, however, the Comforter was looked for and not found. We understand from this that, in the day of her desolation, Jerusalem looked for Messiah to deliver her from the hand of her enemies but He did not come. It was not His time to be revealed, and sparing the city from Babylonian destruction was not the work the Father gave Him to do. Yet, while they could not find the Comforter presently, the faith of the remnant still lived on the promise of His coming and He remained their sole hope. In this way, it is possible to preach Christ from His absence in Lamentations. The Comforter who did not come then has now come, and “the God of all comfort” has caused peace and consolation to abound toward sinners by Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:3-5).
4. Christ the Redeemer
In the Old Testament, Christ appeared in type and shadow in a variety of ways. One of these was in the messianic offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. The Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us these are the offices Christ executes as our Redeemer.
Q. 23:What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?
A: Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the offices of a prophet, of a priest and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.
The offices themselves foreshadowed Christ in the Old Testament and not just the person who occupied them. The best of the prophets, priests, and kings gloriously anticipated the coming of Christ, while the worst of them in their failures reminded the people how great their need was of Christ the Redeemer. It is the failure of the men who held these offices that is in evidence in Lamentations, especially in chapter 4. Successive kings had been weak and foolish and failed to protect the people. The prophets were liars and had denied the Word of God to become men-pleasers. The priests abused their office and were guilty of sacrilege. Philip Ryken comments, “Ultimately, what Jeremiah was looking for was the kind of leadership that can only be found in Jesus Christ the true prophet, the holy priest and the servant king.” [12]
The cumulative effect of Lamentations as it weeps over the failure of Judah’s civil and ecclesiastical leaders is to trumpet the need for Christ. The message of the book in large part is: Christ is the answer! He is the true Prophet who always speaks the Word of the Lord; He is the faithful High Priest who has made a perfect atonement and ever lives to make intercession for His people; He is the righteous King who shall reign and prosper, and who subdues His people to Himself, ruling and defending them from all His and our enemies.
Christ is in Lamentations as He is in all the Scriptures. We see Him as the Sufferer, the Sorrower, the Comforter, and the Redeemer that Jerusalem needed. Our desolate nation and our individual hearts need no more or less than this Christ, an all-sufficient and glorious Savior of sinners who is freely offered to all in the gospel.
The Need to Preach Lamentations in the Contemporary Church
As we move to a conclusion, the goal is to bring what has been considered a little closer to the heart—to make the case that Lamentations is not just a book that can be preached but one that is particularly relevant to the Reformed church of the twenty-first century. I offer three reasons why Lamentations should be heard from the contemporary pulpit.
We Need to Be Schooled in the Art of Godly Sorrow
The naked reality of sorrow poured out in Lamentations has much to say to modern Christians because we do not seem to understand the place of grief in the Christian life and the life of the church. While it may be a caricature, generally speaking, there is a shallowness in the evangelical world that answers what the Bible calls godly sorrow either with humanistic positive thinking techniques, or, if an attempt is made to be scriptural, it amounts to “Jesus loves you, so smile and sing another chorus.” The grief of Lamentations is alien to the broader evangelical world.
In more conservative evangelical and Reformed churches, even those who desire to preach experiential theology, Lamentations seems to speak a different language. In some circles, it can be correlated with the disappearance of psalm-singing with the painful laments recorded there, [13] but even psalm-singing churches don’t know what to do with some of the darker psalms. [14] In the context of Lamentations, Christians want “Great is Thy Faithfulness” but not “For these things I weep, mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me.”
Studying Lamentations gives the opportunity to address this current imbalance and can be a vital tool in teaching congregations the place of godly sorrow in the Christian life. Christians passing through deep waters will be helped, others will be prepared for sorrows yet to come, and preachers will be better equipped to deal with broken Christians in their pastoral work.
Lamentations also teaches us about the place of godly sorrow in the life of the church. It is the duty of Christians to weep not only over their own sins, but over the sins of the church, the sins of the nation, and the fearfulness of the judgment to come. But where are the weeping men and wailing women of the contemporary Reformed church? [15] We need Lamentations to school us in the place and the art of godly sorrow.
Now Is the Time for the Church to Lament
Perhaps we don’t weep because we are simply too blind and insensitive to the plight of our church and nation. I write from a British perspective, more particularly as a pastor in Scotland. One sincerely wonders if there has been any nation under heaven except Israel more favored with gospel privileges and true religion than Scotland. Covenanted to God, the law of God was once paramount in national life in periods when rulers appeared to be like nursing fathers to the church. The aim here is not to be nostalgic but to give one example of the height from which many nations that were touched by the Reformation have fallen and to ask if it is not something to weep over. Today the story in Scotland is much bleaker. The number and size of past congregations can barely be compared with the scattered handfuls that constitute congregations today, and those tiny remnants of denominations have been shattered by divisions. From those churches in the past the world received some of her noted theologians and preachers. Missionaries like Alexander Duff and William Chalmers Burns took the gospel to the ends of the earth and now Scotland is in need of missionaries.
Each nation will have its own story, but if that story is anything like the one above, ought we not to lament in astonishment as Jeremiah: “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How has she become a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary”—not with that phantom sorrow that speaks because it knows it should but is void of real emotion, but the kind of grief displayed in this book by one to whom Zion meant so much. Again we see why Lamentations should be heard from the pulpit.
Now Is the Time for the Church to Repent
Lamentations also assures us that what has happened in our churches and nations has not happened by accident. The same God of history and providence who sacked Jerusalem in 587 b.c. is the one who has brought the church where it is today. The power behind the carnage is still God. The truth of this may seem too stark and painful to consider. The temptation is also to try and escape our guilt by protesting, “But we are the remnant who remains, seeking to be faithful.” Yet, in the book of Lamentations, the remnant were all who were left to lament and repent in Jerusalem.
There is a time to repent and it is now. “Let us search and try our ways and let us return unto the LORD.” The encouragement is that the hand that chastens and wounds is the same hand that binds. The hope is that a day came when desolate Jerusalem exchanged her funeral dirges for the wonderful song of deliverance: “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing” (Ps. 126:1-2).
Notes
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 4 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996), 559.
- E. J. Young, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 345.
- Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 162.
- George Barlow, The Preacher’s Homiletic Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), preface to vol. 18.
- More modern homiletic commentaries include Philip G. Ryken’s Jeremiah and Lamentations in the “Preaching the Word Series,” ed. R. Kent Hughes (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001); also Richard Brooks, Great is Your Faithfulness (Darlington, U.K.: Evangelical Press, 2002).
- ]Raymond B. Dillard and Tremper Longman, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 303.
- W. C. Kaiser, A Biblical Approach to Personal Suffering (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983), 40.
- The text is employed at the close of the section on Christ’s sufferings after Isaiah 53:3-6, Psalm 22:7-8, and Psalm 69:20. The pronoun is also changed in most of the arrangements from “my sorrow” to “his sorrow.”
- A motif used in Isaiah with reference to the collective (Israel) and individual (Messiah), e.g., Isaiah 41-45.
- Scholars have recognized elements of a recapitulation of the history of Israel in the life of Christ, especially in Matthew 1-4.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Whole Bible. See comments on Lamentations 1:16, Zechariah 3:8, and Luke 2:25.
- Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations.
- For an interesting discussion of this point, see Carl Trueman, “What shall miserable Christians sing?” in Wages of Spin (Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor Publications, 2005).
- For example, Psalm 6, 22, 38, 69, 79, 88, 102. I include Psalm 22 and 69 as they relate to David as a shadow of Christ.
- Cf. Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1969), 71.
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