Lamentations 4:13-22. Today we will read the second half of the third poem. If you read yesterday the first half of the poem described the situation of the people, we saw from the structure of the poem that the focus was verse 6, the people were living twisted lives, their sin (disobedience and disrespect toward God) was big and the punishment was bigger. In verse 12 even the surrounding nations were amazed.

I said yesterday that some Bible experts like to put verse 12 with 1-11 and others like to put it with 13-22. Remember this is one poem so it doesn’t necessarily have to go with one or the other and I think it connects to both. As I pointed out yesterday, poems are not essays, and they don’t necessarily have parts. This one does seem to have a clear section in verses 1-11 though(the chiasm, see yesterday’s post). Today’s reading goes deeper into the reason that Jerusalem fell. The destruction was ultimately from God but he used Nebuchadnezzar to accomplish it. The inhabitants of the earth were amazed that Jerusalem fell because it’s location was difficult to attack. Even the mighty Babylonian army took 18 months to get inside of the city. While verse 12 expresses the amazement of the world over the fall of Jerusalem (described in verses 1-11) they should not have been and verse 13 tells us why. The prophets and priests were not following God.

In verse 13 the sin (rebellion and disobedience toward God) of the priests and prophets included actually killing people who were honoring God (“the righteous”). If you read through the book of Jeremiah you might remember that the people turned to a false local god named Baal. Part of the “worship” (actions that are supposed to honor a “god”) of Baal involved burning your children alive, an “offering” to Baal. In Jeremiah 2:8 God condemns the prophets and priest through out Israel’s history of following Baal instead of Him. In Jeremiah 23 Jeremiah hints that the prophets of his day might have been doing the same thing. We know that the were offering the human sacrifices (Jeremiah 19:5; 32:35) and it is likely that the prophets and priests were involved (see Jeremiah 19:1 with Jeremiah 19:5 also Jeremiah 32:32 with Jeremiah 32:35). In Jeremiah 19:4 we are also told that innocent blood had been shed in Jerusalem the group there is similar to the group on chapter 32 and again it is likely that priests and prophets were involved.

In verses 14-15 we see that the priests and prophets were eventually rejected by the people who recognized that they had become evil. They wandered in the streets where the people declared that they were “unclean”. That is a term that means unacceptable to God. Evidently many of them fled to surrounding nations but were rejected there too. In verse 16 we see that it was God who scattered them. These men who once had been the most honored in the nation now received no honor. At the end of verse 16 we also see “elders’ mentioned, this is probably a reference to political leaders, the kings advisors. In Jeremiah 26:20-23 we read the story of another prophet who lived at the same time as Jeremiah, Uriah. Uriah made the same sort of predictions as Jeremiah about he destruction of Jerusalem and the need to submit to the Babylonian invaders. In his case then king Jehoiakim sent leaders to kill him. When he fled to Egypt he was hunted down and brought back to the palace where the king executed him personally. In verse 21 we learn that Jehoiakim’s leaders were in on the assassination with him.

In verses 17-20 we see people watching for help. Near the end Zedekiah’s reign he sent and requested help from Egypt. Although Egypt did send some troops they were no match for Nebuchadnezzar’s army. They never even got close to Jerusalem and were repelled back to Egypt. The people were watching “for a nation that could not save” them.

According to Jeremiah 39:3 Nebuchadnezzar’s army finally broke into the city and the leaders of the army set up a “court” at the “Middle Gate”. Gated of a city were where official business was carried out, they were like courthouses, sort of. According to Jeremiah 39:4 when King Zedekaih and his troops saw this they waited until evening and snuck out a different way. They didn’t get far (about 15 miles) and were captured by Nebuchadnezzar’s army in the desert (wilderness, v. 19) near Jericho.

One historian comments that Zedekiah was not well liked by the people. There is little evidence of this in the history contained in the Bible. He was appointed king by the hated Nebuchadnezzar and resisted the people’s push to revolt for a time. He eventually did revolt against Nebuchadnezzar but the result was the siege that took down Jerusalem. Also he ran once the city was taken. It would seem that he was a good candidate for the hatred of the people. Verse 20, though, seems to be talking about Zedekiah in a good light. He is called “the breath of our nostrils” (we might say something like, “You are the air I breathe!”) and “Yahweh’s chosen one” (LORD in all capitals in most English translations of the Old Testament indicates that the proper name of God is being used, Yahweh. The word translated “anointed” is “Messiah”. Anointing is the process of pouring or smearing something on someone. The action was used to show that the person was “chosen” for something. It’s like when a team dumps Gatorade on the coach, they are saying, “He’s the one!”). And according to the end of verse 20 the people had hoped he would be their leader as they lived as an independent nation among the nations. If the people didn’t like him very much it doesn’t show here, though they really had little choice at the time. But he too had fallen to Nebuchadnezzar.

Verse 21 seems to be a bit sarcastic. Edom was a neighboring country also under control of Nebuchadnezzar. In Jeremiah 27 we learned of a meeting early in the reign of Zedekiah when 5 surrounding countries sent representatives to Jerusalem to talk about a revolt against Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah warned all six (including Judah) not to revolt. Edom was one of these countries. The Edomites lived just south and east of the southern tip of the Dead Sea. In the desert canyons and hills. Edomites were descendants of Esau, Jacob’s (Israel’s, see “What’s in a Name”) twin brother. There had been bad blood between the descendants of these two brothers for centuries. Many Bible experts believe the book of Obadiah, a warning of judgment for the Edomites, was written after the fall of Jerusalem in response to their change in loyalty back to Nebuchadnezzar. Because of that loyalty Nebuchadnezzar gave the Edomites grazing land that had belonged to Judah. It is more likely though that the book of Obadiah was written after the Edomites assisted in another invasion 250 years earlier by the Arabs and Philistines (848-841 BC). As you can see, thought, the relationship between the two nations was not good. Edom might be laughing at their old enemy now (v. 21) but their day was coming.

In verse 21 we see that the punishment is compared to a cup of wine. The wrath of God is often described as being in a cup. We also see the picture of the Edomites being so drunk that they ran around naked. In the Old Testament the idea of being naked in public was a symbol of the greatest shame. We see that they had brought this on themselves (“make yourself naked”) by being enemies of the Israelites.

In verse 22 “the Daughter of Zion” (the people of Jerusalem and Judah) is told that her punishment is complete and that the exile will come to an end. Of course the exile wasn’t finished it had at about 50 years to go, but they were there in their exile finally after so many attempts to avoid it, and from God’s point of view it was a done deal. They were behind bars but only until their sentence was fulfilled them they would surely be released and restored. On the other hand Edom, who was celebrating the fall of their old foe, was just as certainly going to be punished for her iniquity (twisted lives) and God would expose their sin (the fact that they had missed God perfect target for their lives).

The people of Judah looked to so many people for leadership and help. Unfortunately they didn’t listen to the few who were giving them the right advise, guys like Jeremiah and Uriah. The false and bad leaders were held accountable for their bad leadership. But the people were still responsible for their disobedient lives, and they too suffered. Suffering for sin isn’t just for “God’s people” either. Edom was held responsible for her disobedience and twisted actions too. As was Nebuchadnezzar. In Romans 1-2 we are told that we are all responsible to see, seek, and serve God. In Romans 1:18 Paul tells the church at Rome that God going to judge all men for their “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness” who wrongly ignore the truth. He goes on in verse 19 that certain things are obvious to us both internally and externally. In verse 20 Paul tells us that God’s unlimited power and his divine nature (the things that make God different from everything else) are obvious as we look at the universe he created. We cannot look at the creation and deny God, not honestly anyway. So all men should be able to “see God”, at least to some extent.

In Romans 1:18-32 we see that mankind chose to reject the truth and go their own way. Because of this God would judge them (us)(v. 18). Paul makes it clear that all mankind is responsible to seek God, not look the other way and to serve God, follow his rules.

In Romans 2:9-16, 25-27 we see that we are all responsible to God, not just the Jewish people to whom he gave the written Law. All of us have at least some of God’s rules in our very conscience and our conscience shows us the reality and rules of God. That is probably what Paul meant in Romans 1:19 when he said God was obvious “within us”.

The bottom line is that God is real. His rules about life are real. There are consequences for breaking the rules. God will judge disobedience for real. But there is an up side, God will forgive, but not arbitrarily. God’s forgiveness will not go against his good and right and pure nature. We saw that he didn’t give the Israelites a pass, he wasn’t going to give the Moabites or the Babylonians a pass either; they would all suffer consequences for their disobedience, disrespect, and rebellion toward him; for breaking his rules.   His forgiveness is based on someone suffering the consequences for our sin. That someone was God himself in the person of Jesus Christ, the real “chosen one” (see Isaiah 53:6, 11). That same servant will one day rule the nations (Revelation 15:13). Today though he can rule in your heart; your life. Jesus promised all who would put their eternity in his hands that he would put in them the Holy Spirit to help them remember his teachings and live for him. Jesus compared this to fresh pure water, like from a spring in the mountains (John 4:14). At the end of the bible in Revelation 22:17 the Holy Spirit and the followers of Jesus invate all who are thirsty, those who want a relationship with God forever to come and drink this “water of life”. Do you want peace with God, come. Do you want eternity with him, come. Come to Jesus today if you already haven’t.

God make us thirsty for you. Help us not ignore the signs you have given us. Help us understand our conscience is a message from you encouraging us to look for more; the more that you have communicated to us in the Bible; the more you have provided through Jesus. I think we are all thirsty. Help many find the pure water that gives us an eternal relationship with you. Help us all find Jesus and turn to him. Thank you for helping me. Help me help others.

Lamentations 4:1-12. Today we start Jeremiah’s third poem of sorrow. The first 11 or 12 verses describe the personal horror in Jerusalem. Some experts like to include verse 12 with the first eleven verses and some link it to the last twelve. Of Course this is one poem not an essay with paragraphs. I think verse 12 fits with what is before and what is after it. We don’t necessarily think of poems as having sections necessarily but if you have read the “Intro to Lamentations” you know that ancient eastern poetry was more about structure than things like rhyming. The main structure on these first four poems relates to the Hebrew alphabet (for more on this read the “Intro to lamentations”) but there may be another pattern in the first eleven verses of this poem that we can see.

As I was reading through this first part of the poem I notices some similar ideas in certain verses. Hebrew poets like to use parallel language and ideas in their writing, even non-poetic writing. Some times the parallel ideas are direct and sometime they are opposites. Sometimes the parallel ideas are next to each other, two lines in a verse or two verses in a row. But other times the parallel ideas are separated from each other by other verses, but there is still a pattern, the different parallel ideas in different verses reflect each other. Let’s say we give the ideas names: A1, B1, C1, D1. If we give the parallel ideas names we might call them A2, B2, C2, D2. If we use this reflecting pattern they would be arranged like this: A1-B1-C1-D1-D2-C2-B2-A2. It’s like there is a mirror between the two different “D” ideas. Sometimes the idea in the middle doesn’t have a parallel and the pattern looks like this: A1-B1-C1-D-C2-B2-A2. In that case the D idea is often the main point of the verses and the other ideas reflect around it. Cool Huh! Scholars give this arrangement the name “Chiasm” or Chiasmus”. The name comes from the Greek letter Chi which looks like an “X”. Notice that the X mirrors itself.

As I was reading verses 1-11 it occurred to me that there might be a chiasm here, the books I use to help me understand didn’t mention it but I still think it might be there.   Verse 1 Talks about the people of Jerusalem like they are gold and jewels. But the experts cant explain how the gold got dark, thy realize that gold does not tarnish. Notice too that the jewels are poured out on the street corners. An interesting place to find jewels. If verses 1-11 are a chiasm then verse 11 would be the parallel idea. In verse 11 we see a description of Yahweh in anger and wrath (yea, yea, I know, no body likes to think of God that way, read back a few posts for an explanation). In verse 11 we see the wrath described as a fire that burned the city to it’s foundation. It’s interesting when I think of a fire destroying an ancient city. Most of the structures would have been made of stones, at least the walls. I’m not sure all of the walls would fall down in a fire, at least not right away. They probably used wood to hold up window and door openings so there would be quite a bit of mess as the beams as well as the roof or floors burned up. There would also be a big mess from smoke, soot would be everywhere, even on any gold that was out and managed to not melt onto the floor. Anyway I think that could explain the “dark” gold in verse 1.

Verse 2 clearly uses gold to describe the “sons of Zion” (Jerusalem or maybe even a reference to the hill the Temple was on, then we might even see them as “God’s children”) or at least their value. But now they seem like common ordinary pots, like the cheep red ones we find outside. Notice too that the sons of Zion had been “precious” the pots were made by the hands of a potter. In verse 10 we see the “daughter of my people” being destroyed. Notice that it is singular, just one, this may be a reference to Jerusalem (The word translated “daughter” is used 42 times in the Old Testament for a village or town, usually associated with the name of another town. In Isaiah 22:4 though it may be a reference to Jerusalem). Because of the destruction caring women have boiled their own children to use them as food. We don’t know if the child died and was then eaten or if the women killed the children then ate them. Since the women are described as caring they probably killed them to keep them from starving to death but then realized their bodies could be eaten. It’s a very ugly picture of the desperation in the city during the siege. By the way notice the use of the word “hand”. So we have the parallels of “daughter/son” and hands. Also the people were no longer precious in verse 2 and they are clearly very far from that in verse 10.

In verse 3 we see that the daughter has become cruel. Even a mean animal like a jackal nurses it’s young, but the daughter is like ostriches. I know the word daughter is singular here but this time it is probably referring to actual women of the city. The “daughter” is compared to ostriches. The connection here is that ostriches lay eggs in the sand and bury them. They then move on and completely forget where the eggs where and seems to have no concern for them, they are on their own (see Job 39:13-18). In verse 9 we are told that it is better be killed by a sword than to dies slowly of starvation. The parallel is clear people are starving and suffering as they do.

In verse 4 children are starving and dying of thirst. The interesting think is that Jerusalem had a good water supply in the city and water should not have been a problem. Even the women had enough to boil their children. If the children were dying of thirst it was from neglect not because there wasn’t any water. In verse 8 we see a continuation of a description from verse 7 of people described as “consecrated ones”. The word translated “consecrate” means devoted or dedicated, separate, or untrimmed (like a tree or vine). It is used in the Old Testament for a person who wanted to spend some special time in their life honoring God. They would not eat certain things, participate in certain activities, and would not shave their beards or cut their hair. If you know the story of Sampson he was a Nazarite (though not really dedicated to God). One translation uses the word “prince” to translate this word and that may be most accurate here, we might say “special people” or “the rich and famous”. In verse 8 these “special people” the rich and famous are dirty and unrecognized in the street. And they are starving too. The parallel in these verses is that everyone is starving unknown little children and the special people too.

In verse 5 we more special people. The fact that they wore purple tells us that they were either royalty or very rich. Purple dye was extremely expensive in the ancient world and only kings and very rich people wore purple. Also notice what they had been used to eating, delicacies; all the fun expensive really good food. These people were now living on the street not in palaces and were sitting in ashes. This may mean they were digging through the trash for food (in ancient Jerusalem trash was burned). Ashes were also put on clothes to show sorrow and since the ashes are related to their clothes in the verse that is probably what Jeremiah means here. Anyway it is clear that their good and easy life is over. Verse 7 as I mentioned before is about the “special people”. This verse is dedicated to the appearance of these guys and they look better than the most beautiful stars on Oscar night. In verse 8 we see them lose their shine and become black like soot from a fire. Here the parallel is the loss of power and praise.

That leaves one more verse in the chiasm, verse 6. It is all by itself with no parallel verse. Often that means that it is the real focus or point of what has been written. We have seen a lot of personal pain and suffering, both physical and emotional. In this verse we see the “Why”. The people had great iniquity. The word translated “iniquity” means fault or mischief. It’s root means twisted or warped or perverse. The people of Jerusalem were living twisted, warped, perverted lives. We are told that their sins (a word that means to miss the bull’s eye, God perfect target for our lives) were worse than the sins of the people in Sodom. The story of Sodom is told in Genesis 18-19. In those chapters we read the story of a guy named Lot, the nephew of Abraham. He lived in Sodom and one day some angles, who looked like men to the average person, went to Lots house. The men of Sodom heard that Lot had visitors and insisted that he sent them out so they could sexually attack them (we are talking homosexual rape here). Lot would be expected to protect any guests in his house. Lot had little hope of fighting off the mob surround his house so in a totally sick move he offered them his two young daughters instead. The crowd refused and pressed for the men instead. Fortunately for lot these were no ordinary men, they were angles, with the power of God behind them. The angle caused the men of the city to go blind and in a reversal of roles rescued Lot. The next morning the angels instructed Lot and his family to flee the area Sodom and its neighbor Gomorrah would be destroyed. With no warning both cities were wiped off the map by fire from heaven, the area is still desolate to this day. No one lifted a hand to help Sodom and Jerusalem could expect the same.

Verse 12 shows the surprise and horror of the world at the destruction of Jerusalem. It had been centuries since kings and queens had come to Jerusalem to sit at the feet of Solomon and hear the wisdom God had given him. But the world must have remembered. Jerusalem, even at the time of its destruction, was special and now it was destroyed. We saw a lot of ordinary people and some rich and famous in verses 1-11 all suffered and for the same reason, sin. As we saw in a post a couple of days ago, sin is the real enemy, sin is the source of all destruction. God is patient but he will deal with rebellion and disobedience, sometimes right away in an instant, sometimes over the course of many years. His goal is always the same though, to see people return to him. In what is almost the final battle against sin, the Great Tribulation, predicted by the prophets and described in the book of Revelation, God still wants people to turn back to him. Four times in the description of that time of judgment and wrath we are told the people still did not “repent”, turn back to God, it is clearly something God was hoping for. God loves people, but sin is a problem that he must deal with. The penalty of sin is death, physical and spiritual (separation from God for all eternity). We all pay the price of the first, it is appointed for us to die physically (Hebrews 9:27) but Jesus paid the price for the second. It was enough for all but not all will accept his gift of eternity with God. That is a sad situation. God want us to return but still many will keep on walking away. No wonder Jeremiah was so distraught, he had spent his whole life calling people back to God only to see them continue to walk away.

God thank you for calling me to you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this message of love with the world. Help many people turn back to you. Help many people enjoy the peace and goodness of your forever kingdom.