Lamentations 3:41-66. Yesterday’s reading ended with Jeremiah challenging the reader to remember that we have offended God, any judgment from God is deserved, and an encouragement to return to Yahweh (LORD, the one true God). The beginning of today’s reading is the beginning of returning to God, at least in the example of Jeremiah.

In verse 41 we see Jeremiah lifting up not just his hands but his heart to God. Lifting hands up toward Heaven was a common action when praying (talking to God). It’s almost like trying to hand God an imaginary gift. Of course Jeremiah didn’t literally lit up his heart in his hand but he did direct the desires of his inner self (his heart) toward God. What Jeremiah was telling God and anyone watching by lifting up his hands was that he was turning his life over to God. By telling us that his heart was involved he is showing us by example how to “return to the LORD” (Yahweh, v. 40). By the way the word translated “to” in verse 40 is a special prepositions that tells us the return was total and not just half-hearted.

Verses 42-47 describe the situation when Jeremiah offers this prayer. God is angry (be sure to read the last couple of day’s posts if you haven’t), he has hunted down the Israelites and destroyed them (at least some of them), there has been no mercy, and God has put up a wall between himself and the people of Judah; he’s not even listening to their prayers. They have become like useless trash and the people of the world are talking trash about them. This is a very desperate situation; the Israelites were to be an example to the world of how good and gracious God is, they were to help the world understand the nature of God (pure) and the consequences (spiritual death or separation from God) of sin (rebellion toward God). They were also to help the world understand that God also is loving and has a solution for the problem (the Messiah, or chosen one, a particular Israelite who would take the punishment for sin upon himself (Isaiah 53:6). From the New Testament we know this chosen one was Jesus. In verse 47 Jeremiah sums up the situation the people of Judah are in a panic, there is no where safe to go, there is destruction everywhere.

In verses 49-51 Jeremiah’s only response is to cry. And he will keep crying until Yahweh looks down from heaven and sees. There are two different words used in verse 50 that relate to God checking out what is going on. The first one indicates looking at or seeing the situation. Remember God had put up a wall around himself (literally “covered himself with a cloud”, v. 44). Jeremiah’s sadness will not let up until God looks through the cloud and “sees” from heaven. The second word used seems to indicate that he not only sees but also thinks about and acts on what he sees. IN the next part of the poem Jeremiah is going to get very personal, talking about his own personal experiences and trouble, but so far in today’s reading he has been using plural pronouns, “us” and “we”. We can see in verse 51 that jeremiah is not just concerned about his own personal situation but also all the “daughters of [his] city”.

In verse 52-54 we see just a peek at the trouble Jeremiah experienced over the years that he delivered God’s messages to the people of Judah. His enemies hunted him down and threw him in a pit. Notice that he tells us that the treatment was undeserved (“no cause”) and that the enemies were doing it because they didn’t like the message God was giving through him (“to silence me”). They put him in an underground room used to store water and sealed up the entrance with a stone. Jeremiah though he was going to die in there. If you read through the book of Jeremiah you know this actually happened near the time of the final destruction of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 38). In that account of the incident we are told there was no water in the cistern only mud. But it was wet enough that Jeremiah sunk in quite a ways. When you step in mud that is pretty wet some water separates out and Jeremiah may have sunk in far enough that the water started to cover his head. Remember though that this account in Lamentations is a poem and he may have been using the language a little more loosely. He certainly felt that might be swallowed up by the mud and die (“cut off”).  It was not the only time Jeremiah was hunted down and mistreated either so there may have been another time he was thrown in a pit full of water. Jeremiah probably only gives one example because that is enough to get his point across. Remember that this is a poem about his sorrow and not a history book about his life.

Verses 55-57 give us Jeremiah’s response this time of great fear, he prayed. The prayer was personal and honest and desperate. Jeremiah was at his lowest, in the pit thinking he was about to die , and he called on God by his personal name, Yahweh. In verse 56 Jeremiah is confident that God could hear him but pleaded with him to actually listen; to act on the prayer. Remember in verse 44 we were told that God wasn’t listening to the prayers of the Israelites anymore, the connection was still there but because of their continual rebellion and disobedience (sin) God wasn’t responding. In verse 57 we see that God did responds and in just the way Jeremiah hoped, God told him not to worry.

In verse 58 we see the answer to his original prayer, Jeremiah’s life was spared. In verses 59-63 he then asks God to deal with the men who had mistreated him. In these verses we see two things, first Jeremiah’s enemies had made a habit of mistreating him and scheming against him. Second Jeremiah repeatedly asks God to deal with these guys according to what he had seen and knew.

Jeremiah trusted God to do what was right and in verses 64-66 we are told by Jeremiah what he was sure Yahweh would do. His enemies would be “paid back”; their punishment would be based on their actions. But there was more, all of us act in ways that are offensive to God, all of us disobey and show disrespect for God (sin). If God paid us each back based on what we have done we would all be banished from his presence forever (Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23, remember death is the idea of separation, in this case separation from God forever). But there is a way out, Jesus (Romans 5:8, “Christ” means the same thing as “messiah”, Jesus is the Christ or messiah). Although Jesus death was enough to pay for all the sins of all who have ever lived (1 John 2:2) unfortunately not everyone takes advantage of his sacrifice. In John 1:12 we are told that only those who accept Jesus gift; actually believe in who he is and what he has done (“believe in his name”, see “What’s in a Name?”) will be saved and spend forever with God (see also John 3:18; Romans 10:9-10). Remember in verse 40 Jeremiah encouraged us all to think about our ways and return to Yahweh.

In verse 65 Jeremiah was sure that his enemies would not turn back to God (“repent”). He had lifted his heart up to God but he was sure they wouldn’t. the way Jeremiah expresses this in verse 65 is that God would give them a “hard heart” (think “a bad attitude”; they would not admit they were guilty) and there for God’s curse or assurance of punishment would be on them. Some people like to say that verse like Lamentations 3:65 prove that God causes people to reject him; he makes them do it. In Mark 4:12 Jesus told his followers that he was teaching the crowd in parable “so that while seeing they will not understand and while hearing they will not understand, because if they do they might return and be forgiven” (Jesus is quoting Isaiah 6:9-10).   Some experts think that Jesus used parables to keep people “in the dark” about what he was saying. That is interesting since a parable is a story that uses something we understand to explain something we don’t understand. In Matthew 13:13-15 we have Matthew’s telling of the same story and he adds detail that Mark left out. In Mark the quote from Isaiah that Jesus made is longer. In verse 15 we find some important information, the hearts of the people were dull (not accepting, the word means callous or covered with tar, feelings were not getting through). They were not instantaneously made callous but had become that way. The result was ears that couldn’t hear. Also they had closed their eyes so they couldn’t see. This also seems to have affected their ability to hear. Matthew also tells us it affected their “hearts”. What we learn from Matthew is that it was the habit of not responding to God that caused the people not to respond to God. The people ignored the message and finally got to a point where they were callous to it. You cannot respond to what you cannot feel and they had made themselves insensitive to sin. Callouses are caused from constant pressure from some source, they are formed like blisters but it’s a longer process. In the case of the hearts callous to sin the pressure is from God. It is God who constantly causes consequences for our sin. By ignoring the reminders the people cause their hearts (conscience) to become callous or unfeeling. That is why we can say God “hardened their hearts” he kept the pressure on but it was the person who didn’t back off and stop rubbing up against God’s rules. The end result is that they don’t turn back to God and God will deal with them by not allowing them into his heaven.

In Hebrews 9:27 we are told that everyone must die once (talking about the separation of our soul or spirit from our physical body) and after that comes the judgment of God. In Revelation 21 we see this judgment where God is sitting on his throne as ruler and judge of the universe. The souls (the part of you that is really you, the part that thinks and feels and hopes) of all mankind are brought before God. Certain books are opened up, one is called the Lamb’s Book of Life (see “The Old Testament Connection” for an explanation of the “lamb”) and the others are descried as records of all of everyone’s actions. In ancient times cities had citizenship records. The name of everyone born in a city was written in a book, when they died their names were crossed off. That is what we see in the Lamb’s Book of Life. It is the citizenship record for Heaven, although Heaven is much bigger that a city it is represented by a city called the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22). Jesus (the lamb of God, John 1:29, 36) is the king of this city. In Revelation 3:3 Jesus tells people in a certain church to turn back to him. In Revelation 3:5 he tells those same people that if they do what he has told them to do he will not erase their names from his book of Life. The picture we get here is one of a book with all of the names of everyone who has ever lived. The names of those that respond to God and turn their lives over to him will stay in the book of life but the names of the people who don’t turn back to God will eventually be erased (when they die physically). In the final judgment then people who have given their lives to God will remain citizens of Heaven forever. The rest will be judged according to their deeds. The judgment isn’t a scale, though, one sin and you are out. If you are climbing a rock wall with out a net or safety line it doesn’t matter how many good holds you get, one slip and you are dead, and we all slip. That is why God created a safety line for us but we need to put it on. Those that don’t die, in this case the death is spiritual, eternal separation from God and his goodness. The consequences of sin are sever and that is why God uses harsh tactic to get through to us, he wants us to live not perish (2 Peter 3:9). And the way to live is to turn back to him; give you sins and your eternity to Jesus.

God thank you for dealing with sin. Help us all listen to you and not become callous. Let my life attract people to you. I know that some people will reject me if I live for you. That is very serious. Don’t let me live a disobedient life that might drive people away though. Thank you for your patience with me, with us. Help me be patient until you return. And let me be sad for a lost and dying world.

Lamentations 3:1-40. Today we begin the third poem in which Jeremiah express the great sadness he feels because of the destruction of Jerusalem and the event that led up to it. In the first poem (Chapter 1) he described the destruction of the city that had once been so great among the nations. The greatness of Jerusalem would not have been because it was physically great but because it was the place where the word could see the reality of the one true God. Near the end of the first poem Jeremiah asks that God would bring about “the day he had promised” so that the nations who were glad for the destruction of Jerusalem (on a human or political level) would become “like [Jerusalem or the Jews]” and would have their sin (disobedience and rebellion toward Yahweh, the one true God) dealt with.

The second poem focused more on God’s involvement in the destruction of Jerusalem. It may have been human kings that did the destroying but God was behind it all. We saw that the destruction of Jerusalem was not without warning though. God had told the Israelites in the very beginning what would happen if they were disobedient and rebellious. We also saw that the real enemy in their lives and ours is sin. Sin has the ability to separate us from God forever. Jesus told his followers that they should not fear those who could destroy their physical lives but to fear Him who could destroy their physical lives and then send their soul to hell forever (Matthew 10:28).

In today’s reading we see Jeremiah get very personal with God about his feelings. In Jeremiah 3:1-18 Jeremiah compares his suffering over the years of his service and especially during the years of invasions by the Babylonians to living in total darkness (vv.2, 6), having a disease eat him away (v. 4), having his bones broken (v. 4), being sealed up in a room (v. 7), being chained up in a dungeon (v. 7) where no one could hear his cries for help (v. 8), being on an impassable path (v. 9) or in a maze (v. 9), being torn to pieces by a lion or bear (vv. 10-11), being left poor and empty (v. 12) and being shot full of arrows (v. 13).

He also tells us that all of this trouble in his life is because of God’s discipline (v. 1) and he credits God as the source of all of this trouble (notice how many times Jeremiah says “he has”).   Of course we need to remember that this is a poem, Jeremiah is using language that may be literally accurate sometimes and other times his language is more of a comparison; a metaphor. Jeremiah did go hungry during the siege of Jerusalem, he was left to die in a dark cistern (an underground room for storing water), and he was chained up on at least one occasion. On the other hand it is obvious he was never torn to pieces b a lion or bear since he is writing these words. And he was never shot full of arrows by God. These are just pictures to help us understand how he feels.

Some Bible experts think that Jeremiah is actually speaking for or about Jerusalem in these verses. In verse 14 we see that the “people” of the person talking are laughing at him and making fun of him. The people of either Jerusalem or Jeremiah’s people, the Jews, would never have made fun of the destruction of Jerusalem, but the y did make fun of Jeremiah. The person suffering in these verses cannot be an image of Jerusalem; Jeremiah is sharing his own personal feelings, he feels God ahs attacked him and destroyed his life.

In verse 15-18 we see more of the feelings Jeremiah has about his trouble. Jeremiah is bitter (If you have ever taken an aspirin or other pill you might have noticed a nasty taste, that is bitter) and his mouth is filled with “wormwood”. The word translated “wormwood” is related to the word for “curse”. It is usually translated “wormwood” but the idea seems to be bitter. In that case Jeremiah is using repetition to tell us how nasty his life “tastes” to him. In verse 16 he feels like God has nocked all of his teeth out and is rubbing his face in the dirt. In verse 17 he tells us he has no peace and he has forgotten what it was like to be happy. In verse 18 he tells us he has no strength left and no hope in Yahweh.

In verse 19 his prayer turns around. He had spent his whole life trying to get the Israelites to repent, turn around, and honor God with their actions. Now his words are turning around and he asks God to think about his troubles and feelings. Deep down he tells us that his soul (the part of us that feels and thinks and desires) remembers God and is bowing down to God (bowing was a sign of respect, honor and worship). IN verse 22 he tells us that he remembers and has hope again. In verse 22-25 we see what he remembers that has given him hope. In verse 22 he remember Yahweh’s “loving kindness”. Different translations use different words here (one says “great love” another says “steadfast love”) to translate a Hebrew word “hesed”. The main idea behind “hesed” is faithfulness to a promise. It also contains ideas like duty and honor. In verse 22 we are told that Yahweh’s ‘loving kindness” never fails or ends. God will fulfill all of his promises. The verse also tells us that “compassion” will not fail. The word used here is sometimes translated “mercy” or “pity”. It is even translated as “womb”. The idea here is the loving protecting feelings and actions of a mother for her little baby. In verse 23 we are told that God’s faithfulness and mercy are new every morning. God never stops caring, his faithfulness in enormous. In verse 25 Jeremiah tells us that the Yahweh is his portion. This means that God is his part. Some like to stress that God sort of belongs to him but I like to look at what it means to have God on your side. The rest of the verse tells us that Jeremiah’s hope is back and that it is because Yahweh is in his life providing for him. Verse 25 seems to continue this idea. If we wait on God (to take care of us) we will have good in our lives. But this only happens to those who are looking for and truing to follow God.

In verse 26 Jeremiah tells us that it is good to wait quietly for God to save us. He may have been thinking about being saved from his life on the run and going home to Jerusalem. In verse 27 he talks about a person “bearing the yoke” when he is young. The yoke could be the problems that come our way in life but in verse 28 he tells us that the trouble is specifically from God. Since Jeremiah has been depressed and complaining about the destruction of Jerusalem, an event we are specifically told was punishment from God on the people of Judah, we should understand that the “yoke” he is talking about here is the trouble that comes into our lives from following God. Remember that Jeremiah had been faithful to God, serving him as the kingdom of Judah fell apart around him. The place and people he cared about most and had served all of his life was destroyed. In verse 29 Jeremiah says something like, “maybe you should just put your face on the ground, maybe there is some hope”. We know he started out this section with hope because God is faithful and has made promises. I think verse 27-29 are a picture of a person trusting God from his younger days and throughout his life. When trouble finally comes the person needs to bow down and continue to honor and trust God; that is where hope will come from.

Some Bible experts think that the silence in verses 26 and 28 mean that we never complain and that we will only have hope if we don’t. Jeremiah has just done a lot of complaining in the beginning of this poem, and in fact we see a lot of complaining in the Psalms and Job too. In Job 42:7 Yahweh (LORD) scolds one of Job’s friends for the things he has been saying and tells the friend that he has painted an incorrect picture of God unlike Job who has spoken correctly about God. In Job 38:1 God does challenge Job about what he has been saying because Job didn’t have the whole picture (words without knowledge, in this case a full understanding). God then goes on to show Job that he alone has the whole picture; only Yahweh knows enough to make all the hard calls; all the big decisions about history. There are two points we should get from this, first Job needed to trust God and not worry about the details. Second, in relationship to Jeremiah’s suggestion to be quiet, Job is never told he should not have complained. In Psalm 4 David uses the same word used in Lamentations 3:28. In Psalm 4:1 David calls to God and encourage him to answer him. He tells us that God has “relieved him in his distress”, the words here mean something like “you have helped me out of a tight place”. David was chosen by God to be the second king of Israel but the first king was still in office. The first king chased David all over the territory trying to kill him. David was superior in every way but he would not kill the first king, who had also been put into power by God. He would wait for God to make room for him. In verse 4 David gives this advise, “Tremble but do not sin; Think about God when you are trying to sleep and be still.” In verse 5 he then tells us to give God a gift by doing what is right and trust Yahweh to take care of the rest. The word “still’ in verse 4 is the same word for “silent” in Lamentations 3:28 and the word “silent” in Lamentations 3:26 is a related word. David didn’t sit around “silently” waiting for God to act he let God know how he felt, so did Job, and so did Jeremiah. I think the point is found in Psalm 4:5 when David tells us to do what is right and trust in God. That is the point in Job too, trust that God know and cares. I think that is what Jeremiah is saying here in Lamentation 3. We need to share our thoughts, fears, cares, and feelings with God, even if they seem harsh toward Him. By talking to God in this way it shows that we know that he is there and that he cares. If we have a clear picture of who God is and what he can do (Like Job got in Job 38-41) sharing our feeling with him can lead to peace and stillness and hope.

In verses 30-37 Jeremiah lists some of the things in life that seem unfair; beatings, rejections, sadness; but he remembers the character of God; faithfulness, fairness, power; then in verse 37 he reminds us that Yahweh is in control, nothing happens without him letting it happen.

In verse 37 Jeremiah uses the word “command” and in verse 38 he tells us that “both good and ill come from God’s mouth”. Many people believe that this means that every action by every human being is directly controlled by God. James gives us another look at that idea though. In James 1:13-15 we are told that God never temps anyone to do evil (let alone force them to do it) but that we sin (act in ways that dishonor, disrespect, disobey, or displease God) when we are tempted by our own inner feeling and follow them.   God didn’t force Adam and Eve to disobey him he just told them the rule. The chose to disobey him completely on their own ( I know the devil challenged them but it was they who looked and thought and decided and acted). God is completely in control but that control involves allowing us to make choices and suffer consequences or enjoy the good.

Jeremiah even hints at this in verse 39-40 when he says, “Why should we complain we are the ones who sin (disobey)?” He then suggests that instead of complaining we should look at our sin, turn back to Yahweh. Remember after complaining in verse 1-18 he “remembered in verse 20” and what he remembered is that God is loving and kind and faithful (“hesed”).

We need remember or learn who God is, what he is like, what he is doing, and especially remember what he has done; really done, not what we thing he has done or not done. In the end we need to trust who he is, like Job did. God is a loving, kind, fair creator and ruler who has plans to give the Israelites a good and rich life. And he wants all people to share in that great kingdom of which he will be king for all eternity. God is actually working in and through history to bring as many people into that kingdom as possible. We need to trust him for that and for all the details of or live in between. We can and should share or complaints and concerns with God, look for his answers if they are there and trust him for the ones that are not. He became a man and died a cruel death for us so we could share in his goodness for all eternity, the least we can do is trust him and do what is right in his eyes each day until then.

God help me trust you and in you. Let me be still but thank you that I don’t have to be silent. You told us that we could boldly come to you through Jesus. Thank you for that privilege. Thank you that I can talk to you and share my concerns with you. Thank you for making the story so clear. You are faithful and in that I can have hope, even in the darkness when I am being torn apart. Give me peace and hope. And my my life always bring you honor.