Lamentations 2:1-10. Today we start the second poem of sorrow from Jeremiah. The first poem was about the destruction of Jerusalem but focused more on the suffering. This second poem is about the destruction of Jerusalem too but today’s part of it about the source of the destruction.

If you remember the history behind the destruction of Jerusalem you might think the source of the destruction was the Babylonian army and that is correct, but this poem of sorrow looks behind the army at what is really going on. In Sunday Scripture Exploration (Sunday School) we are currently studying the book of Job. Job was a very rich man who had been faithful to God. In one day his entire fortune was destroyed along with all of his children and most of his servant. Not to long after that he got sick with sores all over his body. Eventually three close friends find him sitting in the city dump very discouraged. His friends spend most of the book trying to answer the question “Why?” If they can figure out why Job is suffering maybe there is a way out. What none of the people knew was that Job was caught in a battle between God and Satan. God loved Job and even bragged about him. Satan’s answer was that Job loved God because he had such a good life and challenged God to take it all away. God allowed Satan to take it all away but Job remained faithful through out the book in spite of constant attacks by his three friends who insisted that he had offended God and was being punished. Near the end of the book God speaks to Job and basically lists his own credentials; describes himself and his actions. Job’s response was that he had known a lot about God but didn’t really “know” him. What Job was saying was that the reality of who God is hadn’t really “sunk in”. Job’s fortune and family was restored (well new kids, they didn’t come back to life) and he lived many more years. As far as we know Job never knew about the battle between God and Satan; he never knew the why but was challenged to better know the “who” that was looking after him and the rest of the world.

In yesterday’s reading we saw the “why” for the destruction of Jerusalem, they had been unfaithful to God and a bad example to the world around them. God made sure the world understood what it means to ignore the one true God, Yahweh. In the first part of this next poem we see the “who”. Unlike the book of Job where the destruction was being done by Satan in today’s reading we see that it is the LORD (Yahweh) who is behind it all.

In verse 1 we see the picture of a storm. Zion was the name of the mountain on which Jerusalem was built and in particular the Temple. The name Zion became a synonym for Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem was the capital of Judah, and of the original nation of Israel, Jerusalem often represents Judah of even the whole nation. Zion, therefore, also has this meaning sometimes. The Daughters of Zion (or Jerusalem, or Judah) are the people of the kingdom, Jews or Israelites. Remember that Israel was the name of the original ancestor from whom all of these people descended. Israel was not this guys original name, originally he was named Jacob (see “What’s in a Name”). The word “glory” used here has the idea of beauty, rank and splendor. The person who Israel would boast about like this should be Yahweh. The “glory of Israel” who has forgotten them is Yahweh. This fits with the beginning of the verse that tells us Yahweh (LORD) has hidden them behind the clouds. Of course God never can’t see, this is a way of telling us that he is not happy with them, he even uses the word anger in connection with the idea of clouds.

In verses 1-7 the words “he has” or “the LORD has” appear 21 times. It should be clear from anyone reading this poem that Yahweh is the one behind all of the action, he is responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem. The same idea occurs 4 more times in verses 8-9. In verse 2 we see two of the alternate names for the people of Judah used; Jacob and daughter of Judah. In verse 3 they are called Israel. God is described with words like enemy and adversary. We see descriptions of his actions and attitudes using words like anger and wrath and indignation (this last word means something like “rage”).

It’s a pretty intense idea, the creator of the universe raging in anger. A lot of people are very disturbed by this sort of description of God, after all John taught us that “God is Love” and that “God loved the world so much that he sent his son to pay the price for our sins”. Wait a minute, you mean God the son, a member of the eternal triune existence of God (See “Three or One?”) became a man and then suffered an undeserved death to remove the penalty of my sins? And the nation of Israel was supposed to set the stage and make sure everyone knew the details of all of this so the whole world could understand? Instead they lived willy nilly with respect to God and even confused everything by having false gods? No wonder God was angry, their actions were misleading the world about the love of God. Suppose you loved someone very much and you knew that they absolutely love pizza but they are so poor they can never have pizza. You have a pretty crummy allowance but for a whole year you save every penny and on the persons birthday you buy them their absolute favorite pizza, five in fact, enough for everyone at the birthday party. You hand them the pizzas, they look at them and immediately toss them in the trash on top of a pile of dog poop and dirty diapers. They then walk over to someone else at the party who is holding an open half eaten moldy stale bag of Cheetos with a bow on it, take the Cheetos eat one and proclaims their love for that person. Everyone else is standing around hungry but cheering. Wouldn’t you be mad? God is angry because the love of his life rejected him and left everyone at the party starving with no idea where to go to have their spiritual life fed.

In verse 7 there is a hint that God used someone to perform the actual destroying. In verse 7 we are told that he delivered the leaders of the city (the walls of the palace would represent the king and probably his leaders) into the hands of the enemy. It doesn’t say he took them in his hands, hinting at the fact that he used Nebuchadnezzar and his army as a tool to do the destroying.

In verse 8 we are told that Yahweh (LORD) “determined” to destroy the wall protecting the people in Jerusalem. The word translated “determined” has the idea of calculating in it. We also see that God “stretched out a line”. Strings were used for measuring in the ancient world, sort of a ruler. The idea here is that God measured the actions of the people of Jerusalem and Judah and found out that they had come up short (see Romans 3:23). If you remember, in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah constantly pointed out the failures of the people and their leaders, but he also encouraged them to turn back (repent) to God. That verse in Romans tells us we all don’t measure up, the real problem is that we don’t confess it to God and ask for his help.

Job hundreds of years before Moses was given the Law that was to govern the Israelite people, and at least two thousand years before Jesus was born, was called “blameless and upright” by God. In the book Job admits he has sinned (sin means to miss the bull’s-eye, god’s target for our lives, the “glory” talked about in Romans 3:23). No one is perfect, without sin (except for Jesus that is). Job was blameless and upright in God’s eyes because he confessed his failures to god and trusted God to personally pay for his sins (Job 19:25-27). Jesus is that redeemer.

In Jerusalem the Law of Moses no longer existed and the prophets had no message from God. This wasn’t because God didn’t want them to know or understand it was because they had thrown it all away. The result in verse 10 is that every one from elders to young maidens mourned like someone was dead. In reality is was they who were dead. In Genesis 2 God warned Adam that if he disobeyed that he would die that day. After eating the forbidden fruit Adam didn’t die he actually lived for centuries (though the process of physical death started that day). But that day he did die spiritually. Death is the idea of separation. In physical death we are separated for our bodies, that day Adam died spiritually when his soul or spirit were separated from God. The people in Jerusalem were separated from God, their mourning was probably over the physical loss of their city and the coming exile, too bad it wasn’t over the spiritual loss of God (he had rejected the alter and abandon his sanctuary, v. 7).

We need to constantly remember the reality of God. We need to remember that we have offended him and even continue to offend him on a daily basis. Like Job we need to look to God’s love and mercy and accept his redeemer Jesus. If we do God will help us be a little less offensive each day through the help of the Holy Spirit and the influence of the Bible. God wants us forever with him but people can only return if they know the story. Don’t be a cause of anger and grief to God. Accept Jesus as your savior and live for him each day. Let the world know about the love of God.

God I’m sorry for the anger I have caused you. Help me show you to the world. Let me not turn from you to false Gods. Help me trust you in times of trouble. Help me focus on you and focus the world on you too. Thank you for giving me a place in your forever family.

Lamentations 1:12-22. Today we will finish the second half of the first poem of sorrow. If you read the “Intro to Lamentations” you know that Lamentations is made up of five poems by Jeremiah expressing his feelings after the destruction of Jerusalem. In the beginning of the poem Jeremiah uses ideas like “widow”, “lovers”, and “prostitution” to describe the decline of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was to be the center of a people who would help the world see the goodness and greatness of the one true God, Yahweh. The nations around were seeing the greatness of God but not in the form of what we might think of as good. The nations were seeing the greatness of God through his judgment and punishment, Israel had defected, they were a cheating wife, and they were being punished for that.

In verses 12-16 and 18-22 Jerusalem is personified, it’s like the city has come alive and is talking. And the city is talking about the pain it is suffering from the siege. In verse 7 we saw that people who were witnesses to the destruction made fun of Jerusalem, in verse 12 Jerusalem asks, “You think this is no big deal?” Then the city goes on to say that the suffering is very great, it is fierce anger from Yahweh. Some people don’t like the idea of God being angry but yesterday we saw why he gets mad. The consequences of turning away from God and staying that way are severe. There are consequences here and now for violating the way God designed us but more serious is the eternal consequence if we reject God; forever without him.

In verses 13-14 The city uses several pictures to describe the suffering she is going through. There is fire, which was probably literal. When a city is under siege it is difficult if not impossible to get thing from the outside. In those days the water source for most cities was outside of their walls and when under siege water would be very scarce. About 100 years before the destruction of Jerusalem King Hezekiah prepared for another invasion by building a tunnel from a spring outside the city to a pool inside. This made some water available during that attack, I’m sure the water was still available in 586 BC but you still would have a limited amount and fire could still be a problem. We also see the idea of traps or snares (a net), God also created scarcity, there wasn’t enough of stuff that was needed, food for one thing, so the city was faint and had no strength to keep going (turned me back). We also see the picture of a yoke. A yoke is the thing you put around animals necks to hook them up to a wagon or plow. In this picture we see the weak city unable to pull the yoke. We also see that the yoke is made up of the transgressions of the people (Transgression has the idea of rebellion, revolt or trespassing, the people had broken God’s rules). At the end of verse 14 the city tells us that Yahweh (LORD) has given her into the hands of her attackers.

Verse 15 continues this picture of judgment or punishment from Yahweh. The young strong men in Jerusalem will not be strong enough and will be crushed. Also the women will be trampled and crushed like grapes in a wine press. The idea of pressing grapes to get their juice is a common picture used on the Bible for judgment and punishment from God. In Revelation 14:19-20 the crushing seems to be literal since blood comes out not grape juice. This particular “crushing”, by the way, is of armies assembled against Jesus outside of Jerusalem when he returns to rule the world.

In verse 16-17 we see sorrow in the city, unfortunately the sadness seems to be all about the suffering of the city. The city’s soul is sad, her children are wasting away. Keep in mind that “the city” is being used poetically to represent the people in the city. Zion is another name for Jerusalem. The city, or people, are reaching out looking for someone to help them up or out. There is no one. At the end of verse 17 we learn why there is no help, Yahweh has commanded that Jerusalem’s neighbors should now be here enemies, and we are given a reason, Jerusalem is “unclean” among them.

The word unclean has the idea of “separated” or “put aside”. It is used in the Law of Moses for things that are not allowed in certain places and activities that are supposed to represent God or his presence. At our church we have a gym. The gym is used for all sorts of activities. Years ago we though that the floor needed to be upgraded so we put in a special carpet that was good fro playing basketball. It also made the gym a nicer place for banquets, wedding receptions, and other events. Some of those event involve food, or more importantly punch and drinks. Pretty early on we discovered that red drinks made stains that were very difficult to remove. Eventually the Deacons (guys at church responsible for taking care of the buildings) decided that red drinks should not be allowed in the gym, those drinks must be kept way, separated for the carpet. Those drinks were “unclean” with respect to our gym. Jerusalem needed to be kept away from the other nations because her people had become a bad influence, their God was Yahweh, but the didn’t honor or obey him. If Jerusalem got away with that it would tell the world that Yahweh has no real standards. That is not true though, God does have standards, and breaking his rules makes us “unclean” and separated from him.

In verses 18-19 Jerusalem finally gets it. Yahweh is righteous, his actions are fair and right. Why? Because Jerusalem had rebelled and disobeyed (sinned). The city then asks those around to check it out; she is in pain, her children have been taken captive, her lovers (false gods) have tricked her, and the religious and political leader have perished in the city. This is the kind of life you get when you turn your back on God.

In verses 20-22 the city then turns to the LORD (Yahweh) and describes her emotional and spiritual pain, the results of her rebellion. She hasn’t forgotten the physical trouble swords in the streets and death (probably from disease which is common during sieges) in the houses but the emphasis now seems to be on the heart and spirit. In verse 21 the “they” are the people around her that have not helped, the ones that God told to stay away. But we also see that those nations were glad for the trouble that Jerusalem was in. The city asks that God would bring the same trouble on them.

The desire to see the nations around here suffer the same way she did may seem like revenge or vengeance but I think verse 22 shows us that the request isn’t about Jerusalem any more but about God. Jerusalem realizes she has sinned and is being punished for it and asks god to deal with those around her in the same way. The example that the nation of Israel failed to be by not living for God was fulfilled through God’s punishment. The story of sin and it’s consequences was going to be told one way or another (see “The Old Testament Connection”). Of course people are people and verse 22 ends with Jerusalem telling God that she hurts. This could be a little bit of feeling sorry for herself or it could be a statement of fact; sort of a “look warn them so they won’t go through this”. Probably a little bit of both. The point is, sin has consequences, and God want’s to help us avoid some of those consequences, especially the “God to hell and miss out on an eternity in Heaven with Me” consequences.

John 3:16 tells us that God loves the world so much that he sent his son to become one of us and then be separated from him for a time to pat the price for our “transgressions”.     In John 14:6 Jesus told his followers that he is the only way back to God. Life is full of trouble, all of it is the result of our disobedience and rebellion toward God. Sometimes it is our rebellion here and now, sometimes it is because of something we did a long time ago, sometimes it is because of the rebellion of other here and now other times it is because of the rebellion of others a long time ago. Finally it can be a result of the general decay God put in our universe to teach us what happens when there is disobedience and rebellion in our world. God has a plan for the Israelite people and for Jerusalem. The punishment at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t to destroy them but to inform them and to push them to return to Him. That is how God was “dealing” with Jerusalem. I hope that is what Jerusalem’s prayer was about in verse 22, a request for God to move the nations closer to himself. That certainly is the heart of God and should be the heart of his people. In Leviticus 19:18 one of the rules God gave to the Israelites was to “love their neighbor”. By the time of Jesus someone had added their own little twist to the rule and people would tell each other that they should “love their neighbor but hate their enemies.” Jesus’ response to that saying was that we should love our enemies and pray for people who hurt us (Matthew 5:43-44). We need to be real about our failure toward God. We need to focus on our relationship to God and not so much on our own suffering. We need to focus more on Heaven and less on Earth. And we need to be concerned with the people around us and their relationship (or lack of one) with God.

God help me be realistic about my own sins. If some of the trouble in my life is because of them don’t let me feel sorry for myself help me turn back to you.   If I am truly following you and still suffering help me realize that I live in a world distorted by sin, one that will only be fixed when you return and take control. While I wait for that day (v. 21?) help me lead others to you. Let me pray for them and encourage them to return to you, through my actions and my words. On the day you return I know I will be a part of your forever kingdom I hope all of my enemies are a part of it too. Thank you for Jesus, the way, the truth and the life and the path back to you.