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.