The Book of Lamentations: Chapter 1 and 2
Prologue:
The book of Lamentation describes
the funeral of a city. It is a
tearstained portrait of the once proud Jerusalem,
now reduced to rubble by the invading Babylonians. Jeremiah expresses his emotions in a five
poem style of writing. He uses all 22
Hebrews’ alphabets and in each chapter he declares his sorrow and anguish for
the ruined Jerusalem. Beginning each chapter with the first letter
A (Aleph) he proclaims a death has occurred; Jerusalem lies barren. Then, in the midst of this terrible
holocaust, Jeremiah mightily cries out “Great is thy faithfulness” (Lam
3:23). In the face of death and
destruction, with life seemingly coming apart, Jeremiah turns great tragedy
into a triumph of faith. God has never
fells His people in the past and He is not going to fells them now. God who has
promised to remain faithful in the past will also be faithful in the
future. In this horrible time, Jeremiah
continues to have hope and comfort in the God that he knows and loves.
I.
Chapter 1
A.
Jerusalem
in Affliction v1-11
1.
From great to slave (vv. 1, 6, 7, 11)
2.
No comforter (vv. 2, 3)
3.
No spiritual life (vv. 4)
4.
Enemies becomes her master (vv. 5, 10)
5.
The Lord afflicted her because of her sins (vv.
5, 8, 9)
B.
The Lord Inflicted Jerusalem (12-22)
1.
Sorrow of Jeremiah (vv. 1, 16, 20)
2.
No one comfort Jeremiah (vv. 1, 17, 19, 20, 21)
3.
The wrath of God (vv. 13, 14, 15,)
4.
God righteous judgment (vv. 18, 22)
Chapter 1
1. How lonely sits the city that was full of
people!
How like a widow is she,
Who was great
among the nations!
The princess
among the provinces
has become a
slave!
2. She
weeps bitterly in the night,
her tears are on her cheeks;
among all her
lovers she has none to comfort her.
All her friends
have dealt treacherously with her;
they have become
her enemies.
3. Judah has gone
into captivity,
under affliction and
hard servitude;
she dwells among the nations,
she finds no rest; all
her persecutors overtake her in
dire straits.
4. The roads to Zion mourn
because no one
comes to the set feasts. All
her gates are desolate;
her priests sigh,
her virgins are afflicted, and
she is in bitterness.
5. Her
adversaries have become the master,
her enemies prosper;
for the Lord has
afflicted her
because of the multitude
of her transgressions.
Her children have gone into
captivity before the enemy.
6. And from the daughter of Zion all
her splendor has departed.
Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture,
that flee without
strength before the pursuer.
7. In the days of
her affliction and roaming,
Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things
that she had
in the days of
old. When
her people fell into the hand of
the enemy,
with no one to
help her,
the adversaries
saw her and
mocked at her downfall.
8. Jerusalem has sinned
grievously, therefore
she has become vile.
All who honored
her despise her because
they have seen
her nakedness; yes, she sighs and turns away.
9. Her
uncleanness is in her skirts;
she did not consider her destiny;
therefore
her collapse was awesome;
she had no comforter. "O
Lord, behold my affliction, for
the enemy has
magnified himself!''
10. The
adversary has spread his hand
over all her
pleasant things; for
she has seen the nations enter her
sanctuary,
those whom You commanded not to
enter Your congregation.
11. All
her people sigh,
they seek bread;
they have given their valuables for
food to restore life.
"See, O
Lord, and consider, for I am scorned.''
12. "Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass
by?
Behold and see if
there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which has been
brought on me,
which the Lord
has inflicted on me in the day of His
fierce anger.
13. "From
above
He has sent fire
into my bones, and it overpowered them;
He has spread a
net for my feet and turned me back;
He has made me
desolate and faint all the day.
14. "The
yoke of my transgressions was bound;
they were woven
together by His hands, and thrust upon my neck.
He made my
strength fail;
the Lord delivered me into the
hands of those whom I am not able
to withstand.
15. The Lord has
trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst;
He has called an
assembly against me to crush my young men;
The Lord trampled
as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
16. "For these things
I weep;
my eye,
my eye overflows
with water;
because the
comforter,
who should
restore my life,
is far from me.
My children are
desolate because the enemy prevailed.''
17. Zion spreads out her
hands,
but there is no
one to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded concerning
Jacob that those around him
become his
adversaries;
Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among
them.
18. The Lord is righteous, for
I rebelled
against His commandment.
Hear now,
all peoples, and
behold my sorrow;
my virgins and
my young men have
gone into captivity.
19. I
called for my lovers, but
they deceived me;
my priests and
my elders
breathed their last in the city, while
they sought food to restore their life.
20. See,
O Lord, that
I am in distress;
my soul is
troubled;
my heart is
overturned within me, for
I have been very
rebellious.
Outside the sword
bereaves,
at home it is
like death.
21. They
have heard that I sigh,
with no one to
comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my
trouble;
they are glad that You have done
it.
Bring on the day
that You have announced,
that they may
become like me.
22.
Let all their wickedness come before You, and
do to them as You have done to me
for all my transgressions; for
my sighs are
many, and
my heart is
faint.''
II.
Chapter 2
God’s Anger Toward Jerusalem
1.
Judgment (vv. 1-8, 17, 20-22)
2.
Ruined Jerusalem
(vv. 9, 10, 12, 13, 14)
3.
Enemies mock Jerusalem (vv. 15, 16)
4.
Jeremiah’s tears (vv. 11)
Chapter 2
1. How
the Lord
has covered
the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His
anger!
He cast down from
heaven to the earth
the beauty of Israel,
and
(He) did not
remember His footstool in the day of His anger.
2. The
Lord has swallowed up and
has not pitied
all the habitations of Jacob
He has thrown
down in His wrath the strongholds of
the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the
ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and
its princes.
3. He
has cut off in fierce anger every horn of Israel;
He has drawn back
His right hand from before the enemy.
He has blazed
against Jacob like a flaming fire which devours all
around.
4. Standing
like an enemy,
He has bent His
bow; with His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain all
who were pleasing to His eye; on the tent of the
daughter of Zion,
He has poured out
His fury like fire.
5. The
Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed
up Israel,
He has swallowed
up all her palaces;
He has destroyed
her strongholds, and
has increased mourning and
lamentation in
the daughter of Judah.
6. He
has done violence to His tabernacle, As if it were a garden;
He has destroyed
His place of assembly; the
Lord has caused
the appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten
in Zion. In His burning
indignation
He has spurned
the king and the priest.
7. The Lord
has spurned His altar,
He has abandoned
His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces into
the hand of the
enemy.
They have made a
noise in
the house of the
Lord as
on the day of a set
feast.
8. The Lord
has purposed to destroy
the wall of the
daughter of Zion.
He has stretched
out a line;
He has not
withdrawn His hand from destroying; therefore
He has caused the
rampart and wall to lament;
they languished together.
9. Her
gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed
and broken her bars.
Her king and her
princes are among the
nations; the Law
is no more, and
her prophets find
no vision from the Lord.
10. The
elders of the daughter of Zion
sit on the ground
and keep silence; they throw dust on their heads and
gird themselves
with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem bow their heads to
the ground.
11. My eyes fail with tears,
my heart is troubled;
my bile is poured on the ground
because of the
destruction of the daughter of my people,
because the
children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.
12. They
say to their mothers,
Where is grain
and wine?'' as they swoon like the wounded in the
streets of the
city, as
their life is poured out in their
mothers' bosom.
13. How
shall
I console you? To
what shall
I liken you, O
daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall
I compare with
you, that
I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is
spread wide as the sea;
who can heal you?
14.
Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions;
they have not uncovered
your iniquity, to bring back your
captives, but
have envisioned for you
false prophecies
and delusions.
15. All
who pass by clap their hands at you;
they hiss and shake their heads at
the daughter of Jerusalem:
Is this the city that is called
`the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth'?''
16. All
your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
they hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, "We have swallowed
her up!
Surely this is
the day we have waited for;
we have found it,
we have seen
it.''
17. The Lord has done what He purposed;
He has fulfilled
His word which He commanded in days of old.
He has thrown down
and has not pitied, and
He has caused your
enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the
horn of your adversaries.
18. Their
heart cried out to the Lord,
O wall of the
daughter of Zion,
let tears run
down like a river day and night;
give yourself no
relief;
give your eyes no
rest.
19. "Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of
the watches;
pour out your
heart like water before the face of the
Lord.
Lift your hands
toward Him for the life of your
young children,
who faint from
hunger at the
head of every
street.''
20. "See, O Lord, and consider!
To whom have You
done this?
Should the women
eat their offspring,
the children they
have cuddled?
Should the priest and prophet be
slain in the
sanctuary of the
Lord?
21. Young
and old lie on the ground in the streets;
my virgins and
my young men have fallen by the
sword;
You have slain them in the day of
Your anger,
you have slaughtered and not
pitied.
22.
You have invited as to a feast day the terrors
that surround me.
In the day of the Lord's anger there was no
refugee or
survivor.
Those whom I have borne and
brought up my
enemies have
destroyed.''
