(The Book of Lamentations was the third of the five books that made up the major prophet section of the Old Testament. This book consisted of five poems of lamentation by Jeremiah over the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem.)
Lamentations 1
(The poem of chapter 1 was divided into two main parts: verses 1-11 described the misery which had come upon the Jews; verses 12-22 showed Jerusalem lamenting (mourning) over her suffering.)
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
(The first word of this book "How" could be translated as "Alas." This one word was an exclamation of pain and grief, the theme of this entire book. Jerusalem was alone, widowed, and a tributary (a body of forced laborers). Those left were forced to care for the land while the rest were taken to Babylon.)
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies.
("Her lovers" were the other nations and gods that she fornicated with, which were all gone from her.)
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; She dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest: All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
(Judah was in captivity and dwelt among the heathens.)
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
(The affliction against Jerusalem was because of her transgressions.)
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
(Jerusalem's leaders were like harts (deer) that find no pasture, they were without a home.)
7 Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.
(When Jerusalem was in affliction and misery, then she remembered the pleasant things of old. What was the cause of Jerusalem's pleasant things?)
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
(Those who once honored Jerusalem now despised her because of her sin.)
9 Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end; Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter: Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: For she hath seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: See, O Jehovah, and behold; for I am become abject.
(Jerusalem wanted God to consider her sorrows. Did Jerusalem seek God during the "good" times or only during affliction?)
(Verse 12 transitioned to part two of this poem…)
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me, Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
(A call to passersby to see the sorrow of Jerusalem that was an effect of God's Righteous judgment on her.)
13 From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them; He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand; They are knit together, they are come up upon my neck; he hath made my strength to fail: The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand.
(Jerusalem was weakened by this affliction and was not able to stand against Babylon who came to conquer her.)
15 The Lord hath set at nought all my mighty men in the midst of me; He hath called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord hath trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water; Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed.
(Jeremiah wept at the affliction and sorrow of Jerusalem. Jerusalem wept because God was far from her. Did Jerusalem ever rejoice when God was near her?)
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.
18 Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
(Jerusalem confessed that God was Righteous and that His actions were an effect of Jerusalem's rebellion against God.)
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, While they sought them food to refresh their souls.
(Jerusalem's "lovers" deceived her. Again, these were the nations/gods/people that Jerusalem preferred more than God.)
20 Behold, O Jehovah; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled; My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
(Jeremiah began to speak.)
21 They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed, and they shall be like unto me.
(Jeremiah was compassionate. He was mirroring the sorrow felt by Jerusalem.)
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
(Jeremiah was asking God to be Just.)
Lamentations 2
(This second poem was also divided into two parts: verses 1-10 described the punishment which had fallen upon Zion (Jerusalem); verses 11-22 were a lamentation and a prayer.)
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
(Jerusalem was being judged by God.)
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.
(Not only was Jerusalem judged but the Jews who lived there were judged as well…because of their own actions.)
3 He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
(The "horn of Israel" referred to the king of Israel. God’s "right hand" symbolized His great Power.)
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.
5 The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
(God was as an enemy to Israel. God brought destruction on His people, again because of their own wicked actions.)
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
(The unjust actions of the Jews were so great that God destroyed His own place of assembly.)
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary; He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
8 Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; And he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.
(Jerusalem was desolate. The Law was no more and the prophets found no vision from God.)
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
(The elders and even the virgins were in a state of great mourning.)
(Verse 11 transitioned to part two of this poem…)
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
(The extent of Jeremiah's compassion was shown. The Jews considered the intellect to be in the heart and the emotions in the liver. The heart is where all the individual's choices are planted. So, this verse stated the effect of everything that happened resulted in a troubled heart. Second only to the brain, the digestive system has the most emotional receptors in the individual's body.)
12 They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
(The city was so desolate that the children were on the streets and were lacking food.)
13 What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish visions; And they have not uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity, But have seen for thee false oracles and causes of banishment.
(The prophets saw and spoke false and foolish (no why) visions. Prophets ought to be making the people aware of a problem such as iniquity. These false prophets were not perceiving the iniquity in the Jews.)
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
(People who passed by taunted Jerusalem knowing that it was once the city that men called "The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth." Jerusalem was known by foreigners as a great city, now it was destroyed.)
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
(The enemies of Israel took credit for the destruction of her greatest city.)
17 Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; he hath fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.
(Moses warned of these days numerous times: Deuteronomy 4:25-31; 30:1-10; 31:29.)
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord: O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
(The "wall of the daughter of Zion" referred to the hearts of the Jews.)
19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
(Jeremiah was encouraging the Jews to cry out to God and pour out their hearts to Him.)
20 See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
(Jeremiah asked (prayed to) God to consider who He was doing this to: Women were eating their children and priests and prophets were being killed in God's temple.)
21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.
(The judgment from God was upon all the people.)
22 Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
(This post covered the first two lamentations which showed God's judgment was on all of His people because they did not heed His warnings. These terrors did not have to happen. The reason they did was Justice.)
Day 241
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