Scripture Daily

Context No. 3718 of 4322 · Lamentations

Context · Reflection

Lamentations 4:1-16: in context

1How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street. 2The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! 3Even the jackals offer their breast. They nurse their young ones. But the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 4The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, and no one breaks it for them. 5Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills. 6For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment. No hands were laid on her. 7Her nobles were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was like sapphire. 8Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like wood. 9Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field. 10The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. 11The LORD has accomplished his wrath. He has poured out his fierce anger. He has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations. 12The kings of the earth didn’t believe, neither did all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem. 13It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her. 14They wander as blind men in the streets. They are polluted with blood, So that men can’t touch their garments. 15“Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They can’t live here any more.” 16The LORD’s anger has scattered them. He will not pay attention to them any more. They didn’t respect the persons of the priests. They didn’t favor the elders.

This is a lament of unbearable grief over Jerusalem's fall, and its images of famine and suffering are among the harrowing passages in Scripture; we read them soberly, not dwelling on the horrors. The poet mourns a devastation almost beyond words: the once-golden city dimmed, its precious people treated as common clay, the children crying for bread with none to give.

And amid the grief, the poet names the cause without flinching: it was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests. The very leaders who should have guarded the people spiritually had led them astray, and the whole city bore the terrible consequence. There is a heavy weight in this: those entrusted with spiritual leadership carry a serious responsibility, and their failure can bring ruin on many. Sin has real, devastating consequences, and the sin of leaders especially. Even in this lament of deep grief, the honest naming of sin is the first step back toward the God whose mercies, the book will finally declare, are new every morning.

Do I take seriously the real consequences of sin, especially the weight carried by those who lead others spiritually, and do I let honest grief over sin turn me back toward God?

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