Scripture Daily

Context No. 3843 of 4322 · Lamentations

Context · Reflection

Lamentations 4:17-22: in context

17Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save. 18They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets. Our end is near. Our days are fulfilled, for our end has come. 19Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains. They set an ambush for us in the wilderness. 20The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, under his shadow we will live among the nations. 21Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked. 22The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion. He will no more carry you away into captivity. He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom. He will uncover your sins.

In the ruins of Jerusalem, the poet confesses a bitter lesson learned too late: our eyes failed, looking in vain for help, watching for a nation that could not save. They had pinned their hopes on a foreign ally that proved unable to rescue them, and their watching came to nothing. It is the sorrow of those who trusted in the wrong thing and were disappointed.

Yet the passage does not end in unrelieved grief. To the daughter of Zion comes a word of hope even amid the ashes: the punishment of your iniquity is accomplished; he will keep you in exile no longer. The judgment, real and painful as it was, had a limit; it was not the end of the story, and God would not prolong the exile forever. Two things stand together here. The folly of trusting in help that cannot save, foreign powers, human alliances, the things we look to instead of God. And the mercy that sets a term to judgment; God disciplines his people, but he does not cast them off forever. Beyond the exile lay restoration.

Am I looking in vain to things that cannot save, as Jerusalem watched for a helpless ally, and do I trust the God who sets a limit to his discipline and does not cast off his people forever?

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