Scripture Daily

Context No. 697 of 4322 · Lamentations

Context · Reflection

Lamentations 1:1-16: in context

1How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave! 2She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. 3Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her in her distress. 4The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. 5Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary. 6All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture. They have gone without strength before the pursuer. 7Jerusalem remembers 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 no one helped her. The adversaries saw her. They mocked at her desolations. 8Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs and turns backward. 9Her filthiness was in her skirts. She didn’t remember her latter end. Therefore she has come down astoundingly. She has no comforter. “See, LORD, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.” 10The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly. 11All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, LORD, and see, for I have become despised.” 12“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. 13“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long. 14“The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are knit together. They have come up on my neck. He made my strength fail. The Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand. 15“The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men within me. He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a wine press. 16“For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

Lamentations is five poems written over the rubble of Jerusalem after Babylon burned it in 587 BC, and the first one opens with a word that sets the key: How. How lonely sits the city that once was full of people. The poet turns the fallen capital into a woman, a widow now who had been a princess, weeping through the night with her cheeks wet, and the line he keeps returning to is that she has no one to comfort her. Her friends betrayed her, her lovers are gone, and there is no comforter.

Two things hold this grief together. The poem does not excuse the city; it says plainly that the LORD afflicted her for the multitude of her sins, that she brought this down. And yet the confession does not shorten the mourning by a single line. Jerusalem is guilty and Jerusalem is heartbroken, both at full volume, and the book will not rush either one. Then the city herself speaks, and turns to the road: is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. The Church would later hear those words on Good Friday. Here they are simply the cry of one who is guilty, grieving, and desperate to be seen.

Lamentations confesses the guilt and still grieves at full volume, and begs the passerby to look. Do I let my own confessed failure become a reason to cut my grief short, or to hurry past someone else's?

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