Key Verse:
Lamentations 5:21 NASB
21 Restore us to You, Lord, so that we may be restored;
Renew our days as of old,
We continue this week with the fourth lesson of Unit 2: Prophets of Restoration. The lesson covers the Lamentation of the Prophet, Jeremiah. Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet”. He was so-called because he was an eyewitness to the fall and ruin of Jerusalem.
Prelude
Lamentations 3:48-49 NASB
48 My eyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes flow unceasingly,
Without stopping,
Jeremiah was severely persecuted as a citizen of Judah and as a member of the Royal Order of Levites who served in the Temple of God. His father had been the High Priest. To add insult to injury, he was forced, against his will, to exile to Egypt, with the faithless leadership of Judah after the second siege and ransacking of Jerusalem in 586 BC. God, through Jeremiah, warned the leaders of Jerusalem not to leave Jerusalem, with the promise that He would restore them. But they rejected God’s warning and fled to Egypt in 583 BC, abandoning Jerusalem and essentially kidnapping Jeremiah in the process.
Jeremiah’s lament records the fall of Jerusalem from a personal point of view. His experience is one of a refugee, an outcast. Someone who bemoans the destruction of his beautiful land and its culture, but is powerless to stop its demise. Additionally, consider that Jeremiah had spent forty years in ministry trying to help prevent this very eventuality. That added to the cumulative effect of hopelessness and despair that Jerimiah experience.
There are a few things to know about the Book of Lamentations. All five books are written in the Hebraic-Poetic style. In that style rhyme is not the focus, but rather, content. The Hebraic-Poetic style is notable because of its repetitive style. Within any two-line stanza, the point of the stanza is repeated. In essence, the first line makes a point, the second line repeats it for emphasis. Additionally, the first four books of Lamentations are written in acrostic style. The Hebrew alphabet contains twenty-two letters. Each book contains twenty-two verses with each stanza beginning with the corresponding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter three is written in the same acrostic style but contains sixty-six verses.
Our lesson is from chapter five. Chapter five contains twenty-two verses in the Hebraic-Poetic style, as previously discussed, but it is not in the acrostic style. In addition, chapter five begins with Jeremiah crying out to God. Thus, Lamentations can be regarded as a prayer. A cry to God for relief from a desperate situation. In that, it is not an acrostic, speaks to the necessity of the author to throw out formality for the sake of sincerity before God. The fact that there are twenty-two stanzas is representative of the pouring out of the entirety of Jeremiah’s heart and soul to God. A wringing out from A to Z of every ounce of emotion from Jeremiah before God.
Finally, from a tonal standpoint, might I recommend that you read Lamentations
In the appropriate setting. For me, a couple of different songs come to mind. The first is “Hurt”, by Johnny Cash, recorded in 2003. The second is “Ohio-Machine Gun”, performed by the Isley Brothers, recorded in 1971. Both are anthems that portray a personal sense of despair and hopelessness based on the songwriter’s inability to control the external circumstances that are overwhelming them.
The Lesson:
Lamentation 5:1 NASB
1
Remember, Lord, what has come upon us;
Look, and see our disgrace!
As stated before, In the previous four books of Lamentations, Jeremiah has laid out an extensive, exhaustive list of the woes that have befallen Israel. In this closing chapter, he continues the list but turns his heart and attention to God in confession. He realizes that only God can fix what’s broken. Only God can heal so deep a hurt. Jeremiah cries out, “Remember, Lord,..!” Remember us! What follows is Jeremiah’s continued confession to God of the shame that has befallen Israel.
Lamentations 5:2-3 NASB
2
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
Our houses to foreigners.
3
We have become orphans, without a father;
Our mothers are like widows.
Israel has been overtaken, first by Assyria, finally by Babylon. Jeremiah is writing from Egypt, where he is subject to the Pharoah, Neco. Meanwhile, Israel is no more and Judah is being run by Babylonian overseers. The lines of royal succession have been disrupted. Tribes and families are at risk of losing their distinctive lineage as well.
As a black man in America, I can relate. My ancestors were captured and sold into slavery half a world away from our home: Africa. Now four hundred years removed from that series of events, it would take significant time and resources to re-establish those relationships, to discover my familial roots. We were kings in our homeland. I am not the son of slaves, but of kings. Judah faced this very dilemma.
Lamentations 5:4 NASB
4
We have to pay for our drinking water,
Our wood comes to us at a price.
The people find that they own nothing, save the clothes on their backs. God’s promise to every Israelite was provision in abundance in this ‘Promised Land’. Now, they find themselves in a situation where everything costs, but they don’t have the monetary resources to buy what they need to survive. Again, there are modern-day parallels. In my lifetime I have witnessed worldwide economic recession. Everybody is affected at some level. The very poor are closest to unrecoverable disaster. Additionally, the capitalistic system of economics practiced in American ensures that the wealthy are disproportionately benefitted in times of economic distress while the suffering of the poor increases exponentially. Not much different than what occurred in ancient Israel in the time prior to and during Jeremiah’s ministry.
Lamentations 5:5-6 NASB
5
Our pursuers are at our necks;
We are worn out, we are given no rest.
6
We have [c]submitted to Egypt and Assyria [d]to get enough bread.
Over time, both Israel and Judah have sought political alliances to protect their interest, rather than trusting God as their Chief Provider and Protector as befitting the covenant promises by which they were partnered with Him. Over time, those political alliances soured and the tables turned on Israel to their shame.
Lamentations 5:7 NASB
7
Our fathers sinned, and are gone;
It is we who have been burdened with the punishment for their wrongdoings.
At this point, Israel and Judah’s sin spans generations. Since the time of Solomon, there has been a continual downward spiral of Israel, and then Judah into sin. While the worst of the corruption lies in Israel’s leadership, the ‘leaven’ of sin has leavened the entire fabric of the nation. All of the people, great and small are impacted by the sin of prior generations. Again, there are distinct parallels between the society of ancient Israel and our modern-day circumstances.
Lamentations 5:8-10 NASB
8
Slaves rule over us;
There is no one to rescue us from their hand.
9
We get our bread [e]at the risk of our lives
Because of the sword in the wilderness.
10
Our skin has become as hot as an oven,
Because of the ravages of hunger.
To lament is to passionately grieve or mourn over a particular circumstance or set of circumstances. At no point does Jeremiah raise a complaint against God. Rather, he laments the place that Israel finds herself in. Lamentation is a process of pouring one’s self out before God, entreating Him for divine intervention, for mercy. The situation is dire for Israel. Their leaders have been carried away in exile and only the poor remain to try and eke out a living in this land that seems to be rejecting them.
Lamentations 11-14 NASB
11
They violated the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
12
Leaders were hung by their hands;
[f]Elders were not respected.
13
Young men [g]worked at the grinding mill,
And youths staggered under loads of wood.
14
Elders are absent from the gate,
Young men from their music.
It was to their great shame that the women of Israel were being sexually violated by their captors. In generations past, Israel had fallen into the kind of idolatry that objectified women in the worst way, such that it included, in many cases, temple prostitution. Eventually, they found themselves in a place where their women were being victimized and they were powerless to stop it. How similarly today are women objectified in our society today? And how many are victimized as a result?
In addition, Judah’s leaders were humiliated and subjugated in exile. And their elderly were neglected. The men, both young and old were conscripted, forced into hard labor. Again, is that so different from today? By the time Jeremiah began ministry forty years earlier, many of the conditions he described were commonplace. God called him into ministry to call Judah to repentance. Repentance from what? Repentance from much of what we have seen described above, minus the foreign interlopers, many of the conditions, much of the despair had befallen Israel decades earlier, especially among the poorest of the inhabitants of the land. Beloved, economic inequity, as a governing ethic, is a sin.
Lamentations 5:15-18 NASB
15
The joy of our hearts has ended;
Our dancing has been turned into mourning.
16
The crown has fallen from our head;
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17
Because of this, our heart is faint,
Because of these things, our eyes are dim;
18
Because of Mount Zion which lies desolate,
Jackals prowl in it.
In the year 2020, the entire world was affected by a pandemic that eventually killed millions of people. At the onset, the casualties ballooned at such an alarming rate that countries worldwide were forced to take drastic measures. Those measures resulted in businesses and schools being closed everywhere. Churches were forced to discontinue worship services. Entire populaces were forced into isolation. Many urban centers became urbane deserts. In some places, wildlife roamed once busy streets unhindered.
In many cases, mass hysteria has ensued. The misery and suffering have taken a grave toll on so many. In 2021, though vaccines have been are starting to be distributed en masse, emotional, psychic healing has been slow in coming. Despair, loneliness, and hopelessness are widespread.
Lamentations 5:19 NASB
19
You, Lord, [h]rule forever;
Your throne is from generation to generation.
In spite of how far Israel has fallen since the days of King David, Jeremiah recognizes that God is faithful. That He is constant. That He does not change...ever. Jeremiah can assume a posture of worship before God, Almighty, knowing that if there is any hope for Israel, that hope lies in the will and the way of the Lord, the God of Israel.
Lamentations 5:20-21 NASB
20
Why will You forget us forever?
Why do You abandon us for so long?
21
Restore us to You, Lord, so that we may be restored;
Renew our days as of old,
After a long list of ‘laments,’ Jeremiah makes a request of God. “Lord, bring us home”, “Restore us back to you, Lord”. At the end of the day, it’s not the money or material possessions that we lose. It’s the fellowship. Fellowship with a loving God returns us to a place of intimacy. As Christians, God promises that He will never leave or forsake us. However, we can fall out of fellowship and into a place of hopelessness if we are not careful to stay in fellowship with God.
Jeremiah 5:22 NASB
22
Unless You have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly angry with us.
In the end, Jeremiah recognizes that ultimately, God is Sovereign and will do what is according to His sovereign will. Jeremiah understands that, so great is Israel’s sin, that God has allowed Israel to fall into the hands of their enemies as a result. Jeremiah never returned to Israel, but he remained in Egypt until the end of his life. Most certainly, his lamentation reflected the lost hope he struggled with, as his great desire was to return to the land of his youth. This Book of Lamentations should cause us to reflect inwardly on how we practice what we believe as Christians. It should also cause us to become more aware of our socio-economic environment. Is it fair? Is it just? Are the widow and the orphan provided for in the system we inhabit? I’m not speaking to what we should be doing with the resources of the church within the community, but rather what we, the Church should be doing to affect the socio-economic policies that impact the nation, the world. A Church that is not engaged in bettering the well-being of the national community is a Church that has lost the full meaning of the great commission. Roll up your sleeves Beloved. There’s work to do. We can make a difference.
Amos 5:21-24 NASB
21
“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I [p]delight in your festive assemblies.
22
Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fattened oxen.
23
Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
24
But let justice roll out like waters,
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Selah
wb
Lamentations 3:22-24 NASB
22
[k]The Lord’s acts of mercy indeed do not end,
For His compassions do not fail.
23
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I [l]wait for Him.”
