Lamentations 5
A. The situation in Jerusalem.
1. The severe suffering of Zion (1–8).
a. Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us: According to Jeremiah’s theology, God was aware of what had befallen Jerusalem. But he could understand why he thought God had forgotten about them. He prayed that God would see the contempt and hatred that was being shown toward them.
b. Our inheritance has been given to strangers: The land and houses that God gave as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel were now under the control of strangers.
c. The loss of our family, the economic collapse (we pay for the water we drink), and the labor with the nort have all left us orphans and waifs.
● Orphans and waifs: According to 2 Kings 24:14, 25:12, and Jeremiah 39:10, the majority of those who remained in Judah were the extremely poor, who were expected to maintain the fields and vineyards.
● We pay for the water we use: “I think the meaning of this is that everything was taxed by the Chaldeans and that they retained control of the management in their own hands, so that wood and water were both sold and the people were not allowed to help themselves. They were now so degraded by servitude that they had to pay a high price for items that were formerly free and commonplace.
d. We have given our hand to the Egyptians: The chiefs of Judah hoped that a coalition with Egypt or the Assyrians would save them. They didn’t offer any assistance.
● “The reference to Assyria in v. 6 is difficult because she had long since ceased to be an empire, although Egypt was a place to which refugees had gone (Jer. 43). Perhaps the verse is a condensed allusion to former alliances with Assyria and Egypt that the prophets had denounced (2 Kings 16.7-9; Isa.7.1-9; 30.1-7), i.e., once our fathers looked to them for grand military help.
e. Jeremiah cited a common adage and complaint from that era, “Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we suffer our iniquities” (found also in Ezekiel 18:2 and Jeremiah 31:29-30). This well-known saying promoted and articulated a well-liked idea. God was perceived as unfair for not punishing the forefathers as severely as they deserved and for punishing the current generation.
● This adage is persuasively refuted in Ezekiel 18. It corrects the grave fallacy of supposing communal or familial salvation or damnation to be true and teaches the profound reality of each person’s accountability to God.
● “National judgments are to be sought solely in this life because nations as a whole cannot be punished in the afterlife. Because they imitated and multiplied the misdeeds of their forefathers, and the cup of their iniquity was full, the Jewish nation finally received the retribution that they had been deserving for a number of years.
f. The fall of Jerusalem was a calamity that upended all of society’s order, and servants now rule over us. Now that lowly folks were in power, there was no one to save us.
2. (9–16) More suffering for Zion.
a. We risk our lives to get our bread since everything was rationed and regulated while Babylonia was in charge. Under the sword in the bush, getting enough nourishment was dangerous.
● They frequently faced danger since they were unable to walk into the woods to graze their livestock or obtain necessities without being harassed and looted by marauding bands. Deuteronomy 28:31 records Moses’ prophecy on this. b. Our skin is as hot as an oven; the victims of sunstroke were ill and in pain.
● The definition of “hot skin” is “actually burnt” or “blackened” skin, which indicates widespread malnutrition.
c. The women of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were brutally raped by the Babylonian warriors, who also tormented the women of Zion.
● “Moses and Jeremiah both foretold the disaster foreshadowed here in Deuteronomy 28:30 and 32, and in Jeremiah 6:12,”
d. Princes were hanged by their hands, and everyone was in pain. The women were raped, the princes were imprisoned, and the boys and young men were sold into slavery. The simple pleasures of life—elders congregating at the gate, young guys dancing to their music—had all been replaced by sadness.
● It is extremely likely that hanging princes by their hands was a form of punishment. They were held by the hands and hung from wall hooks until they passed away from anguish and exhaustion.
● “In happier days they would have become soldiers; now they had to perform women’s work,” said a young man grinding at a millstone.
3. The root of Zion’s destruction (16b–18).
a. Woe to us, because we have sinned, is the constant refrain. Jeremiah recognized that their sin was the cause of all the misfortune that befell them.
b. Our hearts are weak as a result of their sin, which brought judgment and trembling, dimming eyes, and Mount Zion’s devastation.
B. A restoration-focused prayer.
1. (19–20) Asking the everlasting God to keep His
a. You, O LORD, endure forever: Jeremiah emphasized God’s eternal character at the conclusion of the Book of Lamentations. His throne will stand from generation to generation and His reign will last forever.
● Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, according to Hebrews 13:8. ● You experience no change. O please allow your previous love for us be rekindled! ”
b. Why do You forget us forever? Although God is eternal, it seemed to Jeremiah and the Jerusalem survivors that He had forgotten them. They were not yet experiencing the theological truth of God’s eternal, unchanging essence.
2. (21-22) Offering prayers for recovery.
a. Turn us back to You, O LORD, despite the fact that Jeremiah believed God had abandoned the people. He realized that the only way for them to have any chance was to pray to God and ask for the gift of repentance. Jeremiah saw that they required Yahweh to turn them back to Himself since they lacked the ability to properly repent on their own. They would be restored if He would.
● We will never properly repent if God is not the author of it. The most effective form of prayer may not always be “I repent” (though that is a good prayer). Turn me back to You, O LORD, that I may receive the gift of sincere repentance; that is a better prayer.
● ii. “In his final, succinct but impactful statement, he pleaded for God to turn the people to Himself. This was introduced by him expressing his belief in Jehovah’s ongoing throne. It was a wail that acknowledged man’s final state of
helplessness—his incapacity even to confess his sins.
● “There is nothing greater than adopting the prophet’s cry and pleading with God to change the soul and refresh its holy and beautiful experiences. If He transforms us, there will be no question that we have been turned.
b. We can have faith in rebirth and a return to our better days as in the past as God draws us back to Himself. If we have regressed or fallen short, we might ask God to grant us repentance so that we can live out the days of our youth once more.
c. Even though the overall trend is positive towards the end, Lamentations does not appear to be able to end on a hopeful note for the future, unless You have completely rejected us and are furious with us. Jeremiah, however, closed with the worry that God might have
completely abandoned Israel and that His wrath would last forever. Scripture’s exact language and Israel’s subsequent history prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had not rejected His people completely at the time of this request and never did; neither did His wrath linger eternally. The history of Israel would not end with the days of mourning.
● “Several Old Testament predictions (cf. Ecclesiastes 12:14; Isaiah 66:24; Malachi 4:6), as well as Lamentations, end on a depressing or unfavorable note. As a result, it became traditional in synagogue readings to end such compositions with a repetition of the previous verse; in this case, verse 21 would be read again following verse 22.
● “The Weeping Prophet’s trademark unresolved grief is present at the book’s conclusion, as God intended. However, Lamentations was never meant to be the final word.