Lawrence Boadt provides this
introduction to Lamentations in his book, Reading
the Old Testament….
One of our most important sources of
information about the terrible conditions in Jerusalem and Judah after the
Babylonian attack comes from the Book of Lamentations. It is a short book of
five chapters, each of which is a poem built upon the letters of the alphabet,
and which expresses the deep pain and grief of those who survived in the land.
The alphabet form, called “acrostic” in books of Hebrew poetry, starts each
line or stanza with the next letter in order. This gives a very strong sense of
controlled emotion in which anger, anguish and agony all struggle to burst out
but cannot find a way. To intensify the grief the author or authors of these
poems have chosen the forms of funeral laments as well. This adds to the power
they have on the reader. It is truly grief for what is dead—Jerusalem, the
temple, the king, the way of life.
But instead of picturing the city of
Jerusalem as the dead body, Lamentations describes it as the widow. Personified
as “daughter Zion,” she weeps bitterly. Alone and afflicted by her total loss
of everything and everybody, she finds no one who can comfort her….
The poets give us a stark and
terrifying picture of the conditions in the land after Jerusalem has fallen….
But even in the midst of disaster,
Lamentations holds out hope that God will turn from his anger and wrath and
restore his people. There is no hiding from the truth that God punished them
justly…. Nor do they try to deny that God can be very hard…. And yet in the
same breath they can express their trust that God will not leave them forever….
Because such expressions are so vivid
and real, no one has ever doubted seriously that the authors were eyewitnesses
of the fall of Jerusalem. The pems date from a time shortly after 586 and were
written down in Judah itself, but we cannot be sure who exactly was the author.
A very ancient tradition associates the book with Jeremiah, and so our modern
Bibles, following the Greek Septuagint and other ancient authorities, usually
place Lamentations right next to the Book of Jeremiah. One biblical passage
actually remarks that Jeremiah had written several laments (2 Chr 35:25)—but
these were over Josiah and not over Jerusalem. Still many of the phrases in
Lamentations do resemble the style of Jeremiah….
However, it is diddicult to believe
that Jeremiah would have trusted in Egypt or Babylon as a hope (Lam 4:17) or
had much sympathy with the fate of the king (Lam 4:20) or mourned greatly over
the fates of the prophets and priests who had led the people astray (Lam 2:20).
But whether Jeremiah actually had any role in writing Lamentations or not, the
language and thought of both books are close together and reveal much the same
picture. To understand what Jeremiah was seeing in his visions of God’s
judgments, one needs to read Lamentations.
In the midst of despair, Lamentations
3:21-26 stands out all the more strikingly as one of the most encouraging
passages in Scripture. Many years ago, friends of mine lost
their seventeen-year-old son in an automobile accident. At the memorial
service, after the casket was closed, the congregation was led in singing these
words from Lamentations 3. It was one of the most moving experiences I have
ever had in attending a funeral, and certainly one of the greatest testimonies of
faith in the midst of darkness, issued from the heart of a grieving parent.
It is easy to sing about God’s
faithfulness when all is well. The real test is whether we still can sing this
song from Lamentations 3 in the midst of great trial and difficulty. Only the
Lord himself can help us to do it.
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