Lamentations

Passage: Lamentations 1

The Book of Lamentations has historically been attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. Whereas the most recent scholarly consensus is that the book was composed by a group of authors, the assumption is that it was written at a time concurrent with Jeremiah’s ministry. That is, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem and the exile.

Whether these are Jeremiah’s words or those of a group of his contemporaries, the book itself communicates devastating sentiments that are the only fitting response to devastating circumstances. These are the words of the witnesses – the survivors. These are the words of those who escaped only after having taken in the sights and sounds of foreign invaders ruthlessly slaughtering their neighbors and friends. Who escaped only to witness from a distance the flames rising from their homes. Who stood back and saw the Temple – the last symbol of God’s presence with his people – pulled down stone by stone. We cannot begin to imagine the trauma of the survivors. What we’ve been given are these echoes of their cries of agony and despair. This chorus of the horror, the pain and regret of a people whose God has left them to fend for themselves.

Lamentations consists of five sections. Each is itself a work of art: the first four sections are acrostic poems, their successive verses beginning with one of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The third, or center, section, consists of sixty-six verses, with three verses devoted to each of the twenty-two letters. The fifth section mirrors the structure of the other four, consisting of twenty-two verses, but lacking the acrostic format. The themes of the five sections are, in order: the misery of the forsaken city; the sin that brought judgment to God’s people; hope for the people of God; the connection between sin and the destruction of the city; a prayer that God will respond to the people’s repentance with mercy. A distinctive of Hebrew poetry, exemplified by Lamentations, is that the structure of a poem serves to amplify its theme or message.

At the apex of the book – its center section – is hope. God’s people have seen first hand that God is true to his word. He has always promised that if they abandoned him, they would experience life without him. However, God has also promised, again and again, that if his people change their ways, he’ll take them back every time. So, in the aftermath of their destruction they confess their sins, and throw a desperate prayer into the heavens. They hope against hope that God will hear their prayers, and redeem them like he promised.