The Book of Lamentations, Chapter by Chapter

We want to take you through the book of Lamentations chapter by chapter. In our Jeremiah study we watched Jerusalem fall. Now we sit in the ashes. Lamentations is only 5 chapters. But it is one of the most painful books in the Bible. We will tell you what each chapter is about and how it fits into the message of the book. And how it points us to the one God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

A lament is a funeral song. Lamentations is a funeral for a city. The temple was burned. The walls were broken down. The king was blind and in chains. The people were dead or gone. Mothers were eating their own children. And the writer does not hide any of it. He tells God exactly how it feels. But right in the middle of all that grief he says this. “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (3:22–23).

There are three things we want you to take away from this study. Lamentations is about the cost of sin. “The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment” (1:18). Lamentations is about the faithfulness of God. Even in judgment his mercies are new every morning. And Lamentations points to Jesus Christ. The man of sorrows who said from the cross what Jerusalem said in her pain. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow” (1:12). We will explain these points as we go through the book. But we want you to keep them in mind as we begin.

The Hebrew title of the book is Ekah. Which means How. It is the first word of chapters 1 and 2 and 4. “How doth the city sit solitary” (1:1). It is a cry. How could this happen. The English title comes from the Greek and Latin Bibles. Lamentations. Funeral songs.

The book does not name its writer. But the Jews and the early church both said it was Jeremiah.¹ The Greek Old Testament even starts the book by saying Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented over Jerusalem. We saw in our 2 Chronicles study that Jeremiah wrote laments for king Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:25). And the book sounds like someone who saw the city fall with his own eyes. Critics will say someone else wrote it. We will not go into that here. We believe it fits Jeremiah. And we will refer to the writer as Jeremiah in this study.

Lamentations is written with great care. Chapters 1 and 2 and 4 each have 22 verses. Each verse starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. A to Z. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. This is called an acrostic.² Chapter 3 has 66 verses. 3 verses for each letter. Chapter 5 has 22 verses too. But it does not follow the alphabet. Some believe the writer wanted to grieve completely. From A to Z. Nothing left out. But he also kept his grief in order. Pain is not allowed to run wild. It is brought to God in a form.

Notice also where the hope is. Chapter 3 is the longest and it is in the middle. And the middle of chapter 3 is “great is thy faithfulness” (3:23). The hope is at the center of the book. Surrounded on every side by grief.³ We will go through the book one chapter at a time. Then we will put together what Lamentations teaches about the one God. Just like in our other studies we will be using the KJV for our scripture quotations. And we will let you know where you can find the work of the scholars we reference.

The Jews still read Lamentations every year on the 9th of Av. That is the day they remember the burning of the temple.⁴ The first temple by Babylon. And the second temple by Rome in 70 AD.

Jerusalem is pictured as a woman. A widow. Once a princess. Now a slave. “She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her” (v.2). Her lovers were the nations she trusted instead of God. Egypt. Her allies. They all left her. “All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies” (v.2). We saw in our Jeremiah study that God called Israel his wife. She ran after other lovers. And now they were gone when she needed them.

Notice one thing that keeps coming back. No one to comfort her. It comes 5 times in this chapter (vv.2, 9, 16, 17, 21). “For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me” (v.16). There was no comforter. Now listen to what Jesus said. “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever … I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:16, 18). Jerusalem had no comforter. Jesus said I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. The Comforter is Jesus himself coming back in Spirit to live in his people.

The chapter does not pretend she was innocent. “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed” (v.8). “Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end” (v.9). She never thought about where her sin would take her. Then she speaks.

The people walked by and did not care. Christians have long heard Jesus in this verse.⁵ He hung on a cross outside Jerusalem by the road. “And they that passed by reviled him” (Matthew 27:39). Jerusalem suffered the fierce anger of the LORD for her own sins. Jesus suffered it for ours. Is it nothing to you. Then she says “The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment” (v.18). God was not unfair. She knew it.

“How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger” (v.1). Chapter 1 was about the pain. Chapter 2 is about who caused it. Over and over it says he. The Lord. “The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob” (v.2). “He hath bent his bow like an enemy” (v.4). “The Lord was as an enemy” (v.5). Babylon swung the sword. But Babylon was only the rod in God’s hand. We saw that in Isaiah 10.

“The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary” (v.7). He gave up his own house. The people thought the temple would save them. We saw that in Jeremiah 7. The temple of the LORD. The temple of the LORD. But God let it burn. “Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD” (v.9). No king. No law. No word from God. That is the worst thing that can happen to a people. Silence from heaven.

Then Jeremiah weeps. “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled … because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city” (v.11). Babies were dying in their mothers’ arms. And whose fault was it. Partly the preachers. “Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity” (v.14). They did not tell the people their sin. So the people never repented. A preacher who will not name sin is not a friend.

“All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?” (v.15). They mocked her. Just like they mocked Jesus. “They that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39). Then this. “The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old” (v.17). This was not an accident. God warned them in the law. He kept his word. Moses said in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 that this would happen if they turned from God. It did. The God who keeps his word to curse is the God who keeps his word to bless.

Then a call to prayer. “Arise, cry out in the night … pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children” (v.19). When you do not understand what God is doing pour out your heart to him anyway. The chapter ends with the worst of it. Women ate their own children (v.20). Moses warned that this would happen in a siege (Deuteronomy 28:53).

I Am the Man That Hath Seen Affliction

Now the voice changes. It is not the city talking. It is one man. “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath” (v.1). Jeremiah speaks for the whole nation. “He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light” (v.2). “He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out” (v.7). “Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer” (v.8). “I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day” (v.14). “He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood” (v.15). “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall” (v.19).

Notice how much of this sounds like Jesus.⁶ He cried out and the heavens were silent. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He was mocked by his own people. They gave him vinegar mingled with gall to drink (Matthew 27:34). Later in the chapter it says “He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach” (v.30). We saw in Isaiah 50:6 that the servant gave his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. Jeremiah suffered for the sins of his people. Jesus suffered for the sins of the world.

This I Recall to My Mind

Then everything turns on one verse. “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope” (v.21). Nothing outside had changed. The city was still in ruins. But he remembered something about God. And that changed everything.

We are still here. That is mercy. If God gave us what we deserved we would be consumed. His compassions fail not. They never run out. They are new every morning. The word for mercies is chesed.⁷ It means his covenant love. His loyal love. The love that keeps the promise even when we break it. Great is thy faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion” (v.24). The land was gone. The temple was gone. Everything was gone. But the LORD was still his portion. We saw in our Numbers study that the priests had no land because the LORD was their inheritance. Jeremiah was a priest. He lost everything a priest had. Except the one thing that mattered. “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD” (v.26). Wait quietly. Not with complaining. With hope.

He Doth Not Afflict Willingly

God does not enjoy our pain. He does not afflict willingly. Literally from his heart.⁸ It is not what he wants. He allows grief so that he can bring us back. And after the grief comes compassion. “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?” (v.38). God is over all of it. There is no second power. “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?” (v.39). We are alive. That is already more than we deserve.

So what do we do. “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens” (vv.40–41). Look at your life. Turn back. Lift up your heart and your hands. That is repentance.

Thou Drewest Near

The end of the chapter sounds like Jeremiah in the pit from Jeremiah 38. “They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me. Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off” (vv.53–54). Some have seen in this a picture of Jesus cut off and laid in a tomb with a stone rolled over it. Then this.

He called on the name of the LORD. And God came near. He said fear not. He pleaded his case like a lawyer. And he redeemed his life. Notice the name. “I called upon thy name, O LORD.” Paul says “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). And Peter says “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). That name is Jesus. The LORD who drew near to Jeremiah in the dungeon drew near to all of us in Jesus Christ. He did not just say fear not from heaven. He came down. And he pleads our cause. “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

“How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street” (v.1). The temple was covered in gold. Now it was dull and thrown in the street. “The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers” (v.2). People who were worth gold became like cheap clay pots.

This chapter is a picture of the siege. Even the sea monsters nurse their young. But the mothers of Jerusalem became cruel like ostriches in the wilderness (v.3). The ostrich was known for leaving her eggs. “The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them” (v.4). The rich who ate the best food now lay on garbage piles (v.5). “For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment” (v.6). Sodom died fast. Jerusalem died slow. “They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger” (v.9). “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children” (v.10).

And why. “For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her” (v.13). The religious leaders. The ones who should have warned them. The ones who tried to kill Jeremiah. Jesus said the same thing about the leaders of his day. That upon them would come all the righteous blood shed on the earth (Matthew 23:35). And in 70 AD Jerusalem fell again.

Then this. “The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen” (v.20). The anointed of the LORD was king Zedekiah. The word anointed is mashiach. Messiah. They trusted in the king to keep them alive. And he was caught running away at night. Every king of David’s line failed. They needed a better Messiah. One who would not run. One who would lay down his life for the people instead of saving himself.

The chapter ends with hope for Zion and judgment for Edom. Edom cheered when Jerusalem fell (Psalm 137:7). We saw that in our Psalms study. “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity” (v.22). The punishment had an end. It was accomplished.

The last chapter is a prayer. “Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach” (v.1). The land went to strangers (v.2). They became orphans and widows (v.3). They paid for their own water and their own wood (v.4). Servants ruled over them (v.8). The women were abused (v.11). Princes were hanged (v.12). The young men ground at the mill. The children fell under the wood (v.13). “The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning” (v.15).

Notice two verses. “Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities” (v.7). That sounds like blaming their fathers. But then “The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!” (v.16). They stopped blaming their fathers. They owned it. We sinned. That is where healing starts. Then the prayer turns to God.

The throne in Jerusalem was gone. But the LORD’s throne was still there. It remains forever. Hebrews says of Jesus “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Hebrews 1:8). The throne that remains for every generation is the throne of Jesus Christ. Trinitarians will say Hebrews 1:8 shows the Father speaking to a second divine person. But notice. Hebrews calls the Son O God. And the Old Testament knows only one God whose throne remains forever. The Son is not a second God on a second throne. He is the one God manifest in the flesh.

“Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned” (v.21). They could not turn themselves. God had to turn them. That is grace. Repentance itself is a gift from God. Then the book ends with a hard line. “But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us” (v.22). Some translate it as a question. Unless thou hast utterly rejected us.⁹ When the Jews read Lamentations in the synagogue they read verse 21 again after verse 22 so they do not end on the sad line. The book ends with a question that only God could answer. And God answered it in Jesus Christ.

Lamentations is short. But it says a lot about God. Before we finish we want to put it all together. There are three things we want to point out.

First there is one God who is over everything. Babylon did not do this on its own. “The Lord was as an enemy” (2:5). “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?” (3:38). There is no second power fighting God. No other god who won. The same LORD who judged them is the LORD who would restore them. One God. Over judgment and over mercy.

Second this one God is faithful. He kept his word to curse when they broke the covenant (2:17). And he keeps his word to show mercy. His compassions fail not. They are new every morning (3:22–23). He does not afflict willingly (3:33). He drew near when Jeremiah called upon his name (3:57). And his throne remains forever (5:19).

Third Lamentations points to Jesus Christ. Jerusalem cried “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” (1:12). And Jesus hung by the road while they that passed by wagged their heads. Jerusalem had no comforter (1:16). And Jesus said I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you (John 14:18). The anointed of the LORD failed his people (4:20). And Jesus the true anointed one laid down his life for them. The writer called on the name of the LORD and was redeemed (3:55–58). And the name we call on is Jesus. God did not watch our sorrow from far away. He came down and carried it himself. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). One God. In the flesh. Jesus Christ. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

We have gone through Lamentations chapter by chapter. Here is what we can conclude. First Lamentations is about the cost of sin. The city that was full of people sat alone. The gold became dim. The children starved. The king was caught. The prophets had no vision. And it all happened just like God said it would. Sin is never worth it. It always costs more than it promised.

Second Lamentations is about the faithfulness of God. In the middle of the ruins Jeremiah remembered that the LORD’s mercies are new every morning. The LORD was still his portion. God does not afflict willingly. He will not cast off forever. If you are in a hard place today you can say what Jeremiah said. This I recall to my mind. Therefore have I hope.

Third Lamentations points to Jesus Christ. The man who saw affliction. Who gave his cheek to the smiter. Who was given gall to drink. Who was mocked by those that passed by. Who was cut off and had a stone laid on him. And who was not left in the pit. In him God turned us back to himself. And renewed our days.

Lamentations ends with Jerusalem in ruins and the people in Babylon. But God was not finished. Before the city fell he had already sent a priest to the captives by the river Chebar. And there the heavens opened and he saw the glory of God. That is where Ezekiel begins.