#33 Lament 3: Wrestling for Hope

The Lamentations (of Jeremiah?)

  • Traditionally ascribed to Jeremiah: hence their location in biblical literature immediately following Jeremiah
  • Four acrostic laments (1-4) plus another lament (5)
    -  1 (22 X 3 couplets, only the first of which begins with the successive letter): Jerusalem is like a lonely widow suffering from many oppressions
    - 2 (22 X 3 couplets, only the first of which begins with the successive letter): Yahweh’s covenant anger and the resulting judgment
    - 3 (22 X 3 lines, each of which begins with the successive letter): Personalized pain because of Yahweh’s judgment, coupled with an expectation of restoration
    - 4 (22 X 2 couplets, only the first of which begins with the successive letter): the pain of Jerusalem’s ruin personalized
    - 5 (22 couplets, not acrostic): a prayer of repentance, seeking Yahweh’s deliverance

Lamentations 3

1 I am the man who has seen affliction
    by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk
    in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me
    again and again, all day long.

4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
    and has broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
    with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness
    like those long dead.

7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
    he has weighed me down with chains.
8 Even when I call out or cry for help,
    he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
    he has made my paths crooked.

10 Like a bear lying in wait,
    like a lion in hiding,
11 he dragged me from the path and mangled me
    and left me without help.
12 He drew his bow
    and made me the target for his arrows.

13 He pierced my heart
    with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughingstock of all my people;
    they mock me in song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitter herbs
    and given me gall to drink.

16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
    he has trampled me in the dust.
17 I have been deprived of peace;
    I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 So I say, “My splendor is gone
    and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
    while he is young.

28 Let him sit alone in silence,
    for the Lord has laid it on him.
29 Let him bury his face in the dust—
    there may yet be hope.
30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
    and let him be filled with disgrace.

31 For no one is cast off
    by the Lord forever.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
    so great is his unfailing love.
33 For he does not willingly bring affliction
    or grief to anyone.

34 To crush underfoot
    all prisoners in the land,
35 to deny people their rights
    before the Most High,
36 to deprive them of justice—
    would not the Lord see such things?

37 Who can speak and have it happen
    if the Lord has not decreed it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
    that both calamities and good things come?
39 Why should the living complain
    when punished for their sins?

40 Let us examine our ways and test them,
    and let us return to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our hearts and our hands
    to God in heaven, and say:
42 “We have sinned and rebelled
    and you have not forgiven.

43 “You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us;
    you have slain without pity.
44 You have covered yourself with a cloud
    so that no prayer can get through.
45 You have made us scum and refuse
    among the nations.

46 “All our enemies have opened their mouths
    wide against us.
47 We have suffered terror and pitfalls,
    ruin and destruction.”
48 Streams of tears flow from my eyes
    because my people are destroyed.

49 My eyes will flow unceasingly,
    without relief,
50 until the Lord looks down
    from heaven and sees.
51 What I see brings grief to my soul
    because of all the women of my city.

52 Those who were my enemies without cause
    hunted me like a bird.
53 They tried to end my life in a pit
    and threw stones at me;
54 the waters closed over my head,
    and I thought I was about to perish.

55 I called on your name, Lord,
    from the depths of the pit.
56 You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears
    to my cry for relief.”
57 You came near when I called you,
    and you said, “Do not fear.”

58 You, Lord, took up my case;
    you redeemed my life.
59 Lord, you have seen the wrong done to me.
    Uphold my cause!
60 You have seen the depth of their vengeance,
    all their plots against me.

61 Lord, you have heard their insults,
    all their plots against me—
62 what my enemies whisper and mutter
    against me all day long.
63 Look at them! Sitting or standing,
    they mock me in their songs.

64 Pay them back what they deserve, Lord,
    for what their hands have done.
65 Put a veil over their hearts,
    and may your curse be on them!
66 Pursue them in anger and destroy them
    from under the heavens of the Lord.

 

Reflections on Lament 3

  • This is the high point of the Laments. It is the most intricately developed of all the Laments. It also is more comprehensive than any of the others, almost as if all of the themes probed in the other Laments are taken up and incorporated here.
  • Now the voice and perspective is that of a human man who functions in much the same role as that of the widow in Lament 1. The difference here is that the man is more aware of the struggles that are part of this tragic event, both in his own life and that of Yahweh. God, too, is wrestling with what to do, and how to make this terrible judgment come out in renewal and blessing.
  • There is much more anticipation of God’s grace, and the hope that it will be the final word spoken in this horrible turn of the relationship between God and God’s people.
  • The key theme is once again that Yahweh has actively accosted Jerusalem to tear it down (through the actions of the Babylonian armies), but this has happened because God’s people have forgotten who they are and Whose they are.
  • These things are all a result of the curses of the Sinai Covenant coming to pass.
Modifié le: jeudi 9 août 2018, 09:34